Very different from the original with much more action and a try at a story.

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2015)

This is a classic example of how sequels are often very disappointing compared to the original. That's not to say that everyone will see this as a let down after MI1, but there is an incredibly different feel from the '96 installment to the '00 one. The first movie had some action, but was primarily concerned with its plot. Granted, that plot was fairly action driven, but not so much as in MI2. The first movie had an aesthetic similar to The Hunt for Red October, while here we had more of a James Bond aesthetic.
The primary reason for this is the change in our protagonist, Ethan Hunt. Whereas the first film set him up as more of a Spielberg kind of hero where the situation has more control over him than he does over it, here Ethan makes active decisions and is treated more as a character. Now, on the surface that sounds like a good thing, but it entails him becoming a action hero that acts as a one man show. He has an internal conflict in his relationship with Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), which could easily come off as underdeveloped and overblown. Nyah, a former thief, is brought in to help the IMF stop Sean Ambrose. She has some personality but if far from award-winning on the whole. Sean Ambrose is a slightly clichéd villain, and is similar to Sean Bean's role as 006 in Golden Eye since Ambrose is a former IMF agent that often used Hunt as an alter-ego. This helps make some sense of the whole mask aspect of the MI films since some people's faces are incompatible. Luther is back, but something went wrong with his character this time around. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was something about how he was played or scripted or something that was inconsistent with the Luther from the other installments. There are a couple of other minor characters like the biocyte big wig, Dr. Nekhorvich (who is also an antagonist of sorts), Ambrose's head crony, and the IMF superior. You can tell the filmmakers tried to make the characters prominent and somewhat deep, but it didn't come out all that well.
The plot revolves around a synthetic virus called Chimera (the villain) and the antidote Bellerophon (the hero). Ambrose and Ethan's IMF team race to gain control of the deadly virus, and eventually Nyah injects herself with it so that Ambrose can't acquire it. Ambrose wants to spread the virus to a bunch of people so that he or whoever he's working for can sell the antidote, thus creating a hero through the creation of a villain. Like the characters, the plot attempted at depth, maybe trying to say that pharmaceutical companies are trying to play us, but ended up being action driven.
John Woo made this a very visually vibrant film with a lot of slow motion, often in unnecessary settings, and exotic settings like the Outback and the Spanish festival, plus that inexplicable dove that makes the beginning of the climatic scene feel like it came out of a Lego video game. Hans Zimmer's score was also exotic, and it sounded pretty good with the opera, but it's not one of his best works. The action is shot to look cool and it does, but at a cost: Ethan Hunt's invincibility mode is turned up to overdrive. The invincibility of it is not overblown like 2012 or Die Hard, but Ethan survives every battle where the odds are against him and has superior skills that we haven't seen before. The climax involves a sunglass-donning Hunt making a grand escape on a motorcycle and having a bunch of people not hit him with machine guns until he shoots them in one go with a handgun. This goes back to the new Ethan Hunt we see in this second installment, though he basically duplicates his air vent drop from the first movie. After that he proceeds to execute a bunch of motorcycle stunts. The closing fight with Ambrose was done pretty well and the slow-mo there felt called for.
If I haven't already stressed this enough, you will be surprised if you expect this to be similar to MI1. It's good to watch if your just looking for action. You have to pay some attention to follow the plot, but it's pretty easy to grasp overall. It may very well come off as a Bond rip-off, but 3 and 4 aren't like that in case you were wondering (rogue nation seems to follow suit in this matter, but I haven't seen it yet). I guess it's a good pick for Tom Cruise fans, but take that lightly please. So watch it for fun and with relatively low expectations to start. Overall Rating: 7.2/10.