Oh Mr Woo, what went wrong?

Rating: 4/10 (22 April 2002)

I love John Woo's films, he is the greatest action movie director of all time. Even in his worst moments (like Broken Arrow, Hard Target and all those TV Movies), his talent still shines through and renders whatever he does watchable.
But not in this case.
I saw MI2 in the cinema and thought it was terrible. It has many flaws and my disapointment was not because I was comparing it to Woo's past glories, i find i can enjoy even the most mediocre Hollywood thriller as long as it has some pointless violence in it. But MI2 made some unforgivable mistakes:
(1) You have to wait AGES for any action, the first real gun scene is in that vault place, and that isn't even that great. The mountain bit and the car bit don't count as they are a)boring and b)don't feature any guns. (2) It was Tom Cruise's show, nothing else (plot, the bad guy, suspense) seemed to matter (3) It was not cool. There was no style (4) There was nothing original in it, and the plot devise of wearing the masks is overused and trite. (5) There were about 4 deaths. I mean, come on this is John Woo!
I cannot understand why anyone would like this film, I hate it. Windtalkers best be good.
2 out of 10