Boring, long remake of the 1996 blockbuster

Rating: 5/10 (5 January 2002)

Many Hollywood "sequels" are merely inferior remakes, this being no exception, as our hero Cruise is introduced to many dangerous and death-defying situations, all of which he of course escapes unscathed. The first film was good (at best!), the most distracting part being the frequent "I'm not who you think I am because I'm wearing a mask so that I look like someone else" trick, which unfortunately resurfaced in M:I-2. This time we're ready for it, and it becomes less of a "aha, they got me there" trick, and more of a "christ, will they give it a rest already?" annoyance. Honestly, it's a copout gimmick that should have died with the original series. M:I-2 is simply another 007 film under an assumed name, with a few minor differences: "Bond" (aka Cruise) actually falls in "love" with the female lead, and of course that whole pull-the-face-off thing. Interestingly it was voted a major bomb by audiences (who of course went to see it anyway because of its hype and because of the Cruise-Kidman connection) in Australia - the same audiences which love the Bond films!! "Bond by any other name is not as sweet?" I was surprised at the average user rating of M:I-2... 6.0/10 is far higher than it deserves, and I'm interested to find out why so many people seemed to like it so much. We've seen it all before, "it" being a cross between MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (1996), any recent 007 film (say, TOMORROW NEVER DIES) and those dodgy martial arts films which try to back spectacular, anti-realistic fight sequences with intelligible plot. And it goes on and on and ON and ON!!! How long can a dumb action "thriller" get? I suppose they did pad it with frequent, unnecessary slow-motion replays and a ridiculous, operatic score...there's no doubt in my mind that this is one of those films which benefits from IMDb's system of audience ratings, in that people get home from seeing a wham-bam effects-driven film on the big screen with their friends, immediately think "gee that wasn't actually too bad" and log in a vote of 7. In another five years this film will hardly be remembered: "Didn't they make a movie version of the old MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series?" "Yeah, it was pretty dodgy. Didn't it star Tom Cruise or someone?" "I think so. Actually wasn't there a sequel?" "LOL. There must have been. It is Hollywood after all..." Rating: 5/10.