Mission Implausible: the new Bond franchise?

Rating: 4/10 (4 August 2000)

A handsome secret agent, beautiful women, fast cars and fight sequences, plus a megalomaniac with a fiendish plot to hold the world to ransom: sound familiar? Yes, MI:2 is squarely in James Bond territory. In fact, I couldn't help wondering if MI:2 doesn't amount to a conscious attempt to take over the Bond market niche now that the Bond theme - despite the reinjection of Pierce Brosnan to try to kick some life into the series - is so clearly played-out.
In fairness, this is a shrewder idea than having MI:2 follow in the steps of the first "Mission Impossible", a movie that tried to be dark and brooding and merely ended up tedious and occasionally baffling. MI:2 is popcorn, but at least it seems to want to be enjoyable popcorn. Unfortunately, the director doesn't appear to have any idea of how to achieve this: as a result, the film simply goes through the motions for a couple of hours, and then gives up.
Centre-stage, as ever, is Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Or is that Ethan Hunt as Tom Cruise? The distinction between star and character can seldom have been more blurred, especially since Hunt doesn't appear to have any kind of personality to call his own. When Tom Cruise performs the free-climbing sequences - Hunt's idea of a holiday - are we watching Ethan Hunt's idea of a holiday, or Tom Cruise's? Of course Tom Cruise is an actor, not a secret agent. But Hunt seems to have so little character, and so few defining characteristics beyond Cruise's boyish good looks, that to all intents and purposes they might as well be one and the same.
Cruise, to give him credit, does his best. He smiles and leaps and kicks people and runs and looks nice. Alas, the same cannot be said of Anthony Hopkins, who appears to be acting in his sleep. (He was very nearly acting in my sleep too, but I kept my eyes open somehow). The spectacularly bad lipsync that plagued much of the movie is also at its worst in Hopkins' scenes: I felt as if I were watching something that had been dubbed from German.
Thandie Newton is another disappointment. The casting agency were apparently given the difficult brief of finding someone prettier than Tom Cruise for him to act with. With the heart-breakingly gorgeous Newton, they clearly succeeded. Her early scenes also suggest that she can act as well. She has the makings of an extraordinary, memorable Bond, er, Hunt Girl. Given free rein, she could probably have transformed the movie. But her role simply dries up partway-through, leaving her little more to do than look hurt and vulnerable for the rest of the film. It's a terrible waste.
'Wasteful' would be a good description of the film as a whole. It's as if the director knows that he won't be asked to direct MI:3, so he's using up all the cliches in the genre while he has his hand on the clapperboard. If the MI series is the new Bond, it's peaking early: two films into the series, it's already fallen into the formula rut. It's also sloppily done: the 'need-to-know' information about the virus is repeated over and over to make sure we've got it (clue for Hollywood: audiences aren't as stupid as you think they are). The trademarks - Hunt dangling from a rope as in the first movie, and John Woo's pigeons - are fairly trowelled on, and the plot-holes come thick and fast. Most irritating of all, the 'face-mask' gimmick, where characters pull off a latex mask to reveal that they are actually someone else, is repeated over and over, without rhyme or reason. To use this trick once tests the audience's ability to suspend disbelief already: to use it as often as MI:2 does, in such implausible circumstances, is sheer laziness. After a while, you're all but expecting Thandie Newton to rip off her face-mask and reveal that she's actually Anthony Hopkins.
Unfortunately, MI:2 takes itself too seriously for that: the only moment when it comes close to self-parody is when villain Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) gives a sardonic commentary on Hunt's plans to infiltrate a building. For the rest, there's little humor in the film (and several of the scarce jokes come across as oddly misogynistic). Tom Cruise's po-faced Hunt can never deadpan the way Bond would, which is bad news for the series: now that Bond movies have become thoroughly formulaic, the occasional dry wit is one of the few redeeming devices they have left. If MI:2 can't even manage that, future sequels will have little to recommend them.
Unfortunately, car chases and explosions are no longer enough. Despite all the pyrotechnics and the slow-motion aerial kung-fu, the one truly vivid scene in the film remains the rock-climbing sequence at the start. Without any need for quick-fire action, with no enemies except gravity to fight, it's nonetheless genuinely tense and gripping. If Woo could have offered more scenes like that, MI:2 might have been superb. Alas, it's a solitary high-point: nothing else in the film ever attains that level again.
If Mission Impossible wants Bond's crown, tarnished and tired as it is, the makers will need to do better than this. Simply repeating the usual cliches with nicer photography and a bigger special effects budget won't cut it, no matter how cute Tom Cruise may be. If ever there was a series in need of a new direction and some original ideas, this is it.