Entertaining but silly

Rating: 6/10 (26 July 2000)

As any self-respecting summer blockbuster should be, M:I-2 is very entertaining stuff once the viewer's disbelief is suspended and all cynicism is left at the auditorium door. However, with such a top-notch cast and crew M:I-2 promises much more than the average popcorn flick and, despite really wanting to love this film, I found it balancing on the verge of ludicrous and occasionally toppling over into full blown, unintentional comedy.
The blame for this has to lie in two places. Firstly, with the writer/s, who appeared to have created a one hour script and decided to pad out the rest with gunfire and an incredibly protracted punch-up. They also seemed to run out of dialogue for Thandie Newton after 20 minutes, and forced her to spend the rest of the film open-mouthed and struck dumb with either fear or admiration.
Secondly, John Woo, love your stuff, but please NO MORE slo-mo, fluttering white doves, face-swapping or dual-handed diving shoot-outs. Looks good the first eighteen times, but then it just gets silly.
Despite this, the film has a couple of great one-liners, solid performances all round, lots of star quality from the lovely Tom, and the rock climbing is almost worth the ticket price on its own. Could have been so much more.