John Woo kicks ass, but this movie sucked!

Rating: 4/10 (1 June 2000)

Okay ... let me start out by saying that I love John Woo films. A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled, Face/Off, were great films. In my opinion, he is the penultimate action movie director.
Now, let me get into MI2. Except for the action sequences, I thought it was a horrible Hi-I'm-Tom-Cruise-watch-me-in-an-action-movie vehicle. Everything in this movie is everything that is NOT Mission Impossible. The original Mission Impossible TV show was suspense-based and most of the time after you watched an episode, you had to think about what just happened. The original MI team also didn't intentionally go head to head with danger, rather they used misdirection and camouflage to get away. The first MI movie kept most of this premise.
But not this movie. The plot in this movie was weak. The location was all wrong as well. I like Australia, but I just don't see it as a location for international intrigue and terrorism. There was no real MI team; Ving Rhames and the other guy seem to have been added in the movie just to make it look like a team. Dougray Scott is a good actor, but not good for the role cause he's too much of a pretty boy to take seriously as a villain. They should have used a villainous looking actor like Robert Davi or Sean Bean. John Woo was wasted on this movie in my opinion, because of the lack of a plot, uninteresting characters, and horrible dialogue are too heavy a burden for the action scenes to hold up. If Tom Cruise wants to make an American James Bond style movie, he should buy the rights to A Man Called Flint and remake that instead.
So if you love John Woo style action, go see this movie. If you have schoolgirl's crush on Tom Cruise, go see this movie. If you want to watch a good summer blockbuster movie, go see Gladiator. I'm just glad I paid matinee price to watch this movie. What a let down!