I was disappointed

Rating: Null/10 (10 July 2000)

Mission: Impossible 2 was disappointing and could never exceed or even meet its overhyped advertising or its hard rock and roll image. I am a John Woo fan, and I've seen many, but not all of his films and I have to say that I don't think Woo's heart was in this film.
Unlike the first Mission:Impossible film this has an easy to understand plot mixed with a hybrid of a 1980's like action film and a weak script. This is nothing like the first Mission: Impossible or even the brilliant tv show. Hunt is not the human spy but an all-out one-man hero who can do everything himself.
Where's the teamwork, the credible plot twisting or the intelligent use of gadgets? I was expecting John Woo to have gone back to the TV show and brought out what made it good and gave us something special - for example I wanted to see John Woo make one IMF team play against another IMF team (a sort of cat and mouse game on a big scale).
The plot of M:I-2 has Dougray Scott's character (an ex-IMF guy turned bad) stealing a super-flu virus and is hoping to sell it to some chemical company and make tons of money on the stock market whilst Hunt (Cruise) must recover it with the help (or lack of it) from Newton, Luther and Richard Roxburgh.
The romantic connection between Newton and Cruise was fine, the spanish dance scene was eye candy and showed what direction was. Newton and Cruise did really well to hide the script and bring out a 'love' story. Unfortuently this is destroyed when Newton (who is a master thief) turns into a damsel in distress. Her master thief skills were never really used.
I agree with most of the reviewers who say that the film seems to be from a rejected James Bond script. In fact most of the film seems to come from old James Bond or John Woo films. For example, you have the two characters who are exactly alike and hate each other (taken from Face/Off and GoldenEye).
The direction of this film was great, but not Woo's best. I was expecting (espically after the Matrix) Woo to have really overused the bullet time, swing round shots, but he only used it a few times. Some of the direction was masterful, others tired.
Sometimes I felt Woo put things into the shot because people were expecting to see them (for example the doves or the two guns in slow-motion, etc) and Woo was never given the chance to tweak or invent new twists on his direction style.
Some of the scenes were silly such as the huge number of cgi-enhanced rubber masks - where did they get them all from? The motorbike scene was well executed, if not silly and over the top, ends in a face/off that is reminist of Bruce Lee's "The Big Boss".
Anyway this film is fine to watch, the action is fine (but nothing beyond the ordinary), the script is weak and deserved someone proofreading it, the direction is good but not masterful.
All in all it was enjoyable film, but I kinda felt like this film never really pushed the boundaries or action-direction any further.
If they want to make M:I-3 then they need to work on a good complex script with twists, turns and a good workable plot - bring us back to what made the TV show so successful and not to what Hollywood expects is successful.