Awesome action scenes, lame script.

Rating: 6/10 (7 May 2006)

The opening credits sequence is excellent: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) climbs a mountain with his bare hands; once he reaches the peak, a chopper shows up, shooting a missile on the ground. This missile contain a pair of sunglasses, thanks to which Hunt receives instructions concerning his new assignment, followed by the famous line "This message will self-destruct in five seconds". He then tosses the glasses away, their explosion forming the movie's title. That scene, alongside the spectacular motorbike chase, is M:I:II's highlight. Otherwise it's just an ordinary, predictable and pretty stupid action flick.
This time, Hunt and his partner, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) have to stop their former colleague Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from infecting the world with a deadly virus known as "Chimera". In order to succeed, they need help from Nayah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), Ambrose's ex, who's now dating Ethan. You can easily guess the rest...
Like his predecessor, Brian De Palma, action guru John Woo favors style over substance. But De Palma had a good script to work on. Woo, on the other hand, hopes the audience won't notice the narrative flaws, so that he can offer us his visual trademarks (slow motion, doves etc.). Unfortunately for him, we do notice the flaws: for one thing, the love story is quite insipid, and it's also given too much room (no prize for guessing how the film ends: it's SO obvious!). In addition, the characters stink: Nayah is still passable, but new sidekick Billy Baird (John Polson) was completely unnecessary. Why not just leave Luther alone? And Ambrose is a crappy villain: in Scott's hands, he looks like a stereotyped caricature of a respectable bad guy. Still, Cruise and Rhames make a great spy couple, and Anthony Hopkins'uncredited cameo as Hunt's supervisor is very enjoyable, particularly his infamous remark: "Mr. Hunt, this isn't mission:difficult, this is mission:impossible. "Difficult" should be a walk in the park for you." Pity the same can't be said of this film's director.