Inferior sequel

Rating: 3/10 (3 November 2008)

John Woo has directed some good movies (FACE OFF, BROKEN ARROW), but MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE 2 isn't one of them. MI2 is the stylistic opposite of the brilliant, underrated "original" MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE (directed by the great Brian DePalma), which managed to maintain the claustrophobic tone and mood of the original MI 1960's TV series whilst updating it with all the modern techno gadgets and still be full throttle excitement. MI2 is a classic example of a sequel that doesn't live up to the original. Big surprise.
Quite often in Hollywood, sequels are directed by completely different directors with mixed results (JAWS 2, DIE HARD 2, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, the post-Burton BATMAN movies, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). OK, the last example (EMPIRE) is a film considered (by some) superior to its predecessor (STAR WARS), but c'mon! There's still a large contingent of folks that prefer the fun, no-holds-barred, in-your-face action of STAR WARS to the downbeat, serious tone of EMPIRE, myself included. MI and MI2 is a good example of this. While original MI (made in 1996) is pure entertainment and fast-paced fun, this movie MI2 is overlong, dull in many parts, and really a standard Hollywood action flick.
The always-reliable Tom Cruise is sadly stuck in this tripe that continues the sage of our hero Ethan Hunt as he is on holiday mountain-climbing when new IMF chief (played by unbilled Anthony Hopkins, who is not in the film enough for me). A rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose (played by a not-too-scary Dougray Scott), disguised as Hunt in one of those masks made famous in the original film, has stolen the antidote for the chimera virus from a doctor friend of Ethan's and plans to sell it on the black market, but first he must steal the virus itself to use it on a major population (Sydney, Australia to be exact, the primary setting of most of the film's action). The cure is no good without something to cure! That pretty much sums it up, except for a dull love story between Hunt and three-named master jewel thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (played by the beautiful Thandie Newton). I'm sorry, but sex and love stories ruin good action films and this one drags it down. The original kept things simple and the love story (such as it was) to a bare minimum; this one should have as well. There is all this sappy background music while we watch Hunt take down the bad guys near the end flashing between Hunt and Nyah dying from the disease that Ambrose has infected her with as part of his revenge (Nyah dumped Ambrose before she fell for Hunt). A love triangle in an MI action flick? Good times!*cough*BEING SARCASTIC*cough! When watching it, I was thinking of the total ripoff of Hitchcock's greatest films (secret agent gets party girl that he secretly loves to do the government's bidding by using sex, a la NOTORIOUS; but the most obvious ripoffs are from the classic NORTH BY NORTHWEST: double agent female caught between 2 lovers, dangerous mountain scenes and chases, 2nd-in-command to the big bad guy with an unnatural, possibly-more-than-platonic connection to his boss and of course guarded of him and suspects the femme fatale is up to no good, etc., etc.
Also the action itself is that standard slo-mo John Woo stuff. Slow-moving motorcycles, slow-moving fight scenes, slow-moving bullets. Boring, boring, boring. And when I watch a movie with really bad guys like these (infecting a major population with a deadly virus), I LOVE to hate their guts, but for some reason, I couldn't muster up barely an ounce of hatred for these guys. I guess they really didn't scare me all that much. Jon Voight was a much more scary, diabolical villain in MI; I as the viewer really enjoyed watching him get his in the end; when Scott got his here, I just didn't care. Pretty much sums up my feeling about MI2.