A letdown after the hype

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 2000)

Let me say, the trailer was good. Wetted my appetite for the real deal...
Sorry to say that the film was cliche, the fight scenes could have been improved (should have hired Woo Ping Yuen as the martial arts director), the editing was not sharp enough to backup the action. Some of the scenes like on the bike was so unrealistic that the Hong Kong audience found it unrealistic (after being brought up on unrealistic martial arts film in HK, I would have thought we could have accepted this)...
The MI team is supposed to be a hi-tech team with lots of gadgetry like in MI part 1, but in MI2, we don't see much of this.
This is another run of the mill action film. John Woo's direction was disappointing, laboured over some of his trademarks such as the slow motion cam, plus the doves. The damn dove and the damn pigeons!
There are some good new tricks (like shooting backwards on the bike by looking at the rear view mirror), but the emphasis was not there. It didn't look as cool as it should have. I can't put my finger on the thing that ruined the film... but it definitely could have been much much better.

Gladiator is a better bet for the summer's action...