Mission Unlikely but not Impossible

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2000)

While the plot of this movie is pure fiction -- a story that relies on technologies and coincidences that boggle the mind -- there actually is a self-consistency at work. Once you buy into the basic story line (which, for your sanity, I advise doing early on), the rest of the movie flows nicely, with none of the jarring "now what was *that* all about" moments of the original movie. The story centers on a doomsday virus which Ambrose has stolen and threatens to let loose on the world. Hunt and the MI team must retrieve it; to do so, he enlists the help of master thief Nyah Nordolf-Hall (Thandie Newton) who was formerly involved with Ambrose. Of course, Ethan and Nyah fall in love, making an oddly believable love triangle when she returns to her former lover and current nemesis. The inevitable choreographed clashes between Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt and Dougray Scott's Sean Ambrose are poetry on film. John Woo's movies always intrigue me; his films are perhaps the most easily recognizable of any of today's directors.