Mildly entertaining action and stupid plot

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2012)

When people arrived at the cinema for this movie I imagine the film crew stood at the entrance saying something like "Welcome in for this screening of MI2 but please leave your brain outside". Well symbolically speaking but that really describes this movie. I heard several saying that the plot of the first movie is so hard to understand and I can agree somewhat. It took me a few viewings to follow it completely but it's really not that sophisticated one then realises. Well anyway seeing the sequel one wonders if the producers said something like "So people thought the plot of the first was complicated so lets just disregard any story for the sequel". I'm not against mindless action movies, sometimes it's really comfortable to just lean back and not think a lot but just enjoy. However if find myself not being able to suspend my disbelief here because MI2 is not simple but rather completely stupid, treating it's viewers as retards. According to the trivia on IMDb the screenwriter claims he wrote the story around action scenes that John Woo had thought out. It must be true! Many of the action scenes come out of nowhere whatsoever. I go like what the hell is going on with the story? Not in a way that I don't understand but that you understand to well that is makes less sense than a Donald Duck cartoon. It goes so far as one scene Ving Rhames close to turns to the audience and clearly explains what is happening now, why they have to do this thing. Who does the filmmaker think the viewers are? Even underaged would see this as ridiculously easy. The actors play the typical stereotype one expects form this kind of mindless action movie, the hero is so cool and the villain is evil in every way. I'm no hater of Tom Cruise because I can distinguish between his work and him in private which I mostly try to ignore, he seems to be quite a weird guy. Dougray Scott is well enough as the villain and it feels somewhat too bad his career never took off. Thandie Newton has no other purpose than looking hot. The style of the movie is just like you expect from John Woo but actually even more extreme of every of his trademarks. You won't get action more over the top than this. It's looks good but the first film wasn't even near this type so this doesn't quite feel like a sequel, had they just changed the names one wouldn't even know. So the action is good but it's just too much. Not even James Bond would get away with this, don't get me wrong I love the 007 movies. Add so much cheesy dialogue and dramatic music and I'm somehow embarrassed when I once watched this with someone that knew nothing about Mission: Impossible. The action is great but Mission: Impossible 2 goes from simple to insultingly dumb. Sorry I can't take this movie, it barely passes for the acceptable grad which on my scale is 5/10.