A heart racing thrill-ride, John Woo at his best

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2000)

In "Mission:Impossible -- 2" Tom Cruise's mission is clear -- make a sequel that stands out. And it's Mission:Accomplished, thanks to the actor/producer's hiring of Hong Kong Action Master John Woo as the film's director.
On the surface, the addition of Woo means Cruise's IMF Agent Ethan Hunt now fires two guns at once inside of one. It also means that Tom Cruise, Hollywood Mega Star Pretty Boy instantly becomes Tom Cruise, Kung Fu Badass.
But there's more to Woo's style than just slo-mo angles of double-fisted gunplay and ludicrously acrobatic karate moves. The director brings an over-the-top, operatic melodrama to the standard espionage story that justifies the preposterously far-fetched action. Woo's accent marks are all over the film -- from a scene very early on showing one character's split-second vision of apocalyptic doom, to a close-up of a fire reflecting in the villain's tormented eyes, and to -- perhaps most memorably -- a ubiquitous John Woo white dove preceding one of Cruise's most dramatic entrances. The movie is much closer to Woo's classic films than to anything on the old '60s TV show.
The film's last 45 minutes are a non-stop, heart-racing ride. The sequence concludes with another standard John Woo feature -- two friends, turned mortal enemies, in a prolonged mano-a-mano slugfest death match in a remote area, in this case a rocky cliff above the ocean. It doesn't get more dramatic than that, and movies don't get more thrilling than "Mission:Impossible -- 2".