A Patience Tester!

Rating: 1/10 (8 July 2000)

Mission: Impossible 2 fails in almost every aspect. It is a run of the mill action flick not a Mission Impossible movie. A Mission Impossible film has to have twists galore; surprises that don't make sense; a plot that nobody understands. Kudos to Brian De Palma. He got the genre spot on with Mission: Impossible and he was then able to flex his action biceps with the terrific train sequence and the awe-inspiring entry into the security vault. There was a romantic element to his movie also but it was always a supporting character. It aided but did not interfere with the spy movie.
M:I2 wasn't even a spy movie. It was a romance first and an action movie second. The romance was destroyed by the weak nature of Thandie Newton's character. Though she began the movie as a superior thief, she quickly was reduced to no more than a damsel for Tom Cruise to heroically save.
The action was also inferior to De Palma's version. Frankly, John Woo bores me. His incessant slow-motion shots were tiresome and what is his obsession with pigeons? The teaser before the credits was well done as was the rock-climbing sequence but the car chase and the overlong motor-race cum fight was to put it bluntly boring.
Who cares if Cruise did all his own stunts? There weren't that many to do in the first place. I'm not bitter towards Cruise, in fact he is possibly my favourite actor when he is in a worthy movie (EYES WIDE SHUT), however this movie reaks of his interference as producer and if he did greatly interfere then his own vanity may have destroyed what could have been a successful franchise.