Not BAD, but not very good either.

Rating: 4/10 (25 May 2000)

I was really hoping I would like this movie, but I didn't think I would. For one I'm a HUGE fan of John Woo films, and I really enjoyed Mission Impossible 1, but when I saw the preview it just didn't grab me and make me say "I have GOT to see that movie". But none the less I paid the $7 and checked it out.
First of all this movie is NOT like M:I1, sure we've got Tom Cruise running around with a bunch of cool gadgets but the similarities end there. What we don't have is the intriguing and complicated plot of the first movie, in fact I thought the plot was fairly bland and uninteresting. We also don't have the shocking plot twists, yes there are attempts at plot twists but they're all way too predictable to be even the least bit shocking. It felt to me like Woo just tried to palm off all the twists with a bunch of mask scenes (you know the ones where you think it's one person but it turns out to be someone else), I thought the first one was good but I found it very easy to guess all the rest.
However, most of the action scenes, although extremely unrealistic, were exciting and well done. You can really see John Woo come out in the action, particularly the last scene. There are tons of big, cool explosions, gunfights, stand offs, and slow motion effects. By far his flashiest, but not his best movie. A downside to M:I2 was that it had to be rated PG-13, most all of Woo's other films have R ratings which adds a level of brutality to them, and in that, realism. I found it took away from the movie to have such obviously far fetched scenes in it. I mean come on, you expect us to believe that two men can collide in mid air at a good 60 miles an hour, fall off a 20 foot ledge and then proceed to get in a ruthless fist fight? In reality they would be extremely lucky to be alive, and I mean EXTREMELY LUCKY!!! But who really cares, it's not like action movies are about realism, and by no means am I saying that Woo's other movies are realistic, but they were certainly more realistic than this one.
So what did I think of this movie overall? Well, it's not bad. I didn't leave the theater feeling completely ripped off like with Battlefield Earth. However I also didn't leave the theater already wanting to see it again like with Gladiator. All in all it was a pretty average action flick, nothing really special like M:I1. If you're a big action movie buff I would say go ahead and see it, but if you want another M:I1 by all means steer clear of this movie because you will be horribly dissapointed. I give it a 6 stars out of 10.