Timeless Story Reappears

Rating: Null/10 (23 September 2004)

If you saw Mission Impossible II and were surprised by how much (some aspects of) the plot improved from the first movie, guess why...
It is more or less a remake of Hitchcock's classic, Notorious. It is the action-packed-modern virus-stunt-laden remake, if you will. Watch Notorious followed by MI2, and you'll laugh out loud. Compare the scenes at the racetrack. This scene in particular convinced me it was deja vu and sent me hunting through my video collection to find what I was remembering.
It just goes to show that you can modernize anything by throwing special effects and stunts at it. At least they had the insight to search for a classic plot on which to build; but, when you see how much of what worked in MI2 was actually pirated, you'll feel sorry for the starving screenwriters with original scripts who can't get an appointment to make a pitch.