Some parts good, other parts bad

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2006)

Having not seen MI:II, I went in with a clean slate, just ready to enjoy the movie.
What I got was a pretty mixed bag. The action scenes were pretty well done, and the acting overall is decent (until Michelle Monaghan's constant droning in the final scenes.)Philip Seymour Hoffman does a great job at playing the villain of the piece, it's just a shame he didn't feature more prominently in the movie.
There were certain scenes which just made me groan. Just before Ethan's wife is about to kill him to deactivate the explosive charge in his head, Ethan takes the sticks out of his mouth (used to bear the pain,) and proceeds to say "I love you." After this line the entire cinema groaned, including myself. It just had cliché written all over it. What made me cringe more is how Ethan is miraculously brought back to life by his wife, and yet Lindsey is left to die earlier on in the film. Why not just use the good old CPR technique on her too?
Having said that, other scenes had me hooked, like the scene on the bridge, which had plenty of explosions to keep everyone happy. Where Tom fails in the emotional stuff, he more than makes up for in the action scenes.
Overall, not the worst film I've ever seen, but then again, it certainly isn't the best. This is very much a "seen one action film, seen them all" type of movie, and some people will feel like they've seen this stuff all too much before.