**1/2 out of ****
Year: 2000. Starring Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Dougray Scott, Ving Rhames, Richard Roxburgh, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson, Rade Serbedzija, Anthony Hopkins. Written by Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga (story) and Robert Towne (screenplay). Directed by John Woo. Rated PG-13.
Now here's a curious beast: A film that's equal parts tedious and exhilarating, partially absorbed in its own self-importance, but also possessing moments of pure, unpretentious exuberance. That's what happens when an acclaimed action director (John Woo) meets crass Hollywood commercialism (personified by *producer* Tom Cruise). "Mission: Impossible 2" bogs itself down as a star vehicle and glamour project, but succeeds when egos get out of the way and allow Woo to work his special kind of magic. It's enjoyable once it gets to the good stuff, but the good stuff only takes up about half of the running time.
Cruise returns in his role as Ethan Hunt, super-secret agent for the mysterious IMF agency. He's called in to deal with a new crisis: Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), a former IMF operative, is attempting to steal both a new deadly virus and its only known cure. After releasing the virus to the public, he will make millions by investing in the only company producing the antidote. The plan is for Hunt to recruit one of Ambrose's old flames, Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), professional thief and sexy love interest, to spy on the disgruntled former employee. Unfortunately, Hunt has fallen into a romantic relationship with Nyah, and is therefore reluctant to send her into dangerous situations.
Most of the setup is fairly laborious, with an exciting opening scene aboard a plane giving way to long, dull passages of exposition and a tedious romantic dalliance for Cruise and Newton. You can see the problems coming quickly: The script has been written in just such a way so that even the biggest idiot in the house will be able to understand what's going on. That means every time something is *shown* to us, it must also be *told* to us. I don't understand why this had to be done; Woo is a good enough director to indicate things to the audience. We don't need a shot of Newton entering a house and then a character saying, "She's in the house now."
The romantic relationship is set up in a ridiculous slow-motion car chase scene: They hate each other, get into a car crash, and then sleep with each other-just your standard action movie logic. I didn't find the romance at all credible, despite Woo's best efforts to spice up the proceedings. (I did like the scene with Cruise and Newton gazing at each other through the dress of a salsa dancer.) Then after Cruise gets some booty, the movie shuttles Newton off into support mode, revealing that all her thief skills won't be necessary; she's just supposed to be a front for the main man. You can tell this was Cruise's pet project because other characters are dashed off every time Tom wants to preen. Ving Rhames and Richard Roxburgh are brought in as Hunt's presumably skilled associates, then mainly stand around giving reasons why they can't help him at the crucial moment. That's too bad, because I wanted to see more of these guys. They're interesting characters; why not give them more screen time? Ms. Newton, meanwhile, is an absolutely gorgeous woman with tremendous screen presence and a lovely can't-quite-tell-what-race-she-is look that can't be manufactured. But she disappears for long stretches while Cruise shows off his pecs and flicks his hair. Again, too bad.
That's not to say there isn't fun stuff. There's fun stuff. The ending motorcycle chase scene is fun. The spycraft stuff, with earpieces, interceptions, and fancy Macintosh laptops, is fun. Slow motion gun battles are fun. The movie does come down with Invincible Villain Syndrome at the end (a Woo trademark that has always annoyed me), but the second half of "Mission: Impossible 2" does seem remarkably less tedious than the first-no surprise, because it's at about the halfway point that the script gets out of the way and lets Woo's action set pieces take over. But it's not only action scenes that have driven previous Woo films to success. His most successful American release, "Face/Off," had a human interest story at the center of the outrageous action. "Mission: Impossible 2," by contrast, barely has time for characters. Cruise is too busy posing to play a character, and the other actors have been shoved aside to make room for more of his posing. Consequently, all hopes for a great, well-rounded film have been dashed because of a star's ego.
Ultimately, there's a question one must ask when a film has fun action scenes conflicting with a lame script: Is the action good enough to make you forget about the other stuff? For me, for this movie, it wasn't. Maybe Tom Cruise felt he had the right to indulge himself in 2000 after delivering two of the least narcissistic performances of his career in 1999. In "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Magnolia," Cruise put his ego aside and deferred to two directors he respected, Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson. Why couldn't he have done the same for John Woo? Where Cruise's deference helped elevate his previous two films to artistic heights, his egotism has deflated his latest.
-reviewed by Shay Casey
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