The Complete Series: Mission Impossible 2 (2000)

Hello all,

Continuing our look at the Mission Impossible series, today’s entry is Mission Impossible II directed by John Woo, who for those of you who read my top ten best films of 1989 list will recall I put his film The Killer at number six, so I was actually looking forward to seeing what a north american film he directed might look like…..boy do I regret that one now.

Plot Summary - Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns, this time to track down renegade agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) who has stolen something only known as Chimera. To do this he recruits expert thief Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton) to his team, forming a personal bond with her along the way. But when she has to go in undercover in Ambrose’s compound, Ethan must find a way to keep her safe and make the mission a success.

Pros - Dougray Scott is really good in this, taking his role just a little over the top when needed but all around still keeping it quite well…...villainy. Plus when the film finally starts getting going it is pretty intense and has some really good action scenes as well.

Cons - The first third of the film is padding, in like the worse way possible. Instead of Cruise simply recruiting Nyah, they drag it out to do this incredibly forced falling in love subplot which both drives the rest of the movie, and drives me up the fucking wall. Then the second third of the film is just nothing but build up as most of the characters do basically nothing interesting. There's a long elaborate plan to get a flashcard full of photos and a very brief scene of Ethan kidnapping someone, but it’s all a jumbled mess. When it finally gets going it’s slowed down by an overabundance of Slow Motion shots and birds flying around which makes it feel like more padding. If they had written this to be a ninety minute movie it would have been fine, but they try to cram in so much stuff that they think will help us relate to the characters more when it’s not needed. They’re spies trying to save the world from an evil villain we don’t much more than that, the bond films have been showing us that for decades. If they had simply dropped the romance subplot and just had Ethan focusing on getting the mission done while also keeping an eye on his teammate then that would’ve seemed less forced upon us.

Final Score - 2/10

This one is a massive misfire. It’s too much underdeveloped buildup with a limp pay off. Please lord let the third one be good.

The next review will most likely be Trainwreck.

Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.