Director: John Woo
Year Released: 2000
Rating: 0.5
Truly abominable sequel to the first M:I, which I thought (despite calling it Mission: Implausible because of the wacky plot) was fine entertainment, and directed by a gifted filmmaker in Brian De Palma. This movie, however, is all glitz and camera movements and not much of anything else. Director John Woo (who I respect but question some of his movie-making decisions) and screenwriter Robert Towne create a story that is a pastiche of pretty much every Matrix-Jean Claude Van Damme-James Bond adventure flick out there, with British bad guys, women treated as objects, chemical warfare, snazzy cars, secret disguises. But unlike the Bond series it has no real class - the plot isn't labyrinthine, the hero not suave (sorry Mr. Cruise, Cary Grant you are not), the damsel-in-distress (in this case, Thandie Newton) not all that interesting or sympathetic. The movie's two best bits - one having Cruise entering a building from above, the other involving changed identities - are flawed: the first is a rip off of the first M:I, the second one's effectiveness completely wiped away by the absence of the slightest bit of logic or plausibility. Woo is too preoccupied with slow motion shots of Cruise and Newton, surrounded by flames and flying doves (while Indian women chant hymns of salvation) to add "poetry" to lame commercial material.
