Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

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Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

Mission: Impossible 2 (or M:I-2 for short), probably most-anticipated flick, is an entirely different animal from its predecessor. Mission: Impossible was your standard espionage flick (better directed and told in a slightly Hitchcockian style, but still your standard espionage flick) with a few nice capers and a very impressive action scene thrown in. Story wise, everything was par for the course. We even had the obligatory “break into the unbreakable place” sequence. M:I-2, on the other hand, is a whole different animal.

In M:I-2, rogue agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) steals all of the cure to a superflu known as Chimera as well as a sample of the virus. Like any modern day bad guy, Ambrose is a capitalist and is planning to sell the cure to the highest bidder after he has unleashed Chimera upon the world. And, of course, it falls upon the IMF to stop him. Heading up the team is Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), joining him are agents Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Billy Baird (John Polson) and, per the instructions given in a cameo by Anthony Hopkins, the final member of the team must be Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), a professional thief who Ethan must recruit.

Let the games begin.

M:I-2 is an action movie, an espionage flick, a terrorist flick, a kung fu movie, and a romance all rolled into one. But instead of botching it by doing too many things at once), M:I-2 juggles all of its balls in the air and never even gets close to dropping one. This might be because master craftsman screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown) wrote the script. Then again, it might be because John Woo is such a damn good director.

The one thing M:I-2 is not, however, is a mystery. You may find the most impressive action sequences of 2000 in M:I-2¸ but you’re not getting much in the way of plot twists. If you are in suspense, waiting for a particular blow your mind plot twist, it is because you expect M:I-2 to be even remotely like the original Mission: Impossible, which it is not. M:I-2 is a much more energetic film. It is strengthened by bringing a stylistically brilliant director as John Woo into the game. Woo uses slow motion, fire, birds (his perennial favorite), incredible backgrounds everything in the book to suck an audience in and keep them holding their breath. Even when watching an otherwise dull conversation, Woo keeps us right on the edge of our seats, waiting for the next big bang. Hiring Woo over having Brian De Palma to direct is one of the smartest moves Cruise has ever made as a producer, if only because De Palma favors old style, more stagnant camerawork whereas Woo uses the camera to make all of the motion in the film fluid.

The acting may not win any Academy awards, but each actor does his job well enough. Hans Zimmer’s impressive Latin score (a far cry from the normal percussion laden and instantly recognizable action flick score that he uses on just about every Jerry Bruckheimer production) adds to the tension, and the Limp Bizkit take on the “Mission: Impossible” theme is more suited for the genre than the prior one. Robert Towne serves up snappy dialogue, a good plot, and imaginative sequences for us, and Jeffrey Kimball handles the cameras damn near perfectly.

So, you might ask, what is my gripe? Well, it would have to be the birds. Ever since the shootout in the bird teahouse at the beginning of Hard Boiled, Woo has loved things that fly and aren’t made out of lead. Birds make many appearances here way too many. There are a few moments when having birds present makes sense, but their presence in the number of scenes that they are there (about half of the suspense scenes) makes you feel like Woo is still grappling with his urge to be an experimental director.

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