Saturday, August 14, 2010

Mission: Impossible 2

Movie name: Mission: Impossible 2
Year of release: 2000
Director: John Woo
Stars: Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Dougray Scott, Ving Rhames, Richard Roxburgh, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson, William Mapother, Dominic Purcell
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 2

Synopsis:Following the huge hit of the original "Mission: Impossible", actor and producer Tom Cruise, decided to come back with a sequel. The direction ended up being handled by famed director John Woo, a stalwart of Hong Kong action films and who at the time had made a name for himself with the big hits "Broken Arrow" and "Face Off". The film follows Ethan Hunt again, who is called for another impossible mission, this time to defeat a former ally from the same agency, who has gone rogue. The goal is to prevent his oponent of obtaining a dangerous disease who can kill rapidly. In order to defeat him, Hunt resorts to a woman with whom he is smitten and who was also a lover of his enemy.
Whereas Brian de Palma in the original film, tried to sustain the spirit of the original TV series, with the idea of the group of talented individuals at odds with an impossible situation, this sequel focused solely on Ethan Hunt, the new 007 of sorts. The problem however, was mostly in the tone that the director John Woo gave the film - there was no character development, no sense of excitement in the action scenes. The film played out like a long commercial, with glossy surfaces and some good looking faces and not much else to sustain it. The quick editing, the hyper violence/shoot outs and the choreographed fight scenes, seemed to be the focus of a film that could have been so much more. The actors are mostly lost and supporting to whole the noise going on. It's the Tom Cruise show in this film, but sadly it's one of his least inspired and interesting performances. An uninteresting film.

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