Mission: Impossible II

De Palma declined to continue the series. Enter: John Woo. Enter: camp.

Watched this one with the lads, we're slowly going through the series before Part 8 (the final part? Right?). Had to tell them that this is an outlier, it all goes mostly uphill from here.

What a film. I mean, what a film. When it fully commits to John Woo's style, it's glorious. Unfortunately most of it is trying to be like that first movie.

The plot is convoluted. So much was cut for presumably momentum and more bouldering screen-time. There's a few great sequences (with some truly epic music from the Zimmer that don't simmer) but overall it feels like a large misfire. This is not continuing with the strengths of the first movie.

Still, at least it's a fun movie to watch. Most mediocre films are dreary, it's only the truly bad or truly great ones that usually get a rise out of me. This is an exception. Partly because of its high highs, but also because it's a fascinating outlier in a series that took its sweet time finding that sweet spot.

I just watched this movie for the first time, and I kept having this vague feeling that I'd heard the story before. Then it came to me: Notorious! It's an Aflred Hitchcock film starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant from 1946.

The basic plotline goes: girl comes from questionable background. guy is sent to get girl for top-secret mission. guy falls in love with girl. guy discovers that girl must seduce the enemy. guy is not happy. girl goes. girl seduces the enemy. girl discovers enemy secrets. girl gets sick. guy rescues girl.

Can we say deja vu? The scene that really clinched it for me was the horse racing scene. Ingrid and Cary do the same scene! It's scary. All they did was update the plotline a little (ie, virus instead of gunpowder for the Nazis), throw in some action (well, a lot of action), and bogus technology, and you're set.

Watch Notorious for yourself and see what I mean...

I love the Mission Impossible series and MI2 is probably the weakest one but i don't think that makes it a bad movie. it's directed by John Woo who is a master of action cinema. Watch Hard Boiled, The Killer, Bullet in the head and Face Off to see his over the top, balls to the wall action movies. I just don't think his style really works in an American spy thriller as the slower more dialogue heavy moments are full of exposition and cartoonish moments. John Woo's movies are more theatrical in tone and it doesn't really work here, it comes off as a bit silly. There had to be some kind of studio meddling because you can tell the violence was toned down in editing as well. It's rated a 15 in the UK but i reckon it's more like a 12A. Even so i still enjoy this movie for what it is, there's strong performances by everyone, lots of cool high tech spy gadgets, decent action with some awesome stunts and you can see the start of Tom Cruise taking risks to make these movies as he performs a lot of the bike stunts and kung fu himself(As far as i can tell). There's also a pretty breathtaking rock climbing scene at the beginning of the movie.

The series really took off from Mission Impossible 3 onwards but this is still a fun action thriller, not brilliant but i have seen MUCH worse movies which other people claim to love and praise.

The first 60 percent of this movie was pretty good; the last 40 percent was mostly action and mostly so hokey, so stupid, it was an insult for any viewer with a brain. Too bad, the first Mission Impossible was excellent and I hear the third film was good. However, this second one was a stinker by comparison.

I except most films to have that "Rambo mentality," as I call it, where hundreds of bullets are fired - and missed- at the hero, while he or she hits everything in sight. That was here but so overly done that is was absurd and downright annoying after awhile.

Tom Cruise, our hero, should have been shot so many times I lost count. This is director John Woo, for you, who always overdoes action and sometimes makes it ridiculous.

The good points are slick photography, interesting characters, good surround sound, low profanity and a very good soundtrack. Thandie Newton is attractive heroine and Dougray Scott is satisfactory as the main villain.

The movie plays more like a James Bond film, although it still has MI touches such as the fake rubber masks we saw in the first film. More realism in that 40 minutes would have made this a far better film than it turned out to be. Oveall, a bit disappointing.

Mission: Impossible II had a promising start, but got out of hand as time went on. In the beginning we have plenty of great scenes, like the rock-climbing in the intro or the car chase in the mountains. The plot is interesting and fun, but it all comes crashing down after some time when the action begins.

Where do I start? There were a couple of problems. The action is incredibly over-dramatic and unrealistic. Some stunts were impressive, but in the context of the movie it just didn't work. I like my spy movies grounded, and when I see movements that defy physics, like a man being thrown over a meter into the air by a karate kick to the chin, it takes me out of the movie. There were a lot of moments like that where you can't help but question what you are seeing, and that is never a good thing. There were so many scenes that were unrealistic and over-dramatic to the point where it just got ridiculous. It was the same when it came to usage of slowmotion. The slowmotion was very overused and it sometimes destroyed the immersion. The cinematography in general was a bit weird sometimes. Sometimes, it would zoom in on characters faces way too often and often during weird moments. The sound design on the guns was a bit off as well.

As listed above, there where a lot of negatives about this film, but it wasn't all bad. There were some good moments and the story had some interesting aspects to it, but when you question something, you begin to question everything and thats when you see a lot of flaws with this film.