Mission: Impossible II (2000)

WORTH WATCHING EVERY MINUTE

At tis viewing I haven't watched the first Tom Cruise MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, but I probably will, later. Whether or not the flick got bad reviews doesn't affect my reaction. All I care about is what happens when I put it in the machine and sit down to watch. For me, that's the first time, and the movie is New and Original. And all I can say is, Tom Cruise is very, very good at what he does, and the world knows it.

Woo's direction is excellent, with a good deal of that HongKong dazzle we've all come to love. Fine by me. When I watach escapist flicks I don't expect realism, and don't really want it. But, I thik that what makes MI-2 as watchable as it is, is Cruise's persona; not his personality, but the clever use of his unusual and still unusually handsome face, coupled with his relatively small, wiry body. I think it was Salinger who said that actors were best served by havin small or relatively small bodies. It lends their movement -- particularly acrobatic or athletic movement -- an extra sense of spacial excitement. Big action actors like Schwartzenekker don't have that extra physical excitement, thogh they're as agile and move as well, simply because they're so big. Size makes them look slower. (Watch Donald O'Connor dance beside Gene Kelly. Kelly's good but Donald's flying!) In this film Cruise's stunts, like his high jumping or slithering down cables have an ariel circus kind of excitement. Personally, the opening mountain-climbing sequence filmed out in the Arizona high sandstone formations, hooked me. An acrophobic with a keen fear of heights, bare-handed climbing, alone, drives me wild, and when he slipped, or appeared to slip and fall maybe 20 or 30 feet down the face of the cliff, I let out a yell.

As for the rest of it, trick driving and particularly trick motorcycle stunt driving; I bought it. I love bike riding, thogh I never do any trick riding, and these sequences, like those in MATRIX RELOADED were thrilling.

Leading Lady? Thandie Newton (as "the Girl") did what she was supposed to do: she made Tom look great; ie., sexy and desireable. But, Newton? She was far more interesting and had more to do in RIDDIK, and made Karl Urban sexy by appearing to be attracted to him. Action Heroes require particulr kinds of actresses, and more often than not they must be exotic in some way. One remembers Rae Dawn Chong paired with Arnold, and of Grace Jones with Schwartzenekker, again, as Konan, and then playing beside Roger Moore's James Bond in VIEW TO A KILL. The idea seems to be, the greater the contrast between them, the greater and more exciting will the attraction appear. What happen to these actresses? Diesel's uber-heisse Bohemian squeeze in XXX; what ever happened to her?

Negative: Waste of Ving Rhames. Great face/head; great voice, but where was he? Miscast as a computer geek locked up in a van.

More selling points? The bad guys are convincing and well-played. The gadgets are as good as the WMD bacillus of the story. Plus, or make that a double-plus, the music is good and the sound is GREAT! Gives my Home Theatre set-up a workout.

All I can say is, its a hell of a lot of fun! December 21, 2008

This Mission Self-Destructed In The First Five Seconds

This movie is a perfect example of an over blown, over the top, over budget sequel. When will Hollywood learn that bigger explosions and bigger budget doesn't make a better sequel, that's why most sequels fail to be even loyal to the first. That is exactly what happens here. Director John Woo, best known for his fascinating heroic bloodshed movies (The Killer, a better tomorrow, face/off)tries to brings his wonders to this flick. Unfortunately he fails to bring them in right to this sequel. The problem here is that it lacks the goodies of the first. The main issue is the mood; it is completely different from the first film. Whereas The first M:I had a nice blend of espionage and action, this one is an exaggerated/story less sequel. It felt more like a bad James Bond movie then it felt like a good spy movie.

The movie's thin plot surrounds upon a man made lethal virus, deadly enough to kill someone in 48 hours. The plan is to release the virus and then make money from selling the antidote how original.. Right? The rest is Tom Cruise doing crazy stunts, and exaggerating his persona. Now the movie does have a lot of good action sequences that's for sure, and it sounds and looks nice on screen and john woo is known for that, known for making action look like poetry. But it doesn't do justice to the movie, it only makes it exaggerating; just because the action may look cool doesn't mean it will make a movie good, you need story also, which I felt was missing here. And the story they chose was bland and soulless. The fact is that this movie is a Tom Cruise vehicle rather than a team work espionage. It doesn't have the chemistry of the TV series nor of the first movie. Definitely rent before buying, unless you're an avid fan of the franchise.


MY PERSONL RATING: 3 OUT OF 5
April 20, 2008

Mission Impossible 2

Video quality is great but the plot itself has too much drama. The director of this film focused more on drama than action. The end is of a chinese film which does not look well for an american action film. April 5, 2008

Possibly the very worst major studio action film ever made

Okay, so De Palma's film wasn't Citizen Kane, but at least it had its moments when Cruise's insatiable vanity was kept in check in favour of some well-executed set-pieces (even if one was stolen lock, stock and barrel from Topkapi). Woo's disastrous sequel - at the time the most expensive film ever made - is like an endless hairspray commercial, with the ever limited Cruise (who used to be able to act but now just runs off a checklist of six annoying expressions) constantly flicking his hair in glowing slo-mo - you keep on expecting him to say 'Because I'm worth it.' Unfortunately, they're so busy making him look pretty that they forget to include any of the basics of a Summer movie. The action scenes are few and far between and not worth the wait; the script is another lazy and lifeless stinker from Robert Towne that rivals his Love Affair for banal inconsequentiality; and the Brits in the cast let the side down even more than Woo, Cruise and Towne combined - Thandie Newton seems semi-comatose, Hopkins hams it up and cashes the cheque, while Dougray Scott demonstrates just how dull an actor he can be even when mugging relentlessly. The only good thing that came of this film was the over-runs keeping Scott from playing Wolverine in X-Men: judging from his subsequent performances on screen and stage, if being boring on screen was an Olympic sport, this guy would win Scotland gold every time.

Possibly the most tedious vanity production ever made. Good extras on the DVD, but that's the best that can be said for it.
February 15, 2008

Good Service

The product was deliverd to me in a timely fashion, in good condition and was exactly whaht I requested good service and would recommend the others to make purcahses through this person. January 28, 2008

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