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Mission: Impossible IIBy Roger Crow
United States, 2000 UK Release Date: 7 July 2000 (wide) Running Length: 2:07 BBFC Classification: 15 (Violence, swearing) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton, Dougray Scott, Ving Rhames, William R. Mapother, Brendan Gleeson, Anthony Hopkins, John Polson, Rade Serbedzija (bless you!) I really wasn't too bothered about seeing this film. The staggering hype usually leaves me cold. It's so hard to judge a film on its own merits when the Paramount hype machine is ramming the message of a film's quality down your throat. I'm not a huge Tom Cruise fan. He's an okay actor whose good looks and determination have awarded him the position of a worldwide box office draw. The langorous but intriguing Eyes Wide Shut had hardly made me rush to the first performance at my local multiplex 20 miles away. The fact that this was directed by John Woo, one of the world's greatest action directors also didn't bother me. His work on A Better Tomorrow II, Broken Arrow, Face/Off, Hard Boiled and The Killer had left me as excited as anyone else when I heard he was taking over from Oliver Stone as director. However, even the great John Woo could not fire up my engine. The fact that my friend's old housemate Thandie Newton was in it, looking foxier than Basil Brush's wife was intriguing but when you see her every day on the IMDb, that too has a negative effect. I wanted Mission Impossible 2 to be a turkey of the highest order, not least because films costing $125million leave me very cold. However, the fact that this is probably the biggest action thriller staged in Australia gave the movie a freshness that hype cannot buy. The original story was provided by Brannon Braga and Ronald D Moore of Star Trek fame. You do wonder, as Cruise makes his breathtaking ascent up the sheer face of the Grand Canyon, whether this was originally intended as another Trek movie. With a screenplay by Robert Towne (of Chinatown fame), the result is a heady blend of Outbreak, Notorious, James Bond (GoldenEye especially), the original Mission Impossible movie, To Catch a Thief, The Last of the Mohicans (Stay alive, no matter what occurs), Terminator 2 (Gunfire in hi-tech labs especially) and a few dozen other films blending intrigue with action. The weakest link in the chain is Dougray Scott, a likeable Scots actor who cut his teeth on Soldier Soldier before going off to make a sctring of eclectic films including the excellent This Year's Love and the lacklustre Gregory's Two Girls. Reminiscent of Sean Bean in GoldenEye, he plays Sean Ambrose, an IMF agent gone bad whose love for the slinky thief Nyah forms an integral thread in this complex adventure. Some of his leaden exposition scenes grate enormously, but why carp? The main focus and thrust of the movie is the virus Chimera and its antidote from the scientist who created them for Biocyte Pharmaceuticals in Sydney, Australia. Once in possession of the virus, Ambrose intends to unleash it in the streets of Sydney and make a fortune while his stock options in Biocyte go through the roof - the drug company will be the only one producing the antidote. IMF chief Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins in a delicious cameo) recruits top agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) to set the matter straight. Hopkins looks like he's ad-libbing most of his dialogue, eyes gleaming as he does so. The Welsh wonder may have been paid a packet for his work here but it was worth every penny. His lined, lived-in face adds a necessary degree of gravity to the dramatic, zero G proceedings that folow.
With the help of Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), computer whiz Luther (an under-used Ving Rhames), and comic relief in the form of agent Billy Baird (the excellent John Polson), we're soon in the thick of the action again. The love tryst between Hunt, Nyah and Ambrose is exploited to maximum effect, the obligatory break in to a top secret lab may suffer from some shaky green screen work as Hunt drops in through the atrium but it scarcely matters. What follows is Woo on top form as he attempts to destroy Chimera and save the girl from the clutches of evil. Woo sacrifices his usual bizarre artillery logic - Cruise actually reloads his gun unlike Chow Yun Fact who can fire off 100 rounds from two automatics without bothering. There's some gob-smacking stunt work and what Cruise and Scott can do on their bikes defies belief. Hans Zimmer's score is above par and the rockier MI theme is great punctuation, especially during the third act when all hell breaks loose on the streets of Oz. As James Berardinelli, one of the net's most reliable film critics has already pointed out, Woo would be a great contender to direct the next James Bond movie. After the lacklustre World is Not Enough, 007 is in need of fresh blood in case Ethan Hunt steals his crown. I haven't seen a film on the big screen twice since last year's middling Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, so full marks to Woo, Cruise and company for coming up with the goods - a real Mission Impossible in the early days of the 21st century.
© 2000 Roger Crow
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