By Lonnie Harris
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
“Mission: Impossible 2″ plays like John Woo’s
take on a James Bond film.
Just like a Bond movie, it opens with an outrageous stunt
sequence, in which the international super-spy hangs off of a sheer
cliff by his fingers. Just like a Bond movie, it features
increasingly high-tech gadgetry. And, just like a Bond movie, it
supplies the hero with a feisty female cohort who will have to be
saved during the final half hour.
Unlike the James Bond films of old, however, “Mission:
Impossible 2″ lacks any real personality, wit or charm.
Though Woo’s trademark action sequences are still here, they
are too few and far between to save what turns out to be a
surprisingly dull and lifeless summer event movie.
In fact, it becomes apparent almost immediately that there
isn’t much need for a sequel to Brian De Palma’s 1996
action flick, which made lots of money, but really didn’t
seem to make a terrific impression on audiences. The film was the
pet project of megastar Tom Cruise, however, and when he wants to
make a movie into a franchise, Paramount Pictures will follow. The
result was the hiring of John Woo, about five script doctors, and
an extensive (not to mention expensive) shoot in Australia, where
most of the film takes place.
It’s not that “Mission: Impossible 2″ (or
“M:I-2″ as Paramount has chosen to publicize it,
probably to compensate for the film having little or nothing to do
with its television-series namesake) is a bad movie, or even a
badly-intentioned one.
Clearly, Woo and Cruise wanted to recreate the feeling of a
’60s spy flick, with slick dialogue and fancy camera work
taking the place of the graphic violence that usually populates
Woo’s most memorable films. Unfortunately, Cruise, though
charming as always, is no Sean Connery, and his attempts at playing
agent Ethan Hunt like a suave sophisticate feel phony and
out-of-character.
And while the romantic shenanigans populating James Bond’s
world make up some of the most memorable scenes of older Bond
films, here the romantic sub-plot feels tacked on. Hunt’s
beautiful female foil, Nyah (Thandie Newton), never becomes more
than a stock character, predictably set to be kidnapped by the
film’s conclusion to give the movie a third act.
In truth, bringing in a director like Woo was probably the
biggest mistake for Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner, who
were determined from the beginning to make an accessible PG-13
thriller. Woo cut his teeth on Hong Kong action films. His American
movies up until this point (which include “Broken
Arrow” and “Face/Off”) haven’t really
demonstrated any ability to tell a gripping story without guns
firing and explosions blazing.
Therefore, because “M:I-2″ really becomes a true
action film only in its final 20 minutes, Woo seems lost most of
the way.
To compensate for the lack of major action set pieces during the
bulk of the film, credited screenwriter Robert Towne (working from
a series of previous drafts by other writers) fills in the holes
with a fairly feeble story about a deadly virus being held by an
American traitor (Dougray Scott) who plans to sell it to
terrorists.
Towne tries his best to spice up the dialogue and keep things
interesting (and one scene in particular where Hunt receives his
orders is very well-conceived and funny), but by the time he was
brought on board, most of the plot was already laid out and some of
the action scenes were already story-boarded, giving him no real
freedom to write an interesting film. Instead, his job seems more
like that of a proofreader, going over the work of others and
trying desperately to improve it before publication.
Once the film reaches its denouement, audiences will likely put
aside the problems and simply enjoy the sort of visual pyrotechnics
that made Woo famous in the first place. This includes a rather
thrilling motorcycle chase, a slow-motion fistfight on the beach
that’s staggeringly similar to the final scene of
“Face/Off,” and a gunfight in a biotech company’s
office in which, amazingly, not a drop of blood is shed.
Though it may sound gruesome in the wake of real-life shootings
like Columbine, sometimes a film like this needs to be honest,
forego the milder rating that would certainly attract more
teenagers, and show the audience what it wants to see. Instead,
during the entire running time of “M: I-2,” you can
almost feel John Woo holding back, not doing what he really wants
to do to please star and producer Cruise. And it’s this odd
lack of any sense of self that ruins what could have been a fun
popcorn movie.
Audiences really looking for a fun action movie this Memorial
Day weekend would be better served by the already-playing
“Gladiator” or the Jackie Chan western-comedy
“Shanghai Noon,” both of which provide more thrills and
entertainment than this tepid disappointment.
FILM: “M:I-2″ opens in theaters nationwide
today.