Movie Review: Mission Impossible 2 (2000)

[Brian Fein]

Premise:  A spy attempts to prevent the sale and distribution of an undetectable powerful chemical agent capable of killing a person in a day or two.

Rating: A little too time-sensitive on the cinematography for me but overall a decent story.

This movie wreaked of its time period, as its directorial choices for telling the story made the film as a whole seem like a dated piece.  Ethan Hunt is back, this time trying to track down a biological agent called Chimera that, when injected into a person, can kill them within 36 hours.  However, as this is happening, a bad guy attempts to sell the chemical, and exclusive rights to an antidote, to a major biomedical firm for a big pay day.

The stunts in this film were more akin to a heist movie, skydiving into a narrow window to break into a building.  Try to save the girl at the end who somehow gets herself mixed up in the whole thing.  Prototypical action sequence.  But for me, the photography of the film, and the way the conflicts presented themselves, ruined it for me. 

Slow-motion action moves and facial close ups were plentiful in this movie.  Screams of time-warped 90's action flick.  But I understand, the director is attempting to convey emotion and tension to the audience.  More of the same convoluted implication of major plot points (i.e. not explicitly showing a guy get killed, but seeing a guy pull the trigger and hearing something drop to the ground) makes for the viewer to question what's real.

And this misdirection continues by giving the story-teller an easy out with face swaps.  Your hero got himself into a predicament that seems impossible to get out of?  No problem, just swap his face with someone else.  It seems convenient that Ethan Hunt would be walking around with an encyclopedia of convincing facial prosthetics, just incase he needs to disguise himself (and his voice) like some bad guy.

All too convenient to be believable.

In all, this movie was head and shoulders better than the first Mission: Impossible.  But still had its objections in my view.  However, I can absolutely see how the franchise could evolve into a capable action movie which I'd easily enjoy.  Let's see where this goes...

[Dave Gray]

This is like the red-headed step-child of the MI series.  It has its supporters but is the odd-man out in terms of style.

3 lays the groundwork for modern Mission Impossible, but IMO, 4 is where it really takes off into the crazy stunts.

It's worth noting that (at least from 4 on), everything you see is real.  They aren't using CG.  Tom Cruise is actually doing all of that shit in the real world.  The stuff with heights makes my butthole pucker.