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Review: Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

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Mark R Leeper

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Jul 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM7/20/00
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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2
A film review by Mark R. Leeper

Capsule: What might have been a decent
James Bond film plot (with a little patching)
just shows that the writers do not understand or
want to ignore what a "Mission: Impossible"
script is. See Tom Cruise climb rocks, ride
dirt bikes, and race cars in the name of saving
the free world from a new and deadly virus.
This is a film with a lot of action, a lot of
vanity, and not much thought. Rating: 4 (0 to
10), 0 (-4 to +4) A minor spoiler follows the
main review.

The new "Mission: Impossible" film is out for early summer
audiences. It will have stiff box office competition from Disney's
current DINOSAUR which offers material that will appeal to adults.

Once again we have a "Mission: Impossible" movie without a
"Mission Impossible" plot. What is a "Mission: Impossible" plot?
It is like a jigsaw puzzle. Through most of the plot you see the
pieces being fit together, but you have no idea what they build.
Suddenly toward the end you go through an "Ah-ha!" experience when
you understand what it is all for. Then you see what you built do
its thing. Maybe doing its thing is to make some banana republic
would-be Hitler suddenly appear to have been stealing from the
country's treasury. It is a spy film powered by gray cells instead
of testosterone. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 is as clueless as its
predecessor what its title claims it to be. It is like me saying I
am going to write great romantic sonnets just like Shakespeare, but
I am going to write them in four lines.

Instead of a "Mission: Impossible" plot it has something that
might have worked as a James Bond script. And evens so, it would
have been a Bond script a little heavy on chases and fights. For
too much of the screen time Cruise is just showing off for the
camera. Cruise is trying to be the Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., of our
generation. He wants to be dashing and handsome and superb at any
number of sports. This film is too intent on glamorizing Cruise.

As the story opens we have a scientist in Sydney, Australia,
who had developed a great anti-virus. And to prove the anti-virus
works he has also developed a great deadly virus for his anti-virus
to counter. (Yes, that's what he did.) Now he wants to take the
virus and the anti-virus to the CDC in Atlanta so he injects himself
with the deadly virus. The deadly strain will be benign for exactly
20 hours, then it will attack him like Ebola. Our brilliant
scientist wants to get to Atlanta and inject himself with the anti-
virus and not become the Patient Zero of a virus that could destroy
the world. And what does he do to be sure to get to Atlanta in
time? He boards a commercial air flight. (Is this making sense to
you?) But there are baddies who will stop at nothing to get the
virus and anti-virus. On the commercial plane the pilot happens to
be one of the baddies' gang. (However did they manage that? They
didn't even know what plane he would be taking.) The baddies, led
by Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), seize the biological agents and
escape the plane, leaving it to crash.

The Impossible Mission Force has to call in the vacationing
Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) who is having fun by climbing
about half a mile up a sheer rock face without benefit of equipment.
The IMF brings in Ethan and tells him to pick two team members as
well as recruit a third, one a beautiful jewel thief named Nyah
Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton). (With a name like Nordoff-Hall one
wonders if there was a bounty on her head.) In the best traditions
of Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS, she is asked to go not just under cover
but also between the sheets with former lover Ambrose.

The film stars Tom Cruise as the lead agent of the IMF.
Thandie Newton is a new face and a different one, but she does not
have enough to do on the screen. Tom Cruise plays the athletic
miracle man. In an unbilled role, Anthony Hopkins is around to give
Cruise his orders. Tom Cruise plays the great lover secret agent.
Dougray Scott is a little lackluster for the villain, but perhaps a
lackluster villain is more realistic. Tom Cruise is there as the
quick-thinking super-agent. The Impossible Mission team also has
the talented Ving Rhames returning as Luther Stickell. He gets to
ride a helicopter and shoot a gun. Rounding out the crack team of
four agents was some dude with a thin moustache and beard. I don't
remember if he did anything or had any speaking lines. I seem to
remember he flew the helicopter. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 also
features Tom Cruise.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 was badly in need of another script re-
write, particularly by someone who was a fan of the original series.
John Woo keeps the action coming, but not the intelligence. And Woo
is not able to make the action scenes believable or enjoyable. The
climactic fight is as funny as it is contrived. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
2 is more just a Tom Cruise vanity piece than anything else. I rate
it 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Minor spoiler... Minor spoiler... Minor spoiler... Minor
spoiler...

I am starting to have a real problem with this whole mask
thing. The idea seems borrowed from the opening of FROM RUSSIA WITH
LOVE, where it was fresh. But let us be clear that to masquerade as
someone else with one of these masks requires a lot of preparation
ahead of time. It cannot be easy to make a mask that would fool
someone into thinking they were seeing someone they knew when it was
really someone else. The voice disguise would also take a
tremendous amount of preparation. Probably neither could be done
without the cooperation of the person who is going to be
impersonated. Further, people recognize each other by more than
scent, word-choice, accent, memories, and dozens of other
parameters. The original series used impersonation very, very
sparingly giving the person a lot of preparation time and even then
it was really a credibility stretcher. You do not just attack a
building with a back-pocket full of these impersonation masks ready
to use. In addition dramatically it is a poor idea. It distracts
the audience making them constantly wonder if they really know who
they are looking at or not. The script uses it entirely too
frequently, whenever the writer wants to throw the audience a cheap
and easy curve ball.

Mark R. Leeper
mle...@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper

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