Mission: Impossible 2 Is John Woo Turned All the Way Up
The setup
Ethan Hunt is sent to recover a deadly engineered virus called Chimera from rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose, with professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall caught between them.
Mission: Impossible 2 is filled with slow motion scenes, motorbikes, explosions, leather jackets, doves flying through doorways and Tom Cruise doing everything with the confidence of the coolest guy on earth. Its completely over the top and crazy but its such a fun movie.
John Woo’s style is all over this movie. Everything is dramatic. People don’t just walk into rooms, they make an entrance, and fights are full on performances. Sure, some parts get a bit ridiculous and unbelievable, like the motorbike duel and the clash in mid air which definitely would have killed both guys, but dont look for plotholes. Just enjoy the ride and have a good time.
Having Limb Bizkit involved with Take A Look Around is possibly the most year 2000 thing ever. The song suits this movie down to a T. Theres no way one of the recent entries would have decided "let's get Fred Durst in on this" it would come across as ridiculous but this movie it works perfectly.
MI2 definitely escalates the nonsense into increasingly ridiculous territory toward its conclusion, but it gives us the best face mask reveal of the entire franchise. Seeing Ethan run out of that bunker and ripping the mask off in slow motion then kicking into that limp bizkit track. Literal chills.
If MI2 isn’t one of the weirdest movies in the MI series I don’t know what is! You can pretty much just call it an overly dramatic John Woo style action flick that just so happened to feature Tom Cruise playing Ethan Hunt!
Sure, we could talk about how it’s not subtle, or realistic, but that’s kind of its whole point right? It really does have some stylish flair and it sure looks like tons of fun. And most of all? It goes for ridiculous coolness whenever possible.
Positives
John Woo's action style, the motorcycle chase, Tom Cruise fully committing to the physical stuff, a gloriously over the top final act.
Negatives
Slow first half, weak romance, the virus plot is fairly basic, the style can become exhausting.
Verdict
Messy, excessive and very much a product of 2000, but it is so committed to being ridiculous that there is still fun to be had with it.
