Right OK as good as my word I'm now onto part 2 of my look at the Mission Impossible Tom Cruise movie franchise which will cover Mission Impossible II or as it was also known M:I-2! So without further ado let's give this un a looksee...
So the story begins with Ethan Hunt (Cruise again) being interrupted during his vacation (rockclimbing) by the IMF who inform him that someone has assumed his identity to assist a Russian bio-chemical expert Dr Vladmir Nekhrovich (Rabe Serbedzija) to enter the United States, however the doctor is killed by the person assuming Ethan's identity who reveals himself to be wearing a face mask of Ethan. The man in question is Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) who is a former rogue IMF agent who then crashes the plane they are on enroute to the US. Ambrose himself is after a chemical bio-virus called Chimera which he intends to sell on for a large sum of money and with IMF now concerned it will fall into the wrong hands, send Ethan after Ambrose to stop him after he is debriefed by his mission commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins, god these characters have some good names!). Along the way Ethan receives help from Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) a professional thief whom he has a dalliance with on first meeting her in Seville. Nyah also happens to be an ex-girlfriend of Ambrose's and Ethan convinces her to help them in an effort to get to Ambrose and Ethan also receives help from his former co-worker, Luther Stickell (Vingh Rhames) as well as a new operative, a sarcy Aussie pilot, Billy Baird (John Polson). And its up to Ethan to try and stop Ambrose from his schemes and to recover the Chimera virus safely.
There is no doubt that Mission Impossible II is the weakest film in the series as it lacks much of the suspense and fun that MI-1 had to it. Yet it does get off to a good start with the film's impressive opening sequence with Ethan doing some rock climbing while on vacation, which was in fact a stunt that carried out by Cruise himself. And what almost makes the film appealing is in fact the chemistry between Ethan and the saucy and feisty Nyah which works very well in the film. But one of the problems is the fact that M:I-2 really doesn't have an effective villain as Sean Ambrose is hardly the stuff of an effective and chilling bad-ass and morely just a moody Scotsman! (and I'm Scottish myself!) which was also a similar problem with the first film as well with Jon Voight's rather ineffective character and it would take until MI3 for them to sort that out, but I will get to that later.
Quickly getting onto the performances Cruise does actually fair well again in his role as Ethan Hunt and this time he underplays the role nicely and get's a bit further away from the cocky young upstart we still seen traces of in the first film. Cruise still also has some good moments in the film such as his opening scene where Ethan goes rock climbing but the IMF interrupt him and he receives a message from them about a mission in which his superior says "You should let us know where you are going if you are on holiday" and Ethan says "If I let you know where I'm going, I won't be on holiday!". Cruise also shares a nice onscreen chemistry with Thandie Newton as the two of them have an amusing scene together at the start where Ethan tests her skills as thief as she tries open a container whilst they are in very close contact with one another! And later on they flirt dangerously with one another as they race each other on the roads in Seville before Nyah nearly runs her car off the road! And lastly Cruise also has a good fight scene at the end with Dougray Scott as Ethan and Ambrose finally clash with one another in a lengthy fight on a beach.
Thandie Newton does really well here with her performance as Nyah and she is arguably the best perfomer in the film as her character is easily the most colourful and interesting (as well as sexy!) one in the film and its just a shame that Thandie wasn't given a better film to put her talents to good use. And as already mentioned Thandie and Tom lend a nice chemistry to the film as Ethan and Nyah spark well off one another and its a shame in a way that the film's material ultimately let's them both down. Dougray Scott on the other hand is easily the weakest link here (goodbye!) in the cast as his villain Sean Ambrose fails to convince on any level really. Scott still has one or two moments in the film that allow for brief moments of amusement such as the scene where he confronts Ethan in the labs as Ethan is set to destroy the Chimera virus and he says to Ethan "You still can't stop grinning for 15 minutes at a time!" and the scene where he uses a device for cutting off the ends of cigars on his own henchman and nearly snips off his finger.
As for the other performances Vingh Rhames nicely resumes his role as Luther Stickell although he isn't given much to do here and again he is let down by the poor material given when a character as fun as Luther should be given something better to work with. John Polson on the other hand is actually just plain annoying in his role as the cocky Aussie pilot, Billy Baird who helps out Ethan and he resorts to using some bland one-liners, which really don't add to the film in any way that is amusing or interesting. And lastly Anthony Hopkins is criminally underused in the film as the ridiculously named Commander Swanbeck but again its probably just as well as the film script wise doesn't really offer a great deal to the other actors either.
Which brings me onto the director John Woo, who surprisingly falls flat here as despite the film's pretty decent climactic fight scene between Ethan and Ambrose and Ethan and Nyah's dangerous flirtations on the roads of Seville, he doesn't really execute the film's other action scenes that well, which given his reputation as an action director is something I thought I would never say! The film's music score on the other hand is one of the film's aspects which fares better as Hans Zimmer provides a pretty decent one for the film although the inclusion of Lisa Gerard (who Zimmer collaborated with on the soundtrack for Gladiator) singing over certain scenes seems a bit out of place here.
Which leads me toward the flaws of MI2 and does it have any???? Yep, well I've already intimated at them but it has to be said the main problem with the film is the story is in itself pretty turgid and uninteresting and the screenplay (written by Robert Towne who has in his time written some classics such as Chinatown) is also rather trite, cliched and banal sounding leaving the actors with little to work with. The film also suffers from a mediocre villain in Sean Ambrose which I've already mentioned who appears to be more just a moody Glaswegian who just loves the chance to beat up on somebody (including his own men!). The film's so called plot twists are also entirely predictable as well as there is an overabundance of either Ethan or Ambrose using face masks of the other to pretend they are one another or someone else and it pretty soon get's old. And overall there is just no real sense of fun in MI2 and it morely just leaves the viewer a bit cold, bored and uninterested by the end of it all.
So that's it for my look at Mission Impossible II, which was a big disappointment after the very entertaining first film, which is just as well that Mission Impossible III rectified that nicely, which I will get on to on another night.
But until then I'll leave it for now and bid yee goodnight!
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