Wednesday 19 August 2009

'Mission: Impossible 2' (Woo, 2000)

A disappointing sequel with a lackluster story and disappointing set pieces. But on the upside, at least Tom Cruise's hair looks great.


To quote Tom Cruise's super-spy Ethan Hunt when sitting down to be told his impossible mission by boss Anthony Hopkins: "You gotta be kidding." If, like me, you were completely intoxicated by the incredible trailer that promised Matrix-like quality and style, then your first viewing of the film was no doubt an experience equivalent to having John Woo carving your heart out of your chest and playing basket ball with it before slam dunking it into the nearest dustbin.

Following Brian De Palma's perfectly crafted cinematic treat, Mission: Impossible (1996), John Woo falls far short of the mark in creating a compelling spy thriller. While ostensibly basing the central plot idea on Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946) with regards to the female lead sent to infiltrate the enemy, Woo is unable to generate even a fraction of the tension or sense of sympathy for the plight of the central characters that the classic masterpiece was able to achieve.

When you hire John Woo for a movie, you do it for one primary purpose - action. Unfortunately, the action in this film feels shoddy. Abortive. Some have commended Woo's invisible use of stunt doubles, but this is rendered irrelevant when considering the rigid, staccato cutting that impedes so many of the scenes. Granted, this may not all have been Woo's fault. The studio was pushing for a PG-13 rating, and anyone who's seen a John Woo movie knows that this is not exactly what he's known for. Last minute cuts no doubt contributed the lost elegance in staging some action scenes, and this must be acknowledged. However, it must be equally acknowledged that the final result is not satisfactory.

In recent years, I have managed to make my peace with the fact that the film is indeed function on the most basic level. It has a discernible plot, solid performances, and a smidgen of emotional development. Insofar as big, brainless blockbusters go, it ticks the necessary boxes. But it doesn't excel. Considering the pedigree of the screenwriters on this movie, this sad fact is also a bewildering one. Robert Towne, whose past screen credits include the script for the seminal Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) and the original Mission: Impossible, drops the ball in a big way. The tight, taught, intelligence with which he wrote the first entry in the series is gone, traded in for broad plot strokes and cliché devices. It is a fall from grace so steep in severity that I am still having a hard time understanding the terrible scale of it.

I will say quite bluntly that this the most disappointing film of my moviegoing life. That's not to say that it is a terrible film, since it is certainly no worse than the solid but safe Summer fare that has always circulated the larger pipelines of the Hollywood machine. But it is a massive step down from the craft and creativity of De Palma's original. If you want to watch a good Hollywood John Woo movie, look no further than 1997's Face/Off.

*****

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