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Mission Impossible 2

Mission Impossible 2

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: ...
Review: I'm a huge John Woo fan and I enjoyed many of Tom Cruise's films. After seeing Broken Arrow and Face/Off, I truly believed Woo will be able to make top notch action flicks like he used to back in Hong Kong. However, even the most spectacular action sequences in the world can not make up for shallow minded storylines that seem to be a symptom suffered by many big-budget Hollywood productions these days. Rumor has that the original uncut version of Mission Impossible 2 turned out to be over 3 hours long and received an R-rating. This was not very marketable during the extremely competitive summer season where young teenagers made up the mass majority of the movie goers. Another fact was that John Woo was not involved with the editing at all. So you eliminate a hour worth of original storylines and cut out every sequences showing any sign of blood from a John Woo film. What do you have left? A piece of fancy looking garbage that will forever haunt the reputation of Woo as a masterpiece action film director.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Typical sequel quality
Review: This movie is a tad stinky. But of course, this is coming from somebody who thought the first movie was a complete waste of time. Well, the bright folks in Hollywood decided to torture us again, with an equally poor effort. Like the first one, the first hour has absolutely nothing going on, except for a lot of hi-tech mumbo-jumbo and cloudy character development. You have to put up with a lot of pointless developments, bad acting and a plodding script to get to the action. By the time the far-fetched final motorcycle chase comes along - which seems to last for aeons - you're too bored to care about the exciting and innovative stunts. The stunts certainly are impressive, and there are a lot of things that go 'boom', so fans of stupid movies may be satisfied. But stunts and exploding rubble make not a good movie. The humourous cliche-fest of a script ('the clock is ticking') and terrible acting are tolerable in a movie of this nature, but there are too many other things wrong with this movie. The Thandie Newton character is dull, cardboardy, and doesn't have much to do other than look pretty or violent, and the same can be said for Tom Cruise, and basically everyone else. In fact, only the Anthony Hopkins character (who gets about 2 minutes of screen time) is remotely likeable. In short, you find yourself not rooting for anyone, because you don't care about anyone. Also, the plot can be compared directly to swiss cheese - as in, it's full of holes. And the incredibly boring first two thirds of the movie are just dreadful. The thin plot progresses in a lethargic and confusing manner. The deadly virus theme - which has been used a million times before - is a pretty lame excuse for flying motorcycles and exploding things. And really, the exploding things aren't all that exciting after the five-billionth movie. Do yourself a favour and turn to ABC or CBS to meet the standards of high-quality film-making.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Another Woo Classic
Review: The best so far of the Mission Impossible Series. Excellent work by John Woo.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: weak action genre entry
Review: John Woo's "Mission: Impossible 2" represents much that is wrong with commercial moviemaking today. Though proficient on the levels of technical expertise, visual design and state-of-the-art special effects, the film emerges as little more than a multimillion dollar exercise in cold efficiency, devoid of humor, suspense and, above all, heart. Thus, while countless superior films - films that attempt to make some connection with the reality of the human condition - languish at the box office, "Mission: Impossible 2" and other films if its ilk play to packed movie houses. Do people really enjoy this film, or are they just suckered into believing that any film that is sold as an "event" picture - particularly one that stars the ubiquitous Tom Cruise - must by its nature be worth the price of admission?

"Mission: Impossible 2" features an opening credit sequence that proves that just because something "can" be done doesn't necessarily mean that it "should" be done - a warning filmmakers should heed now that, with computer graphics, virtually every situation imaginable has become possible to visualize convincingly. We are reintroduced to Cruise's spy character as he is climbing up the face of a sheer cliff sans ropes or cables. Although the shot looks absolutely convincing from a technical standpoint, we simply cannot believe that anyone in his right mind would be doing what he is doing - or even if those actions are themselves within the realm of physical possibility. From its opening note then, "MI 2" informs us that it is not concerned in any way with making everything we see believable and involving. As a result, we tune out, detaching ourselves from the events on the screen, becoming disinterested bystanders of a trite espionage scenario that, for all its visual finesse, is strangely lacking in creativity and passion.

The first "Mission: Impossible" film, made in 1996, may have been a monument to incoherence, but at least it half redeemed itself by offering two spectacular and unforgettable action set pieces - Cruise's dangling marionette act and a mano-a-mano fight atop a roaring, supersonic train. The sequel offers no such action scene equivalents. The car chase early in the film between Cruise and the sexy thief he is pursuing is a yawn-inducing bore compared to the ones in the exciting "Ronin" from a few years back. The shootouts are equally undistinguished, far below par for a Woo film.

Like many films that rely so heavily on special effects and action sequences, "MI 2" never exerts the slightest effort to flesh out its many characters. One would expect that a writer with the talent and track record of Robert Towne (he wrote "Chinatown" for heavens sake) would at least be able to provide some character dimension even within the tight confines of the action genre. Unfortunately, all the characters emerge as cardboard cutout figures, substituting coolness and slickness for personality and depth. Cruise and Thandie Newton generate zero chemistry in the romance department, and John Polson seems woefully inadequate as the film's main villain.

If you must check "MI2" out, by all means do. Just know that there are a lot more interesting, much less heralded films out there more worthy of your time and attention.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: better fighting than normal
Review: Tom Cruise is damn good. And I liked his realistic, dirty fighting style. Can you imagine Roger Moore fighting like that, even as James Bond? I think not.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Terrible movie!
Review: What an unbelievable disappointment! This movie was a joke, a cut-rate piece of schlock that had absolutely nothing to do with Mission Impossible (the first movie or the series). It's hard to believe this was such a commercial success; guess Tom Cruise can really bring 'em in, even when he's in robot mode. This is two hours of precious time you can't get back; don't waste 'em on this piece of garbage.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mission Miss Movie
Review: Sean Ambrose is a member of the IMF team turned traitorand has stolen a deadly virus. Ethan Hunt leads his IMF team to re-capture and destroy the deadly German virus before it's too late.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: You've got to be kidding me!
Review: Instructions for making a rubbish movie:

1) Recycle the plot and script details from a selection of recent films. Suggest: the characters and script from 'Entrapment' (also a dreadful mess), and the plot details from 'Goldeneye' - shockingly similar lead hero, heroin and villain. Ensure that NO characterisation is present in the script. Do NOT reveal crucial details of villain's background that would explain his actions, and make the film more entertaining. Ensure every one-liner is laughably bad, and that the script has no direction, intelligence or originality, and is FULL of holes.

2) Cast a terrible actor as the villain, and a love interest who is content to stand still with her hair blowing in the wind, and pretend its a performance. Normally accent does not affect a performance, unless needed for historical or geographical accuracy. But in this case, the film-maker must cast an actor, with a STUPID accent, which renders any half-decent dialogue (although to be fair there should be none) obsolete because every word sounds lame.

3) Insert a slow motion sequence every few seconds - including shots which would be naturally slow. Ensure these sequences include: purposeless gadgets (which are only there to serve product placement) and various animals, including the essential, and symbolic doves (very deep... NOT!).

4) In a sequel, make the lead character completely different from the original character - in physique, behaviour and attitude. And change the format from 'a member of an elite team' to 'a Bond-style lone agent'. To save face insert a token 'team' comprising of a race stereotype and one member of the original cast, who must be ritually humiliated and pitifully reduced to comic-relief, filling his only screen time with comments on the detrimental affect 'this assignment' has to his designer clothes.

5) Create a trailer that makes the film look really exciting and entertaining, just to make the inevitable critical panning all the more irritating.

6) As a final finger up to the viewing public, cast a well respected actor in a small cameo, and make him recite a pathetic sound byte about the meaning of the word 'holiday' no less than 3 times throughout the course of the film, making him look ridiculous.

'MI2' cost over $100 million to make. And it is cheap. It is boring. It is vapid and lifeless. And most of all its just badbadbad. Thank all-mighty god Scott wasn't Wolverine. After 'Eyes Wide Shut' and 'Magnolia' Cruise shouldn't have lowered himself to this. And you couldn't go much lower. It's not even worth 1 star.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Huge Disappointment
Review: This movie really stunk !!! Great action scenes, but nothing else. If you like good cinema with an engaging story, skip this movie. This best thing about this movie is Thandie Newton.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: boring
Review: i am disappointed in paramount for allowing the MI series to go in this direction, the James Bond direction. are they just trying to woo (no pun intended) the james bond crowd?

they have taken the central idea in MI and made it into a one man show. the original series was a TEAM effort, and the first movie still had a team effort, even though the team was decimated at the beginning. also, the tv show tested your brain capacity somewhat, which the first MI succeeded very well--how many had to see it three times in order to get what the hell just happened--but this one was so straight forward, it was boring.

simply put, it was boring. don't buy it.


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