Mission: Impossible II

Dir: John Woo

2000

*

1996's Mission: Impossible was a risk that paid off. Reworking and adapting a much-loved TV show isn't something that should be approached lightly, it really was in the 90's and 00's but somehow Mission: Impossible came out of it unscathed. Brian De Palma and Tom Cruise made a half decent action/espionage/thriller and the general public would once more hum the 'da da dada, da da dada, didido dididoo da da' theme whenever they were doing anything that involved movement. It was decided that a new director would take the helm from Brian De Palma in order to keep the franchise fresh, however, they unfortunately handed the project over to John Woo. Woo had seen success in the west with Broken Arrow (guilty pleasure) and Face/Off (amazing the first time you see it, almost unwatchable all these years later). Woo's style sums up everything I hate about action films made around this era. It shouldn't have even been the big action film is was in the first place. Screenwriter Robert Towne reported that he was hired to write a story around the action sequences that had already been decided on, something he said was near impossible to achieve with any real integrity. The action sequences are indeed impressive but it soon becomes overkill. The espionage that made the first film so popular was almost completely gone and the 'team' element that made the original so good was replaced with what is essentially a one man show. The acting is fairly awful and I didn't like any of the new cast. It was intended to be something even more exciting than the first but instead it became tiresome, boring even, within the first twenty minutes. I'm amazed they continued with the franchise, I guess it still made money but the whole thing is a mess. I remember rocking out to the Limp Bizkit rocking reworking of the theme song, a sad state of affairs when that is the only thing I can look back upon with fond memory.