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The "I" in Team
Date of Review: May 29, 2000
This is how it always went:
The leader got the mission. He assigned each member of his team a role according to their specialty. Throw in some gadgets, an amazingly life-like rubber mask, a twist here and there, and the thumping bass line of the theme song, and by the end of the hour, the mission was a success. True, it got predictable, but you could always expect a good deal of ingenuity as the IMF team worked together for the common good. That's how it worked on TV, but its not how it works here.
"Mission: Impossible 2" is a star vehicle. This is Tom's show, no doubt about that. From climbing a sheer rock face with no safety harness (okay, it was digitally painted out) to jumping out of a helicopter to racing a motorcycle, he does it all. Which is great if you're a Cruise fan (and there are one or two of them out there), but it makes you wonder why they even bothered making it a "Mission: Impossible" movie.
The first film was about team dynamics. Ethan Hunt was the pointman for a crack group of spies, but their mission went bad and most every one of his teammates were killed. When he is framed for it, he assembles his own team to find the real traitor. The film was about trust and duplicity, about the nature of putting yourself in other people's hands and what can happen when they turn on you.
The sequel doesn't really have a theme. It's plot is stitched together from a host of old movies, especially Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious." But unlike the Grant/Bergman/Raines triangle of that film, the emotion here is rather flat. The camera adores both Cruise and Thandie Newton, but its not enough for a believable relationship. The story seems overly simplistic as well, as if they got so tired of critics on the last film being confused by the plot that they purposefully dumbed it down.
The standout in this film, though, is John Woo. When the action starts to take off, the film starts to find its momentum. Woo injects his trademark slow-mo gun battles and well-choreographed martial arts, and adds a fantastic car chase that stretches credibility but is certainly engrossing.
But the most disappointing element in the film is the absence of the "Mission: Impossible" team. Ving Rhames barely registers, being stuck behind a laptop computer every time he's on-screen, and the other team member is instantly forgettable. Anthony Hopkins does all right in his brief appearance as the boss, but its not enough.
If they had called the film "The Tom Cruise/John Woo Show," I could understand why they focused on what they did. But they called it "M:I 2," and it doesn't live up to its namesake.
