John Woo is a VERY different director than Brian De Palma. In fact you might call him a polar opposite in style. Before he retreated from Hollywood in the mid-2000s he was known for being extremely what the kids today would call “extra”. Every shot of his was so polished, every colour so vivid, every stylistic flourish so big -his action scenes designed with an eye for what looks cool above all else; his camera almost never stops, his use of slow-motion matched in excess only by his sped-up transitions and particular insistence on the aesthetic necessity of doves in his action climaxes. Mission: Impossible 2 is maybe the pinnacle of John Woo’s artistic singularity, at least as far as his Hollywood career goes, and for that reason it might have the distinction of being simultaneously the most memorable and most forgettable movie of this series.
Mission: Impossible 2 has several visuals and stylized characteristics that will never leave you, whether you’ve seen the movie or not (I certainly recognized a few), but just about everything around the plot and the characters for this one is unremarkable. It deals a lot in bioscience and disease engineering, which ought to be interesting, but never quite manages to find a compelling hook -especially with the main villains being just more turncoat IMF agents with very weak motivations. The heroes aren’t all that much more engaging either, with even the couple returning characters feeling shallow. I understand why this movie is often considered the weakest of the series -and yet it can’t really be dismissed for how insanely hard John Woo goes with the stuff he really cares about.
The movie opens with the death of a pharmaceutical scientist and old friend of Ethan Hunt played by Rade Šerbedžija, attempting to deliver both a virus and its’ cure into the hands of the IMF after learning his employer intends to manufacture it as a biological weapon. But his contact with Ethan turns out to be a rogue IMF agent in disguise (they use those face masks a lot in this movie), Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) who makes off with the weapon. The real Hunt is then recruited to recover the materials with the aide of Ambrose’s ex-girlfriend and professional thief Nyah (Thandiwe Newton).
One of the most recognizable sequences from this movie is that pre-credits recruitment of Hunt that is peak turn-of-the-millennium flashiness and peak John Woo. Tom Cruise is reintroduced with his Vanilla Sky hair precariously scaling a mountain (potentially Cruise’s first death-defying stunt of the series) before he is cornered by IMF helicopters and receives his orders via specialized sunglasses that then explode when he tosses them at the camera. It’s a cacophony of ridiculous images and I’m not sure how seriously they are to be taken, as the blast effects carry on into the opening titles. Woo’s veneer of rad excess is so pervasive and so comically dated, there is a charm to it. Not once does Hunt ever seem like an agent with a serious organization as he rides his motorcycle in shades and leather jacket or else drag races a colleague while interrogating her from another car. Woo loves his insane vehicle action, it’s a wonder he never made a Fast and Furious movie -famously the climax features Hunt and Ambrose essentially jousting on motorcycle, leaping at each other while their bikes crash and explode. And of course the most ludicrous has to be Hunt kicking a gun from the ground into his hand, in defiance of physics, to deliver the killing blow. I’ll give Woo credit for the inventiveness in these beats, although they only serve to highlight just how much they are overcompensating for a lack of interest anywhere else.
Much as I appreciate some of the garish set-pieces, Woo’s less corny stylish flourish, and what appears to be a third act homage to The Third Man, there isn’t much in the actual narrative that carries dramatic weight. The stakes with the bioweapon are deemed significant only on their own terms, and aside from the corrupt CEO played by Brendan Gleeson, we don’t see much of the effort to exploit the toxin. So instead of deriving drama from this, Woo and returning screenwriter Robert Towne (working off a story by, of all people, Star Trek’s Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore) choose to centre it on the relationship between Hunt and Nyah and Ambrose. As far as the romance goes it gets off to a promising start, with a sexually charged first meeting between Hunt and Nyah that is equal parts cornball and charming. But before long Nyah becomes essentially just a pawn between Hunt and Ambrose, required by the IMF to renew her relationship with her ex as part of the ploy. Newton delivers fairly well for what she has to work with, but it's weak; the investment Hunt has in her is weak, the way it cripples Ambrose is weak. And all this additionally takes away from the work of the rest of the team. Luther Stickell is back, joined by an instantly forgettable Australian pilot, but they hardly register outside of an occasional joke. Having an inkling of how important the team is going to be to these movies going forward it feels especially disappointing they are an afterthought here.
Mission: Impossible 2 is endearing as a time capsule -it’s so radical, in the 90s usage of the term, it could only have come from a few years in the vicinity of the new millennium. It’s neat and goofy for its’ excesses, but has almost no personality outside of that, and honestly might be too sharp a contrast in style and tone to the first film. One could never possibly associate this movie with a 60s TV show! It’s got cool elements, including a great use of a title drop from Anthony Hopkins as the new Mission Commander -which I hadn’t brought up yet. But I have to agree with the masses as to its’ deficiencies. Mission: Impossible 2 has outrageous flourish and a thrilling camp style, but is not altogether good at earning either.
Next week, we’ll see the series take a different approach with a novice movie director by the name of J.J. Abrams in 2006’s Mission: Impossible III.
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