Mission: Impossible II

Thanks to the fact that the Mission: Impossible franchise changes the director with every instalment, it retains not only its freshness, but also its connection to the current trends in Hollywood cinema. None of the directors works in isolation, as each of them fits into a particular period of Hollywood cinema. Whereas the franchise began to significantly foreshadow trends starting with the third film, M:I-2 now seems like a bitter relic of the decade that it capped off. The revisionism in which a Bond-esque hero falls in love is reduced, with typical ’90s overdone cool machismo, to a ridiculous fairy tale about love at first superficial sight. John Woo's excessively theatrical and gracefully formalistic style is freed from the charged fatefulness of archetypal values and urgency of his Hong Kong films of the time and becomes an unintentionally humorous quirk. It would be nice to celebrate the stylistic freedom and formalism that replace symbolism and formulas, but due to the combination of those attributes with the intrusive dickishness of most of the characters, the film leaves a rather bitter aftertaste. The attempt to make Ethan Hunt an icon of coolness further fails thanks to the futile screenplay, exaggeration to the point of parody, and the cartoonishly overwrought antagonist with perhaps the least charisma ever seen in a movie. Mission: Impossible II is now a frightening reminder of how desperately formulaic and self-regardingly bombastic Hollywood blockbusters were until relatively recently. Not that there aren’t still devotees of the tendency to make dickishness a priority in the 1990s or that today’s sophistication doesn’t frequently slide into self-centred masturbation, but Hollywood’s flagship films are now navigating different waters. After all, the latest instalment of the franchise, Rogue Nation, exhibits a number of parallels with M:I-2, particularly the “bold” villain and the protagonist’s relationship with his ambivalent female colleague. Thanks to the consistent rejection of the superficial and, conversely, the consistent development of the character, as well as the screenplay, which carefully straddles the line between fatefulness and dashing humour, it avoids all of the ridiculous ills of the era when women automatically fell into the arms of the protagonists and the heroes fought angry retributive duels with evil villains. (03/09/2015)

Predictable plot and a bunch of all sorts of stupid clichés (I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen a main villain aiming at the protagonist and instead of immediately pulling the trigger, he starts talking) that I dislike so much. Moreover, the Hollywood air doesn't really suit John Woo, the action sequences are rather lame for a filmmaker of his calibre (except maybe the final chase) and I don't believe Cruise as a super agent. As a typical brainwasher, M.I.II is passable in those two hours, but it doesn't impress with anything. The 550 million box office returns worldwide is a bit of a mystery to me. (30/04/2005)

It has a very dumb script (even for an action film), a good cast, but it doesn't show anything for the whole runtime, so even a couple of pretty "cool" action scenes don't pull it out of mediocrity. Woo has no need for such useless and uninteresting films, and he's needlessly tarnishing his reputation on them. (29/04/2005)

John Woo knows how to make a scene impactful, but somehow he has forgotten how to make the whole film interesting. Some scenes are surprisingly drawn-out and tiring, which also affects the jokes that lack the right punch. Tom Cruise is suited for this role, but the face swapping was overly exaggerated in this case. The film is too long to truly entertain throughout its entirety. (06/05/2014)

From a negative attitude to a positively tuned tolerance to a surprised admiration. The way Woo reimagined the series is unparalleled, but we can thank him for the number of spent bullets hiding in each adventure. Lots of action, style or slow-motion scenes, excessively emotional dialogues bordering on B-movie romance, and Ethan Hunt in the role of an unstoppable Mohican. Everything slightly beyond the acceptable cheesy factor - and yet this part is the one I have seen the most. (12/05/2006)