Review of Mission: Impossible II (2000) by Viniciusbrito — 27 Jul 2018

A scientist creates a virus named Chimera together with it's antidote, turns out that it got stolen by some terrorists that are led by an ex-agent. Ethan Hunt with his team need to develop a plan, to find out where the guy is and recover the virus, while the terrorist is planning to spread the virus around the country and then the whole world, for finally he can be able to sell his antidote and get a millionaire man. Directed by John Woo.

The premise of this movie is very cliche and nothing exciting, the structure in this one is very conventional. The story of the movie is very simple, and is very purchasable, you can believe in what is happening, the main plot is one that sustains itself, but isn't special in any part, wich would depend of the development of it to become somethings really nice, but overall it is very silly, the villain until some point make sense, but at the very end it just become ridiculous, like they did forgot something. At the beginning they trie to force a relationship that it was way to fast and not very nicely done. They even keeped the same kind of team from the previous movie, a guy in a helicopter and other in a van with the computer, it wasn't bad, but definely not the best thing. The villain is completely unilateral, he didn't had different aspects or layers he is just one thing. The movie got some plot twists involving the masks, but also was very used in the first movie, I personally didn't bough those twists, but I can't lie that some of them were pretty cool, I just can't imagine how they have a mask of everybody that exists, it felt wrong, but it was nice. There are some good sequences, some fun moments with the right suspension of disbelief or even not. There is one sequence wich is a fear of getting cough that they worked with it very well, cameras, sounds and the right amount of subtleties.

I believe that the actors delivered very well what they had in their hands. Tom Cruise was able to maintain the Ethan Hunt that he first created a few years ago, he could still be sarcastic with those random smiles and also could be serious and demonstrate concern. Thandie Newton also did a good job, she could convince as a thief credited, she expressed confidence and cleverness in her voice, even that in some dramatic moments it didn't convinced me that much, she did a good job. Dougray Scott had one job, be a unilateral villain that wanted to be rich doing bad things, it wasn't the better of the characters, but he did what he could. Ving Rhames is back as Luther, he wasn't so nice as in the first one, but he was very functional and gave me some nice laughs, he convinced in doing his things and gave some nice dramatic partis with his concern in his voice. John polson was more of a relief comic, he worked, gave me some laughs and was the conveyor for the group. Anthonny Hopkins is also in this movie, he doesn't have much to do, but the few time that he is in, I gotta say the he worked considering what he had to do.

The action in this movie was just awful, I hate when they start to make the character do some acrobatics fights just to make it look cool, because it looks ridiculous mostly of the time, when someone needs to punch the other to knock him down, and instead of just do it, he does a back flip first and then strikes him, for me that is terrible. In some moments they use a slow motion to put some drama in the action, but for me it didn't worked out every time, in some moments it just feels ridiculous. They had some decides in the action scenes that I really couldn't understand, it had some really nonsense scenes that was simply ugly, I didn't liked how it was shooted, to much cuts, it couldn't let me feel the sequence, there somethings with cars and motorcycles that was really breathtaking in some moments, but not in the good way. There was some ok moments of gun fire, or a invasion moment, but still, everything is so unrealistic that feels out of place considering how did the first movie make.

The cinematography lost that tense aspect, that was using dutch cameras for discovery and unconfortable moments for the character, a camera that really talked to us, in this one that almost never happens, the movie use some zoom in moments, wich work, so as some slow motion moments that mostly of the time felt goofy.

The soundtrack in this one had a little change, the main theme is pretty much the same, but now, they put it in a guitar, wich sounded great, and it combined with the more accelerated style of the movie. This movie have some many flaws in the story, it is a simply and silly one. The action scenes aren't good and there is so many bad use of resources here. But even with that you can find some nice moments, it is that bad movie that can make you smile sometimes.