Mission: Impossible II

The second word is the key. It's about impossible, not possible. John Woo's film is all about feel. All about rotating cameras, and pyrotechnics, and slow motion explosions, Hans' Zimmer's energetic score, sparks, winces, blows. Yes, there is a story, cobbled together from older, better thrillers, but the shiny new face is what they bring to the table. It's easily mocked (I thought I was seeing a serious version of Get Smart), but it is, after all, impossible. Tom Cruise is once more Ethan Hunt, and Thandie Newton is Nyah, the Ingrid Bergman figure.

I do not say this lightly. She is told by the man she loves to seduce Sean, the villain she used to love, and retrieve a dangerous biological weapon that both men are after. After scenes at the horse races and the Impenetrable Compound, she inevitably finds herself in terrible danger, and Cary Grant Tom Cruise has to save her.

But wait! There's more!

Conflict is now delineated through a great many gunfights, chases, heists, and explosions. Plainly impossible things occur. There is an odd couple: Billy, the Scotch-Irish guy, and Luther, the annoyed black guy. The Scientist is of course killed off in the first scene. The spies use fairly ridiculous costume changes and contortions (literally.) As is required, Nyah plays hard to get, she embarks in an obligatory duel, and Hunt has the chance to kill Sean but of course doesn't, in a third act consisting entirely of a spectacular chase across the outskirts of Sydney.

In a film this ridiculous, you need actors with a sense of effortless charm. The only actor who consistently maintains that presence was Anthony Hopkins, and he was onscreen for all of four minutes. This makes all the filler between the fights painful, endless, and pointlessly confusing. Guys, the obligatory scene where the hero wakes up after a one-night stand with his girl is not sexy. Not after we've seen a three-minute kiss. Every element of this story has been done a billion times. Better. We don't need a mishmash, done worse.

For example, how does the MacGuffin, called Chimera, spread? Is it from blood to blood, and if so, why do they expect all Sydney to catch it from Nyah? Is it through the air, and if so, why isn't Tom dead? What is it with the masks? Are you just trying to jerk us around? And what is the CEO, John C. McCloy, doing there, exactly?

But just as you can have a great music and a terrible plot, this film has great action and a terrible story. It doesn't save the film, but God, what pyrotechnics! I don't mean the terrible first moments on a plane or the climb in Utah, however famous it is. I don't even mean the start of the heist. I'm talking about the gunfight in the corporation's Australian HQ, a shower of bullets and sparks, and the motorcycle getaway that involves an untold number of cars, trucks, guns, punches, and explosions. That's where Woo's forte really is, and that's where he delivers.

Sean's death scene was still a dirty trick though.