Sunday, February 7, 2016

Movie Review - "Mission: Impossible II" 05/24/2000

In preparing to watch Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation, I have decided to watch the older MI movies. Link to the first Mission Impossible movie is here. This is the review for the second of the franchise: Mission: Impossible II, released May 24, 2000.




Trailer:



Cast:
Tom Cruise ["Mission Impossible" Ethan Hunt, "Top Gun" Maverick] as "Ethan Hunt"
Thandie Newton ["Chronicles of Riddick" Dame Vaako] as "Nyah Nordoff-Hall"
Ving Rhames ["Mission Impossible" Luther Stickell, "Pulp Fiction" Marsellus Wallace] as "Luther Stickell"
Anthony Hopkins ["Hannibal" and "Silence of the Lambs" Hannibal] as "Mission Commander Swanbeck"
Brendan Gleeson ["Troy" Menelaus, "Braveheart" Hamish] as "John C. McCloy"



Plotline:
Agent Ethan Hunt is back. After receiving a message from Mission Commander Swanbeck, he comes in for the mission. "This is not Mission Difficult, Mr. Hunt. This is Mission Impossible."
I was not pleased with this movie so let's just get down to the nitty gritty. *SPOILERS* MI meets 'Resident Evil', in a pretty badly played out way. The plot is a virus called Chimera and it will kill you, nastily, in a certain amount of time. If you don't get the antivirus within a certain amount of time of contracting the virus, it won't save you. Oh, and who has it but a man who has been a body-double for Ethan Hunt and has recently left the agency: Sean Ambrose. [Who didn't see that one coming, honestly?]
So, let's get a woman who had previous relations with the agent-gone-bad. Good news is she's a fairly strong woman but not as strong as I wish she were. That's to be in the character review of this...



Characters:
Let's start off with the ONLY female in the whole movie: Nyah Nordoff-Hall
*COMMENT NOT PC!*  What is she? Basically a vagina. Nyah is introduced as a good thief that Ethan catches but he only goes after her because she had a relation with the bad agent Sean. So Mission Commander suggests her to get to Ambrose and Ethan falls for her because she is that 'damn hot'. So the main reason for her to be in this plot, after getting Ethan to get his hots for her, is to give Ethan an emotional conflict. One thing that led to her getting together with Ethan was the car chase, spinning around on a dirt road and him saving her from the car. It was VERY pathetic, honestly, and didn't seem realistic.

[In the trailer, there is a woman dancing in a red dress. I thought she'd be an interesting character but we had to go with the thief instead...]

Ethan - Same as the first MI but more egotistical and cocky. In the first movie, he was trying to prove his innocence. In this one, we hear that he has multiple contacts worldwide and he just has a strut that shouts "I'm all that, b***ch*". I would have liked it if they had dealt with that and made him more humble, but that wouldn't work. And all he really learned all movie was the fact that he liked this girl and would like to spend more time with her (no commitments? not sure).

Luther - LUTHER is back! I was so glad that he returned with MI:2 but at the same time, they didn't give him much action. Great vibe from him, though.

Mission Commander - Merely there to give Ethan the mission at the beginning. My least favorite part of this movie was a quote from this man - "To go to bed with a man and lie to him? She's a woman. She's got all the training she needs." WTF was the playwright/producer/director thinking, stereotyping a woman like that! *screams in rage*

Ambrose - Bad dude. Inferiority complex to Ethan and he wants mega loads of money by viral terrorism then selling the cure. No regrets hurting people, not even the gal that he used to like (who showed up out of the blue back in to his life). Like, really dude, get a life and a new job. Why resort to terrorism? It might be money but that's pretty underhanded.




Action -
I was not impressed with the action in this movie. The car chase on a dirt road *almost* sliding off the road, but not, was pretty pathetic. The bike fight / fight in the dirt scenes were BAD. Like "I was ready to turn off my movie" bad but wanted to see how it turned out. How cheesy can you get to have the guy holding on to the motorcycle (or was it a crotchrocket?), feet skidding on the road, and ducking next to the bike to avoid being shot?! I will say it: CRINGE WORTHY!



It took me almost 2 months to do this review because it was so bad. Might give the DVD to a friend of mine who likes action... In my opinion, the first MI movie was WAY better than MI:2. Hopefully they don't progressively get worse as we go through the series.






Criteria:
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, storyline, etc.

My rating: 1/5 - barely worth anything. It would be great if the woman was more than a sex toy prop and if the plot/action was more realistic. If you want to watch this, borrow it from a friend. DON'T spend $$ on this. I regret that I spent the $2 on it from the pawn shop.
That is, unless you are into over dramatized action and "who cares if she is just a sex toy because she's hot".

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