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Saw "Mission Impossible 2" last night and thought it was a very mixed bag. John Woo wanted to abandon the remnants of the TV show's style and emphasis character development in this film; even hired Robert Towne to write the screenplay. The penalty here is that the pace slows way down and there is very little action in the first two-thirds of the film. The action in the climax is both abundant and spectacular, but I kept getting the feeling that I'd seen this film before ("Goldeneye" is very similar and Woo should consider directing a Bond flick). This is also a Cruise/Ethan Hunt-dominated flick; the other team members are minor players.The big problem for me, considering the time spent on character development, is that I never felt sympathy for the characters (this melodrama is a key element in most John Woo films) because they have not suffered a great emotional loss (e.g., Travolta's daughter was killed by Castor Troy in "Face/Off"). Even "MI1" made Ethan Hunt's character a vulnerable one, as he was betrayed by both Phelps and his employer.
If this is the best of the summer films, we are in for a pretty bad season.
How come in MI2 it's summer in both Utah and Austalia?
Probably the same reason why an apparently useless "Chimera" virus (quick host mortality, low communicability, bloodborne transmission) is touted as a biological weapon. Couldn't be airborne or else those plane hijackers would all be infected, along with anyone else near the infected scientist and the girl. How many people do you exchange blood with in twenty hours?
I thought that it just spent the first 20 hours in the usual dormant stage that most virii go through when they first enter their host. But now that you mention it, that does leave precious little time for the virus to spread. And of course virii do not have little synchronized swiss chronographs by which they time their lives. In virri, these times are simply statistical means. Which is to say, of course, that there would have been about a 50-50 chance that the girl would have passed the point of no return before being injected with the cure. (and since when do virii have cures beyond a vaccine? and since when do vaccines work after exposure?) And since such numbers are merely statistical means, one must ask the question as to who was infected with the virus in order to allow them to observe a statistically meaningful population sample?
Two great reviews, both well worth looking up: Duncan Shepard in sdreader.com (he's the greatest!) and Tony Lane in the June 5 New Yorker.
...I was pleasantly surprised. It is only a summer action flick but I found it the most succesful film Woo has done in Hollywood. I know lots of folks want non stop action in these things, but I liked the pacing and found Cruise a much more interesting character than in MI1. In fact I found this flick to be much better than MI1 in most every way. No, its not realistic in any way, and yes its got the hyperstylized Woo action sequences, and yes you can see every plot twist coming a mile away - but somehow it worked for me for what it is and I'm gald I saw it (did I just say that?)joe
I believe that was Travota's son killed in Face Off as I went to school was his father.
Thanks for the review. Pinning my hopes for the summer on "Perfect Storm." Was a great book.
Yeah, I'll be waiting on The Perfect Storm as well. As a side note, one thing I'll be curious to see is how big Diane Lane's role is. I thought she gave one of the best lead actress performances I'd seen in a long time in Tony Goldwyn's "A Walk on the Moon," but nobody else seems to want to give her a lead role. Maybe she needs a new agent--In the last 5 years I can only remember seeing her as the afterthought mom-character in two lame kids' films ("Jack" and "My Dog Skip"), and as a cop in the Wesley Snipes flop "Murder at 1600." Seems to me she's talent in need of a good script.....wonder if the "Perfect Storm" role will be meaty enough....?- Dave
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