Mission: Impossible II (2000)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2000
	Director: John Woo (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, Paycheck)
	Actors: Tom Cruise (Day of Thunder, Cocktail, The Firm), Dougray Scott (Hitman), Thandie Newton (The Pursuit of Happiness, The Chronicles of Riddick), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs)
	Country: D, USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Ethan Hunt (Cruise) assembles a team to retrieve a deadly virus stolen by a rogue agent (Scott).
Review: I borrowed the Blu-ray box-set of the Mission:Impossible quadrilogy to a friend, as I already own the slow and classical first movie and the excellent forth one (reviewed here). I remembered the two middle episodes to be mediocre, and was pleasantly surprised to see that at least this one, directed by a John Woo at the top of his Hollywood career, is not so bad in spite of some nonsense towards the end. You do get the slow motion gun drawings and pigeons taking off dear to the director, embedded in the universe established in the first episode, in a second movie revolving around the megalomaniac super star Tom Cruise. He is even producing the movie to make sure we always see him at his best, and we do: perfectly good-looking, nice haircut, nice muscles, a beautiful female partner at is side (Thandie Newton that could be mistaken for Zoe Saldana), irreproachable morale. The story of the rogue agent is often used in spy movies (Bond, Bourne...). The rhythm of the movie is as I like it: slow at the beginning and followed by good action scenes at increasing frequency. The love story is a bit cheesy and shows its Asian influences but that's all right. Finally not a bad spy/action movie, compared to what was produced in the following decade. Unfortunately the end abuses of all the elements introduced in the movie: Tom Cruise + slow motion + guns + the girl + the elite team + the vaccine + motorbikes + helicopters. That's too much.
Rating: 5 /10