Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Directed by John Woo
With computer genius Luther Stickell at his side and a beautiful thief on his mind, agent Ethan Hunt races across Australia and Spain to stop a former IMF agent from unleashing a genetically engineered biological weapon called Chimera. This mission, should Hunt choose to accept it, plunges him into the center of an international crisis of terrifying magnitude.
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What critics compared Mission: Impossible II to
Its storyline closely parallels “ Mission: Impossible II ,” and in the last decade and with more those films have leaned into intense pseudo-realistic stunts, where Hobbs and Shaw are something more closely akin to “ Moonraker .”
In a post-superhero summer with no new Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movie — yet hilariously cribbing almost the same plot as M:I-2 — it was only a matter of time before this pair of broad-shouldered box office beefcakes teamed up.
There's a sequence in a stacked car-chase that samples Terminator 2, Mission: Impossible II and The Matrix too.
The hand-to-hand combat is far and away the strongest aspect of the spectacle, and while it’s clear that Black Widow is aiming to emulate the highest points of the Mission: Impossible , Jason Bourne and James Bond franchises through face-swapping and bone-crunching scraps, it’s more like John Woo’s polarizing Mission: Impossible II and The Bourne Legacy , which ironically also had Rachel Weisz and a secret chemical compound driving the narrative.
It’s basically “Mission: Impossible II” minus Tom Cruise and John Woo, plus “Ocean’s Eleven” minus a sense of humor and Las Vegas, plus “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” with Marion Cotillard standing in for Freddy Krueger.
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…only that daft Mission: Impossible II proving to be a DOA dud…
…no maximum blinding movie star hotness from “Mission: Impossible II.”
It’s not because the iconic metal band contributed to the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack.
For one, “Rogue Nation” may have more humor than any of the previous four films combined (though 2000’s “Mission: Impossible II” will always hold the record for unintentional humor.
A late game motorcycle chase is a fond reminder of John Woo’s eternally underappreciated “M:I-2”, Joe Kraemer’s score is lovingly fashioned from that of De Palma’s original film, and Cruise’s instantly famous airplane stunt knowingly ups the “Mission: Impossible” ante in a meaningful way.
That sense of continuity runs throughout the picture, which plays, in spots, like a synthesis of the series to date: the vertigo-inducing set pieces of Ghost Protocol, the hominess of M:I III, an exquisitely stylish and timed-to-the-nanosecond impenetrable fortress penetration sequence in the style of the Langley operation from the original, even a climactic motorcycle chase as a shout-out to the much-derided M:I-2.
Maybe it's gimmicky, but there is an extra kick knowing that the star does so many of his own stunts (recall the cliff-climbing opening of "Mission: Impossible II").
Rather than devolving into a bombastic bore like the overcooked Mission: Impossible II , Rogue Nation so closely follows the gait set by Bird’s outing that further crimes against punctuation are the only thing keeping the title from being Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Part II) .
His chemistry, too, with Hayley Atwell’s thief Grace is a welcome change of pace, somewhat harkening back to black-sheep entry M:I-2 .
I was so enthralled by its clever action and jaw-dropping sense of scale and tangibility with the on-screen stunts performed by Tom Cruise, I soon fell victim to the charms of the rest of the series (sans Mission: Impossible II , which I can’t say I love, but don’t hate as much as others do).
Other than the final act of 2006’s Mission: Impossible III , that latter element has never been too much of an issue, as the charismatic strength of each talented ensemble and the sheer mind-blowing chutzpah of the action scenes have been more than enough to smooth over any rough edges.
The first film was an action-thriller, Mission: Impossible II turned the franchise into a Tom Cruise action vehicle, and every film since Ghost Protocol has had a marquee set piece like climbing the Burj Khalifa and performing a HALO jump into Paris.
Aussie hard man Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh of Mission: Impossible II) leads a team including brash American financier Carl Hurley (FantasticFour’s Ioan Gruffudd) and Frank’s estranged son Josh (Australian Rhys Wakefield, from The Black Balloon).