The Big Picture
- Woo's high-flying, action-packed Mission: Impossible 2 stands out as an electrifying entry in a largely serious franchise.
- Critics may have despised the film upon release, yet Woo's nu-metal spy caper turned out to be a smashing hit at the worldwide box office.
- Despite the movie's haters, Mission: Impossible 2 offers a unique and refreshing shot of uncut inspiration in a sea of approved-by-committee action cinema.
The Mission: Impossible movies are often rightfully regarded as the apex of what is possible in contemporary blockbuster filmmaking. Particularly in the wake of Brad Bird’s smashing fourth Mission entry, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – a film whose spectacular alchemy of death-defying stunts, movie-star camaraderie, exotic jet-setting, and the blindsiding magnetism of Tom Cruise helped solidify the template for subsequent entries – these movies have been leading the blockbuster pack. Mr. Cruise has always known what his audience wants, and he’s never been shy about giving it to them. Don’t believe us? Go ahead and check the box office tabs for a little movie called Top Gun: Maverick.
Audience reactions tend to run the gamut on the first three Mission chapters, though all three have their defenders. Brian De Palma’s dazzling 1996 re-imagining, which kick-started the whole thing, almost feels quaint compared to everything that came later. There are not many times when one could think to call De Palma’s film work "quaint," but this would be one of them. Mission: Impossible III is a weirdly turgid, fairly by-the-numbers espionage thriller that is given a boost by a convincingly sinister Philip Seymour Hoffman, making the most out of a rare, scary, albeit underwritten villain role (an unconventional Magnolia reunion with Cruise, one could argue).
'Mission: Impossible 2' Is the Most Misunderstood M:I Installment
Then, of course, there is the delirious, high-flying Mission: Impossible 2, arguably the most misunderstood installment in the entire series. It’s a film that put Hong Kong action legend John Woo in the franchise driver’s seat after the wacky one-two punch of Broken Arrow and Face/Off. This sequel is filled with plenty of the action maestro’s signature gonzo touches, including cartoon gunplay, smoldering matinée idol chemistry, and yes, doves. It’s a big, bold, ridiculous blank check of a film, where deep-seated emotions are expressed via bone-breaking physical action, and the climax does not involve the fate of the world hanging in the balance, but merely two hunks on motorcycles duking it out for our viewing pleasure.
There is a chic, Bond-style sort of cool that becomes more prominent in the Mission movies as the series progresses, particularly since frequent Cruise co-conspirator Christopher McQuarrie, the man Cruise affectionately calls "McQ," who directed Rogue Nation and Fallout, the latter arguably being the single most compelling Mission movie to date, has taken the creative reigns. Woo’s movie is not particularly chic. If anything, the unmistakably 2000s aesthetic of Mission: Impossible 2 is hideously fascinating in a manner that's abstract-bordering-on-hypnotic. Whatever it is, it's the opposite of cool, and that's what's so darn fun about it. Woo is a cheeseball, a born romantic, and a sucker for the big gesture. He helps turn this Mission: Impossible movie into the goofiest entry in a largely serious franchise: an electrifying and refreshingly hot-blooded exhibition of action movie fireworks.
It bears mentioning that the blueprint for what would eventually become the Mission: Impossible in-house style was in no way set in stone, at least not yet. For one, De Palma’s first movie, for all its eye-popping set pieces, is not really an action item. It’s a thriller, in the most classical sense of the world: an analog suspense entertainment that has more in common with North By Northwest than it does with any of the McQuarrie-directed movies. The script for 2 was penned by Hollywood legend Robert Towne (the man behind the likes of Chinatown and Shampoo), with Woo eventually brought in to sub in for De Palma, which gives the sequel more of a pedigree than its detractors might care to acknowledge.
At this point, Woo had already cemented his legacy as a man responsible for some of the most blistering Hong Kong action cinema in history (The Killer, Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, etc.). In the late 90s, he was on a relative hot streak, with his American features – everything from the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target to Face/Off, which has rightfully been reappraised as a landmark in the last decade – having made off like gangbusters at the box office. At this point, American audiences were hip to Woo’s hyperkinetic and poetic style. It would seem that he and Cruise – a man known for pushing things to the limit in the name of pleasing an audience – would be a match made in movie heaven.
'Mission: Impossible 2' Stands Out Thanks to Director John Woo's Flair for Action
Almost right away, there is an electric nature to the action choreography in Woo’s film that sets it apart from the plasticine, paint-by-numbers destruction of today’s blockbusters. While De Palma’s film is at least comparatively grounded right up until its frenzied final set piece, Woo’s movie, as it should, takes place in its own elastic cartoon reality. What’s more is that Woo brings his trademark romantic flair to the fore – the director truly has always been a softie at heart, and Cruise’s chemistry with co-star Thandiwe Newton is almost rapturous enough to make you forget about Newton’s allegedly unpleasant experiences actually sharing scenes with the Top Gun star. For Mission super-fans, it is also worth mentioning that 2 brings Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell more closely into the fore, which is significant inasmuch as Rhames’ tough, lovable hacker eventually becomes one of the franchise’s more prominent players.
Critical notices were not kind when Mission: Impossible 2 was unleashed into the world in the summer of 2000. Many took issue with the movie’s overwrought sense of melodrama and the fundamentally ludicrous, not-at-all-realistic nature of the action as if the point of a film like this isn’t to be as over-the-top as possible. Alas, it mattered not that critics largely despised the film. Woo’s Mission movie was a smash at the worldwide box office, going on to become one of the highest-grossing motion pictures of 2000. Time has been kind to Woo’s nu-metal spy caper: particularly when one considers how approved-by-committee so much action cinema feels these days, Mission: Impossible 2 seems like nothing less than a mainline shot of uncut inspiration in comparison.
The easy, facile criticism of Mission: Impossible 2 is one that is tiresomely literal-minded. The movie’s haters claim that it makes no sense, that it doesn’t hold a candle to the more assured IMF adventures that come later. Yet, Woo’s film is generous with a quality that is sorely lacking in today’s action cinema: a genuine sense of expressive passion. It’s the same passion exhibited by Cruise himself, in his fearless insistence on doing his own stunts (much to the trepidation of his director, apparently). Mission: Impossible 2 might still be an outlier in one of the more enduring popcorn franchises of our current moment, but it’s absolutely worth a (re)watch as a reminder of what fantastical Hollywood spectacles used to look and sound like. We promise you, it’s better than you remember.
Mission: Impossible 2 is currently streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.