It seems to me that this whole new "Mission:
Impossible" thing is America's answer to James Bond. Ethan
Hunt is younger, faster and more hip than his servant-of-the-crown
counterpart, but in all other respects, these "M:I"
flicks are completely interchangeable with the Bond pics. Both
series seem to vary quite a bit in quality from film to film.
The first "M:I" offering was generally considered to
be a flop, but in my opinion, the second one is quite a bit better.
Sure, Tom Cruise brings a lot of charisma to the project, but for me, the real star was the director, John Woo. He took what could have been a very mediocre project and stole the show with his state-of-the-art action artistry. There's a lot of sequences that are obviously many miles south of possible, but they're so well put together that instead of rolling my eyes and groaning like I often do, I actually found myself gaping in amazment and saying "...WOW!". I know it could never ever actually happen, but it sure looks cool. It's kind of like ballet with motorcycles and rocket launchers. This is the John Woo difference.
If you're going to enjoy this movie, you HAVE to approach it as a conaisseur of action. I'm a longtime fan of Jackie Chan's (talk about bad acting!!), and I've enjoyed some of John Woo's earlier films (some of which make the M:I-2 plot look like Shakespeare), so I was able to ignore the reality gaps and have a grand old time. If it's realism and mature character development you seek, then obviously you need to stay the hell away from this movie (and not write a review! I've read a few that sound like the whiney rantings of a vegan going to KFC. Get a clue, people; it's not a Mirimax production.)
The plot did what a cheesey action movie plot is supposed to do: tie the various different chunks of hardcore action together without drawing too much attention to itself. As a matter of fact, there were a few intersting new ideas that helped keep the whole thing from being an endless series of chiches.
I think it's safe to say that there will be no Oscar nominations for any of the acting, but everyone was adequate. (And the way The Academy works these days, you just never know...)
"M:I-2" will probably not go down as a classic. It does, however, seriously raise the bar for action choreography and it made my toes wiggle for two hours. That's all I was hoping for and that's exactly what I got.