Mission: Impossible II (Widescreen)

The love between Hunt and Nya or whatever the hell her name is. Rings as completely false "Oh I love you baby... ... ... lets have sex now" get rid of it. The PG-13 Rating essentially guts the action scenes of any excitement. Woo is a damned wizard in his action -watch "the killer" or to a lesser extent "face/off" to see what i mean- here the action scenes are so chopped up to imply violence instead of showing it -just as bad- that all the power to them is chopped up with it.

There are some moments like the Flemeco Dancers scene that is well directed and show Woo's brilliance in motion. If you like gutted PG-13 movie gun play then this is easily the best out of them.

If Johns hands weren't tied by a rating this would have been a three. Cruise was smart enough to give Woo almost complete control over the project so it is very much a John Woo movie.

I expected more even from this movie, where you can't expect much.

IMF operative Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise--sporting longer hair) is called away from his vacation by his new boss Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins in essentially a glorified cameo) to find a renegade agent. Once the mission begins, Hunt finds himself attracted to former agent Sean Ambrose's (Dougray Scott) girlfriend, Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton). These feelings complicate things as Ambrose holds the world hostage, threatening to release a deadly chemical weapon, if demands are not met. Hunt can also count on help from his pal Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) when things get tough.

Director John Woo takes over for Brian De Palma, and with MI2, moves even further away from the concept of the television series. Hunt acts more like James Bond here than he did in first film. The only real difference is Hunt's long hair. Cruise may have the screen clout, but quite frankly is out of his element thanks to a weaker script. If you throw in Woo's trademark and tiresome overuse of doves and slow motion--it's practically a lost cause. As if that were not enough, Scott makes a very poor villian, ala` Aaron Eckheart in another Woo film, the equally poor Paycheck. The only bright spot for me was Newton...wow!

The extras on the DVD, may be more plentifull here, as opposed to those found on the Mission Impossible disc, but that doesn't mean that they are all worth your time. The audio commentary with Woo is OK but can get a bit tedious. The 15-minute "Behind The Mission" features "canned" cast and crew interviews. I did enjoy the Five-minute "Mission Incredible" stunts featurette. You also get to see the group Metallica's music video for the soundtrack song "I Disappear", a rather cool alternate title sequence that would have worked out better and the disc highligt, a very funny MTV Movie Awards show parody, "Mission Improbable" with Cruise, actor Ben Stiller and Woo. There's also a generous amount of DVD ROM material

What a disappointment...