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Mission Impossible 2

Written by steve@digitallard.com //  11/04/2005 //  Comments

Mission Impossible 2 on DVD Review | Movie / Film

I have to say that I didn’t have very high hopes for this film before I even started to watch it. Apart from the fact that I had seen quite a few fairly bad reviews I didn’t actually like the first Mission Impossible so I was expecting to get much of the same.

I have to say that I didn’t have very high hopes for this film before I even started to watch it. Apart from the fact that I had seen quite a few fairly bad reviews I didn’t actually like the first Mission Impossible so I was expecting to get much of the same. I was a little wrong however as this film makes Mission Impossible 1 look like a cinematic masterpiece in comparison. It contains ludicrously over the top stunts, cheesy stereotyped characters and plot holes so big you could build a house in them. But anyway more of that later, here’s a brief plot outline.

Plot

An ex IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) has stolen the anti-dote for a deadly disease known as Chimera and is blackmailing the boss of the pharmaceutical company that has the disease. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) along with some IMF colleagues and an international thief named Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) must try to get the anti-dote back and destroy the disease.

Ethan develops a love interest with Nyah but he must use her to infiltrate the villains, as she is the ex-lover of Ambrose. When Nyah contracts the deadly virus the race is on to not only stop the villains but also save Nyahs life.

Mission Impossible 2 Mission Impossible 2

Audio / Video

As you would expect from such a recent blockbuster both video and audio quality are excellent throughout. The picture is in a 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and was pretty faultless to my eyes. The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 and fittingly for an action film is very loud. You get plenty of booming explosions and surround effects here.

Extras

On the extras side there’s an audio commentary from director John Woo. This is an interesting enough commentary although John seems to spend most of his time praising Tom Cruise. It’s also a bit difficult to follow because of John Woo’s accent. Next up is a reasonably good 15-minute making of featurette.

Mission incredible is a 5-minute stunt featurette. Impossible shots is a 35 minute long collection of stunt sequences that include a commentary from various cast & crew. Next up is the music video for Metallica’s "Disappear". There’s an alternative title sequence that is about 40 seconds long. Finally there’s a pretty amusing film spoof form the MTV Movie Awards called ‘Mission Improbable’

Overall

If you enjoy all out action films and you don’t mind way over the top stunts and an uncomplicated plot then you might get some enjoyment out of this film. I found myself cringing throughout the whole two hours. Every character is ridiculously type cast from the dashing hero to the damsel in distress and not forgetting the dastardly villain.

Mission Impossible 2 Mission Impossible 2

From watching the film I discovered some interesting facts:

1. The best way to fight, run or shoot a gun is to do lots and lots of summersaults.

2. Bad guys can’t aim a gun and find it impossible to hit you even at point blank range with an automatic machine gun.

3. By simply using a rubber mask and a voice chip you can impersonate anyone in the world regardless of height, build etc.

To be fair the special effects are very good and some of the cinematics are fairly breathtaking. There’s a scene near the beginning that zooms into Tom Cruise rock climbing, the view and camera angles here are staggering. Special effect however aren’t enough on their own to hide a dross film.

As far as a mark goes I’m going to give it a 2 out of 5, mainly because the excellent DVD quality lifts the disk from a lower mark.

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Stephen Kinsey
Stephen Kinsey

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