DVD Review: Mission: Impossible 2

The first Mission: Impossible movie was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand it was filled with poorly forced character development, overly contrived plot devices and an overall sense of missed timing. Yet on the other hand, it contained within it a brilliantly executed example of action and suspense.

For those keeping score, the good part of the film was the second act. This was the part where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and gang made their attempt to steal the list of agents' real identities from CIA headquarters. Since my first viewing of the film, I have maintained that it could have become a great action movie if only the entire film was more like that second act. I won't be so self-important as to think someone listened to me, but it seems that others out there shared the same view because now we have Mission: Impossible 2, which is what the first M:I should have been.

M:I-2 makes things much more simple than the first movie: An ex-IMF operative steals a super virus and its antidote with the intention of releasing the virus, then making billions of dollars by marketing the antidote. Any alumni of the James Bond films should feel on pretty safe ground with that plot. So it's cliché -- so what? With a movie like this, the plot is far less important than the style and that's the crucial element that elevates this film far above its predecessor.

Also, it helps that the movie is directed by perhaps the best action director in the business. Few know how to visualize mayhem as well as John Woo. He is a master of taking intense violence and action and giving them a sense of poetry. It isn't just that he slows the action down, allowing you to see every cool (and impossible) tidbit; it's that he frames and paces the action so well that every scene's feeling is perfectly clarified. It's one thing to carry emotion in a scene of dramatic intensity - it's entirely another to carry emotion in the midst of a gun fight. Woo manages both.

Traditionally, action movies are not films that will test an actor's skill. While this still holds true in M:I-2, all of the players put in fine performances nevertheless. At the very least, they hit the right notes for the materal. There's just enough here to make you care about the characters, which is exactly the way it should be. Let's face it, the action sequences are the centerpieces of this movie and they shouldn't be overshadowed.

The movie did phenomenally well at the box office and while it was still enjoying a theatrical run, Paramount announced it had something special planned for the DVD. They were not lying. As a teaser to the impending release, they sent me the soundtrack CD, which is intense by itself. This put me right in the mood to receive this DVD and devour everything it had to offer - in fact, to sustain that mood, I just had to put in the soundtrack for ambience as I wrote this.

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