Now, I'm a fan of Woo's older films, The Killer, and Hard Boiled are classics, since he has come hollywood it seems like the producers have his balls hidden in a vault somewhere. What heppened to the continuous shots going through hallways and extravagant shootouts lasting 30 minutes with 50,000 bullets???

This film was his worst yet, no wait that one with nic cage was pretty bad too. The only scene I liked was when he was taking on those guys in the chem-lab, it was almost up to what woo was, then it just ended. what a waste. And the whole motorcycle thing was boring as hell.

As far as the mission impossible theme goes, so he changed his mask a few times... big deal. As far as I could tell this was just a Bond movie with Tom Cruise.

tyler

But it also had a LOT of predictable scenes, with Woo pouring on the dramatic Zimmer music (which is good, but Elfman would have been better) in some of those scenes which I'm sure will further insult the intelligence of the audience members.

The action was very well directed and edited. Particularly the Biocyte and end chase sequences. But the part where the main bad guy and Cruise speed towards each other is just stupid. How many bones in their chests would have been BROKEN if they really flew into each other at sixty or seventy miles an hour. I'm sure that will be a big qualm with many audience members.

Ving Rhames did a good job reprising his role as Luther, and I thought that new Aussie IMF member was going to serve as interesting comic relief, but nothing really happened with the guy's character. And Cruise's love interest only seemed capable of displaying three different facial expressions. Happy, sexy, angry. Just the essentials for her role, and she's boring because of it.

I haven't been very impressed with Woo's American action films, but this one enterained me, and in the end, isn't that the only thing Woo is trying to do? His Hong Kong films excel in that department far better than his attempts here, but he's here to stay, so I might as well get used to his American interpretions of action. I can say that MI2 was better than I thought it would be and was definitely better than the first one.

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The man with the magic hands.

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Scott A. Magie

have you ever seen "Killer"? That too is a classic.

I understand the purpose of showing Ethan Hunt climbing without safety gear is most likely to point out his propensity for living on the edge, both on vacation and in the field. And I know I shouldn't have taken the rock climbing intro. so seriously, especially if it's a John Woo film. I guess it just bothered me that he was climbing without any gear whatsoever. He didn't even have a rope to rappel down, so he would have to climb back down. But Cruise needs to keep those muscles working anyway, right?

No, I wouldn't say the scene offended me. I just didn't care for it very much. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

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The man with the magic hands.

This movie had all the classic blunders of a sequel. First, you fire almost everyone both behind-the-scenes and from the cast of the first one. Then you give the returning characters some off-the-wall quirk which was never part of the first movie (like an agent who's more concerned about his clothing than his mission. Hello? You did realize you were coming here to WORK on something, didn't you? Where are your work clothes?).

Then you reduce the plot to just the most basic thing for people to understand. Then you try really hard to top the first movie in other elements. I mean, let's have more incredible stunts. Let's repeat a stunt from the first film (dropping into a room on a cable) and make it even more incredible. Let's go to exotic locations which are more breathtaking than in the first film (but, apart from that, there's really no reason to be there) and, while we're at it, let's hire a bad guy from the "Cookie Cutter Bad Guy Agency" where so many people get their bad guys.

After a few minutes, I thought I was watching a sequel to The Last Action Hero because they were going, almost step-by-step, over the action movie elements which were skewered in that film.

Is there a law somewhere which says that each action movie made today must have a) at least one slow-motion shot in each scene or b) several shots where the action freezes during a "dolly move" or c) many slow motion shots during a dolly move?

Someone already mentioned it but WOW there was some sloppy cinematography. Is this because most post-production is done on small, video monitors? There were several close-ups where the character's face wasn't in sharp focus (except I can't really remember a fuzzy shot of Tom Cruise like that. Go figure). I noticed several hairs in the gate (and I wasn't even watching for them).

Save your money, folks. Trust me, you've seen this movie before and, when you did, it was usually done a lot better than this.

Another case of the Fifth Element syndrome. You get psyched-up for a movie but then get all let down by the horrible outcome.

All I have to say is that the X-Men movie better be good or I'll be pissed off.

I thought the action scenes were okay. The fight at the end went on WAY too long and the dialogue... woof! And this is the same guy who wrote 'Chinatown'?????