Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible II
Theatrical teaser poster
Directed by	John Woo
Produced by	Tom Cruise Paula Wagner
Screenplay by	Robert Towne
Story by	Ronald D. Moore Brannon Braga
Based on	Mission Impossible by Bruce Geller
Starring	Tom Cruise Dougray Scott Thandie Newton Ving Rhames Richard Roxburgh
Music by	Hans Zimmer Klaus Badelt (additional) Lalo Schifrin (main theme)
Cinematography	Jeffrey L. Kimball
Editing by	Christian Wagner Steven Kemper Stuart Baird
Studio	Cruise/Wagner Munich Film Partners & Company MI2 Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	May 24, 2000 (2000-05-24)
Running time	123 minutes
Country	United States ‹See Tfd› Australia
Language	English
Budget	$125 million
Box office	$546,388,200

Mission: Impossible II (marketed as M:I-2 and in the new Blu-ray release, Mission: Impossible 2) is a 2000 American action spy film directed by John Woo, and starring Tom Cruise, who also served as the film's producer. It is a sequel to Brian De Palma's 1996 film Mission: Impossible with Cruise reprising his role as agent Ethan Hunt of the IMF, a top-secret espionage and clandestine operation agency. The film is part of the Mission: Impossible film series.

Plot

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), while vacationing, is alerted by the IMF that someone has used his identity to assist Russian bio-chemical expert Dr. Vladimir Nekhorvich (Rade Serbedzija) of Biocyte Pharmaceuticals to enter into the United States, but purposely crashed the commercial airline en route. Nekhorvich, an old friend of Ethan, had forewarned the IMF of his arrival, planning to deliver a new virus called Chimera and its cure, Bellerophon, both of which he was forced to develop by Biocyte, into the IMF's hands. With the crash of the plane, IMF is worried that the virus is out in the open, believing that IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) is behind the incident. IMF assigns Ethan to recover it. Ethan is told that he can use two members of his team to help him, but the third person to help him must be Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), a professional thief presently operating in Seville, Spain as she will be able to get close to Ambrose.

After recruiting Nyah, Ethan meets his team, computer expert Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and pilot Billy Baird (John Polson) in Sydney, Australia, where Biocyte laboratories are located along with Ambrose's headquarters. As Ethan and the others stake out Biocyte, Nyah gets close to Ambrose and begins to find any information related to the Chimera virus. At a horse racing event, Ambrose quietly meets with Biocyte's CEO, John C. McCloy (Brendan Gleeson), and shows him a video of the Chimera virus affecting one of Nekhorvich's colleagues taken from Biocyte, using the footage to force McCloy to cooperate with them. Nyah is able to steal the video footage long enough to transfer it to Ethan and his team, who learn that the Chimera virus has a 20 hour dormant period before it causes death through mass destruction of the victim's red blood cells. This is depicted through several increasingly graphic pictures, which show the victim dead after 37 hours. Bellerophon can only save the victim if used within the 20 hour window.

The IMF team kidnaps McCloy and learn that Nekhorvich had actually injected himself with Chimera, the only way he could smuggle the virus from Biocyte, and had all the known samples of Bellerophon, now presently in Ambrose's hands. Ambrose has blackmailed McCloy to sell him the virus for £37,000,000 and promising to return the samples of Bellerophon. Ethan's team plans to break into Biocyte and destroy the virus. Ambrose, posing as Ethan, tricks Nyah into revealing Ethan's plan. Ambrose secures Nyah and prepares to raid Biocyte himself to secure the virus. Ethan is able to destroy all but one sample of the virus before Ambrose interrupts him, and an ensuing firefight begins. Ethan learns that Ambrose is holding Nyah and stops firing, during which Ambrose orders Nyah to retrieve the last sample. When she does so, she injects herself with it, thus preventing Ambrose from simply killing her to get it. As Ambrose takes Nyah, Ethan escapes from the laboratory and starts a 20 hour countdown before the virus takes over Nyah's body.

Ambrose opts to let Nyah wander the streets of Sydney in a daze, and demands McCloy to effectively hand over enough control of Biocyte to make him the majority shareholder, or else Nyah's infection will cause a pandemic that will kill 17 million people in Australia alone; Ambrose's plan is to make a fortune when prices of Biocyte's stock sky-rocket due to demand for Bellerophon. Ethan's team is able to locate and infiltrate the meeting, stealing the samples of Bellerophon while taking out many of Ambrose's men. Luther and Billy locate Nyah who has wandered to a cliff side, intent on killing herself to prevent Chimera from spreading. As the two IMF agents bring Nyah to Ethan, he and Ambrose engage in a fist fight and wilds out on Ambrose. With little time left on the 20 hour countdown, Ethan finally gains the upper hand over Ambrose and shoots him dead, and then Luther injects Nyah with Bellerophon. Ethan reports to IMF on the successful mission. IMF clears Nyah's criminal record, and allows Ethan to continue his vacation with her in Sydney.

Cast

• Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
• Dougray Scott as Sean Ambrose
• Thandie Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall
• Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell
• Richard Roxburgh as Hugh Stamp
• John Polson as Billy Baird
• Brendan Gleeson as John C. McCloy
• Anthony Hopkins as Mission Commander Swanbeck (uncredited)
• Rade Šerbedžija as Dr. Nekhorvich (as Radé Sherbedgia)
• William Mapother as Wallis
• Dominic Purcell as Ulrich
• Mathew Wilkinson as Michael
• Nicholas Bell as Accountant
• Cristina Brogers as Flamenco Dancer
• Kee Chan as Chemist
• Kim Fleming as Larrabee
• Sam Jones as Plane Passenger
• Tory Mussett (uncredited)

Production

Production of the film was troubled and was shut down for several weeks as the script was re-worked. As a result both Dougray Scott and Thandie Newton lost the chance to appear in starring roles in other films. Cruise and Woo had reportedly clashed several times throughout filming over creative differences, but both walked away from it on good terms.

The studio expressed concern over the safety of filming Ethan Hunt's entrance in the film, where he is free climbing. Cruise refused to drop the idea because he could not think of a better way to reintroduce the character. There was no safety net as he filmed the sequence, but he did have a harness. He tore his shoulder when performing Hunt's jump from one part of the cliff to another.^[1]

Reception

Box office

The film was a financial success. In its North American opening weekend the film grossed $57,845,297. The film eventually grossed $215,409,889 in its North American release and $330,978,216 in other territories, totaling $546,388,105 worldwide.^[2]

Critical response

Mission: Impossible II received positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes indicates the film has an overall approval rating of 57% based on 141 reviews, with an average score of 6/10.^[3] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 60% based on 33 reviews.^[4]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said that "if the first movie was entertaining as sound, fury, and movement, this one is more evolved, more confident, more sure-footed in the way it marries minimal character development to seamless action."^[5] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly felt the film was a "throwaway pleasure" but also "a triumph of souped-up action."^[6] Ella Taylor of LA Weekly said that "every car chase, every plane crash, every potential drop off a cliff is a masterpiece of grace and surprise."^[7] Desson Thomson of the Washington Post said that "[John] Woo [...] takes complete command of the latest technology to create brilliant action sequences."^[8] Lou Lumenick of the New York Post said, "Check your brains at the popcorn stand and hang on for a spectacular ride."^[9]

J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called the film "a vaguely absurd thriller filled with elaborately superfluous setups and shamelessly stale James Bond riffs."^[10] Dennis Harvey of Variety said the film is "even more empty a luxury vehicle than its predecessor" and that it "pushes the envelope in terms of just how much flashy packaging an audience will buy when there's absolutely nada inside."^[11] Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader said that "no hero or villain winds up carrying any moral weight at all."^[12]

Many fans considered "Mission: Impossible II" as the weakest installment in the series, while applauding Tom Cruise's performance and the fast-paced action scenes, many criticized the dull plot, dialogue, little resemblance to its source material and the lack of substance. It was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards at the 2000 ceremony, including Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Supporting Actress (Thandie Newton).^[13]

The promo title featured on posters for the film Piglet's Big Movie, "P:B:M-1", was a spoof of the promo title "M:I-2" for this film. A teaser trailer included on the DVD spoofed Mission: Impossible II with scenes from Piglet's Big Movie.

Music

Score

The original score was composed by Hans Zimmer and has vocals performed by Lisa Gerrard.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack includes Limp Bizkit's rendition of Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme, "Take a Look Around". Also the soundtrack includes Metallica's song "I Disappear".

References

External links

• Mission: Impossible II at the Internet Movie Database
• Mission: Impossible II at AllRovi
• Mission: Impossible II at Box Office Mojo
• Interview with screenwriter Robert Towne