Mission: Impossible II (2000)

This is a decent enough mindless action movie with a lot of over the top action but it is not really a Mission Impossible movie. The movie starts of reasonably well being somewhat intelligent with a bit of Mission Impossible feel to it. It is actually almost a bit slow at times. However, for the second half of the movie it really degrades into a classical John Woo, over the top, action feast with all pretense of intelligence and any true Mission Impossible feel gone. John Woo is not the right person to make a Mission Impossible movie.
As with the first movie if it would not have been labelled Mission Impossible I would probably have given it a higher rating since it is a decent enough, mostly braindead though, Hollywood action movie. However, I have higher expectations from a movie labelled Mission Impossible.
Tom Cruise is quite okay as Ethan Hunt. Dougray Scott is okayish as the bad guy. Sometimes he projects the right big bad and mad bad-guy attitude but sometimes he is just silly and just as over the top as the action scenes. He is supposed to be a mastermind but he comes out as a thug a’ la a not so intelligent drug baron in many scenes.
The action scenes? Well, they are classical John Woo material. Fast paced with a lot of stunts and things that go boom. They are also, as expected, hugely over the top and unbelievable. They provide a enjoyable visual experience but, as I wrote above, they are not really what I would expect from a Mission Impossible movie.
The romance between Hunt and Nyah is the typical Hollywood, let’s throw in a sexy girl and some superficial attraction, which develops from get lost to I love you in the matter of a few hours of contact, between the lead character and the girl. Meh!
I get the impression that the people that have created these movies so far have not really watched a single full season of Mission Impossible.

After quite entertainign Mission Impossible I the second installment turned out ... terrible. As if the screenwriters didn't know how to fill the 2 hrs with action the overuse of heroic slow motion scenes is horrible. You almost might need a barf bag if you can't stand slo-mo every five seconds... for 15 seconds. I am amazed they did decide to push on with more M:I movies after this one, then again, these turned out much much better even if it would be hard to beat that lousy piece of crap of a movie.