(snicker) Okay, here is my take on M:I-2, which I saw yesterday ...
Anytime I go to see one of these hyped up, spy spoof, action filled, special effect cocktails, I enter the theatre with my bridled excitement raring to be appeased, along with my beliefs firmly suspended at levels clearly out of my reach in order to allow creative license to proceed and make that happen, but this flick didn't do that for moi.
Fight scenes: Okay, even when I permit reality and belief to waver to this degree, I must admit that I am drawn into, and have a hard time separating what can be fact from fiction when it comes to the hi-tech world of espionage and the tools (toys) of the trade that they play with -- Hey, they've ( Cal Tech ?) developed a mechanized "fly" that can fly into conversations from 100 yards away -- so I'll give them that, as long as it doesn't invade the tongue-and-cheek gizmos of the James Bond series -- a similar yet different type of expectation asociated with it. Anyway, on to the fight scenes: Okay, I'll buy cameras that can x-ray buildings, and hypodermic satellite transmitters, but can they really expect one to get beyond the Cruise appeal and suspend belief that long when it comes to the hand to hand combat scenes in this movie ? Since when are spys also superhuman ? I thought I was watching my nephew's Play-Station, or so it seemed. It makes me wonder whether the fight scenes are promoted and slotted by some national self-defense association just as the Powerbook or some Pepsi can are ... the body shots taken and dispensed here were partly a dose of some B rated kung fu flick, Rocky and a dose of The Three Stooges.
The car scenes lacked imagination. Nothing new as one would expect from a movie with such a budget and marquee star. Not only did the trailers spoil it for me, but they must have taken a page from the old Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Nothing spectacular, with the opening chase reminicent of Speed Racer that I saw as a kid .... Bullet it wasn't, but then how many are or have been ?
...Chemistry between Cruise and his co-star ? I guess that's coming up in M:I-3. I didn't see it here. Did his wife oversee all love scenes in person ?
Plot: Maybe I did this movie and Cruise an injustice by allowing its "repution" to precede it and thus setting the bar too high, but Le Femme Nikita on steroids it wasn't, and I guess that's what I expected to be ( One has to wonder what their writers could do with 1/20 this movie's budget ?). I actually enjoyed M:I-1 better in terms of keeping me in suspense with all its respective stealth, deceit, intrigue, and who could forget that exploding fish tank ?. I thought M:I-1 just flowed a lot better, and nowhere near as predictable.
(sigh) After all that hype and wait, what a letdown. Cast stones my way if you must all youse Cruise fans, but I truly came away from this thing disappointed...really disappointed.
... And give me a break! I don't know how to review movies as well as Cal, Ace, Eric, Cellar and others who post here. I just know I didn't care for M:I-2. I enjoyed the last Bond film much better.
If y'all only knew what I passed up to see this.
