Post by serin on Apr 17, 2014 5:11:09 GMT -5
My guilty pleasure: Mission: Impossible II
Cliche, excess, unintentional hilarity – Tom Cruise's second outing as Ethan Hunt is utterly awful. But to revisit the film without enjoying it? That really would be mission: impossible
My Guilty Pleasure
Daftly brilliant … Tom Cruise scales new heights of absurdity in the opening scene of Mission: Impossible
2. Photograph: Richard Foreman/AP
Tom Cruise hanging off a cliff. No safety net, just the shaggy-haired Scientologist at one with the elements. The spectacular opening of Mission: Impossible II (or M:I-2, as the punctuation-happy marketing department would have it) is daftly brilliant for having nothing to do with the rest of the film, and is in some ways symptomatic of the film's car-crash appeal – it's a magnum opus of action cliches, excess upon excess upon excess. Why should we start with Cruise hanging on a cliff? Well, why shouldn't we?
1.Mission: Impossible 2
2.Production year: 20003.Country: USA4.Cert (UK): 155.Runtime: 123 mins6.Directors: John Woo7.Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Tom Cruise8.More on this filmMission: Impossible II, directed by action auteur John Woo, is a bad, bad film – an overflowing volcano of prime gruyère. The whole thing appears to have been put together by a 13-year-old boy who thinks that everything looks cooler when doused in slo-mo, explosions, inexplicable flocks of doves and a Limp Bizkit soundtrack. A young Zack Snyder, perhaps. Every kiss-off line and action beat comes soundtracked by wailing Wyld Stallyn guitars, each OTT kung fu kick plays out several times from various angles at half-speed. It's baffling even to consider that this was ever aiming to play it straight, such is its unintentional hilarity.
There's a host of terrible scenes that immediately spring to mind: a flamenco dance, rife in overbaked symbolism; a car crash with more luscious, flowing locks than a shampoo advert; and a finale featuring the most idiotic game of chicken ever commited to film.
The weird thing is, it's not a particularly badly constructed film. Whether you're laughing or cheering at it, it's stupendously entertaining throughout its overstretched running time. Just ask yourself: when was the last time somebody spent $125m (£75m) on something so silly? Nowadays, your summer tentpoles are mostly safe superhero money-spinners. How often do blockbusters deliver their key exposition by means of a pair of exploding glasses fired from a rocket? It's wonderfully ludicrous.
Aside from all the absurdity, there are elements of Mission: Impossible II that do genuinely deliver. It remains interesting for being one of the last big blockbusters to eschew large-scale CGI destruction in its action set-pieces, instead favouring excellently choreographed fight scenes that are clear and genuinely exciting. The sweeping camerawork provides an example of practical craftsmanship that, in an era where it's so much cheaper and easier to simply do it in post, already feels like it's from a bygone age. Then there's Cruise himself, who displays the intense watchability that made him such a star in the first place. Revisiting the ridiculousness of Mission: Impossible II highlights how dull Cruise's more recent action vehicles (Knight And Day, Oblivion) have been. I'd rather watch this magnificent pile of crap any day than sit through either of those bores again.
The series had a miraculous return to form in JJ Abrams' and Brad Bird's respective third and fourth instalments, but it never again reached the giddy heights of balls-out stupidity to which Woo took it. Mission: Impossible II might be utter rubbish, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to give this another watch with a beer in hand on a Friday night and try your hardest not to enjoy yourself. You'll find it impossible.
Guardian