Mission Impossible 2

SC: Keanu Reeves pulled off the all-black wardrobe and the funky martial arts in The Matrix simply because the boy is cool enough to look effortless and comfortable in the rockiest (and conversely, cheesiest) of situations. The word 'effortless,' however, doesn't apply to Tom Cruise. Cruise isn't a natural - every one of his pained, constipated expressions reflects his inability to just go with the flow. In a movie like Jerry Maguire, the effort pays off because the part requires unbounded earnestness. The role of Ethan Hunt in MI2 demands just the opposite - a casual aloofness, a confident grace that Cruise can't muster regardless of how hard he tries. Everything else in MI2 doesn't help to conceal his shortcomings. Woo's schtick is growing tired, Thandie Newton just barely survived one of the most thankless roles in recent memory, the plot was just barely there, the action sequences were corny, etc. . And most intolerable, of course, is that ridiculous 'mask' cop-out that they keep throwing in whenever they run into a script dead-end. I'll accept it as soon as they answer the following questions: 1) Where do they get them made? 2) Where do they store them when they're on the run? 3) Are they hypo-allergenic?

WG: With action maestro John Woo at the helm and a budget twice the size of a third world country, Mission: Impossible 2 should have been the summer's most unrelenting joyride. Instead we got a sluggish, often dim-witted action picture that wasn't even as enjoyable as the first Mission: Impossible. What happened? Well, you can start with the fact that Robert Towne, the man wrote Chinatown for God's sake, was apparently uninspired to do anything more with the screenplay than rip off Notorious and throw in a limp virus thriller. Then you can blame Tom Cruise, who, despite his rogue's haircut, is stuck in extra-bland mode as superagent Ethan Hunt (when the Cruise mask is ripped off in the opening sequence, I was praying Chow Yun-Fat and his charisma would be underneath). And how did a television show that always revolved around the 'team' concept become the Tom Cruise vanity show anyway? By the time Woo is finally allowed to unleash his bag-of-tricks near the end, he does admittedly pull off some spectacular sequences, most notably a high-octane motorcycle chase and a deliriously over-the-top kung-fu battle. But by the time we get to this sizzle, we've already had to endure far too much fizzle.