Block-busted

>> Mission: Impossible 2 self-destructs

by MATTHEW HAYS

The folks behind Mission: Impossible 2 have managed to do an impressive thing with this sequel. This film, second in line after the immensely popular Brian De Palma hit, has managed to spin a yarn that is even less discernible than the first one.

And that's saying something, considering the scribe behind M:I-2 is none other than Robert Towne, the legendary Hollywood screenwriter. He's the one responsible for plenty of intentionally cheesy dialogue and non-stop, nonsensical action.

Tom Cruise returns in the lead, again given an apparently impossible assignment via a message that threatens to self-destruct mere seconds after announcing itself. Sadly, the film starts to self-destruct in its initial seconds too, getting too caught up in special effects, leaving little hope for even the slightest bit of the most superficial character development. Cruise and costar Thandie Newton are nice to look at, but it's hard to care about characters this horrendously one-dimensional.

Cruise and Newton must infiltrate a crime ring operated by a very nasty fellow (Dougray Scott), who has managed to get hold of a lethal virus, which, when injected, leaves the unhappy human recipient doomed to death after about 20 hours. Newton is sent in, literally undercover, to bed Scott and help Cruise and the Mission: Impossible team to foil Scott's nefarious scheme. Copious explosions and car chases follow.

While Mission: Impossible left audiences puzzled, I stopped caring in the first quarter of the sequel. Making various plot twists all the more annoying is the screenwriting "device" of having characters suddenly peel off rubber masks, revealing that they're not the characters we thought they were. There are more of those danged rubber masks in this thing than in an entire season of Scooby-Doo.

Aside from the ennui that sets in while watching the film, M:I-2 reeks of a new low in moviemaking cynicism. It's quite clear that no one involved with this project set out to make anything even remotely resembling a half-decent movie; they were just lining up for the paycheques.

There's one final chase and fight sequence, clearly the work of director John Woo, which threatens to redeem the entire film. But it's too little, too late. M:I-2 joins the canon of waste-of-time, big-budget summer busts. :

Mission: Impossible 2 is now playing