Mission Impossible 2: When Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle under his feet

The release of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Count Part 1” is fast approaching. Finally, after many postponements due to COVID. Await Ethan Hunt’s return to cinema, inviting you to revisit his previous opus, from the staging style to the themes, highlights.

• Mission Impossible: When Tom Cruise first breathed on us

A booster shot session that continues with the second episode, a virtuoso but less successful script level where Tom Cruise has fun thanks to John Woo’s staging – SPOILERS BEWARE!!!

If you ask a Mission: Impossible connoisseur to name their least favorite episode, chances are second will be mentioned. well named.

Because he has aged the least. A pure product of the early 2000s with accents bare metal Signed Limp Bizkit, the only band honored to revisit Saga’s famous musical theme and take the place of the feature film’s composer, here Hans Zimmer, in this exercise.

Released on May 24, 2000 in the United States and July 26 in France, it came out a year after The Matrix Madness, completing the Asian model’s approach to acting with its cables and somersaults, something Matt Damon had yet to begin. Krav Maga lessons that will help him reinvent the genre thanks to La Mémoire dans la peau.

After doing his best in a thriller, Tom Cruise returns to the big name of the moment that Hollywood rolled out the red carpet for after the success of Volte/Face: John Waugh. Who does not need to be asked to impose his noble style, not stingy with the flight of pigeons, in slow motion, supporting a blow, a fall or a bullet.

Or even the occasional overuse of symbols, such as this shot that introduces Ethan Hunt as the Angel of Death as he walks into the bunker amid the flames where his nemesis Shawn Ambrose (Dougray Scott) is hiding. A villain who literally has to be a hero, thus allowing the filmmaker to return to the central theme of his previous feature thanks to one of the codas of the saga: masks.

Doctor Wu

In Volte/Face, Nicolas Cage became John Travolta out of necessity (and vice versa). Here, fulfilling his diabolical plan as much as he dreams of being what he is, Ambrose, a former Mission: Impossible agent turned dark side, takes on Hunt’s appearance twice: in the first scene. where he steals a chimera virus from Dr. Nekhorovic (Rade Serbia) and then confronts Nyh Hall (Tandive Newton).

The thief, who is none other than her ex, is brought back into the hands of Ethan, who she believes she is talking to during tonight’s interview. It’s actually the villain, who takes off his mask a few seconds later, his eyes red with tears. Both because he knows he has betrayed him and because he discovers that the young woman prefers his enemy, which drives him back to his neuroses.

Ambrose even ups his game in the final third, when he believes he’s dealing with Hunt, whom he intends to get rid of once and for all, dropping his henchman Hugh Stamp (Richard Roxburgh), who has been fooled by the exchange. of masks and faces.

As the protagonist flees in slow motion, his enemy’s exclamation of rage can be read in two ways: it also derives from the fact that he has been tricked in this way, as well as a note that Ethan would prefer to become someone other than him. get dressed A sign that the charm only works in one direction. And a way for John Woo to weave a bit of psychoanalysis into a story steeped in mythology from the very first moments.

In the opening scene, Dr. Nekhorovich states that “Any search for a hero must begin with what any hero must: a villain.”To explain how the chimera virus preceded the creation of its antidote, Bellerophon, as in Greek mythology.

A monologue that outlines the structure of a feature film. Because it’s not Ethan Hunt, as one might think, but the villainous Shawn Ambrose, who appears first. This requires that we then turn to the good guy who thought he could use his vacation and is asked to play the role of savior. Initially from Sydney and by extension the rest of the world.

Unlike Brian De Palma, more down-to-earth and focused on a world still marked by the fall of the Soviet bloc, John Woo aims for lyricism. And its foreground, the Sydney Opera House, will announce the color of the opus, which aims, precisely, to be operatic.

Even if it means dipping into kitsch and bad taste, like when Ethan and Nia’s eyes meet, hair in the wind, and their cars skidding, a tethered, gently supported metaphor for the attraction between the two characters. Or, when it gets too pale, reminding us, if necessary, that hero and villain are two sides of the same coin.

“It’s not Mission: Difficult, it’s Mission: Impossible, Mr. Hunt. It’s going to be hard for you to play the child.”

The Chinese filmmaker, not content to play the story of a love triangle with an espionage background like Alfred Hitchcock with Les Enchainés, also speaks to the musicals of Jacques Deme, which he admits to respecting when Ethan and Nia meet. , which takes the form of a pas de deux, as flamenco dances between them.

A worthy attempt to turn the hero of the saga into a romantic character, which is not entirely convincing because it lacks that tragic dimension and that shadow of death that it carries with it, and which later directors would have used better. It must be said that Mission: Impossible II, in abandoning the team side for its star’s quasi-solo, leaves out the human side of Hunt too often.

Sure, there’s his love story with Nia, but it’s not strong enough to balance the Superman image he’s become since this episode and his first appearance, climbing a cliff with his bare hands, with no script to justify other than beauty. A gesture and a piece of bravery.

Certainly impressive images where the spectacle seems to take precedence over the staging. What John Woo achieves when it comes to action again, especially during the terrifying chases on motorcycles, sometimes underfoot. One of the great pieces of cinema of the last twenty-five years.

Real adrenaline, which confirms all the talent of the director in training and causes an almost direct fusion between the hero and his opponent, to the delight of Shawn Ambrose, who will not have time to enjoy it.

One of the most spectacular sequences in the saga, it allowed Ethan Hunt to cement his status as America’s James Bond, even surpassing his model, then played by Pierce Brosnan. And that’s exactly the trap the franchise instantly fell into with Mission: Impossible II.

Instead of digging its own path, the film tries too hard to make its hero 007’s American counterpart, with a second degree that hardly matches him and an awkward sexualization that often flirts with misogyny. Aspects that will thankfully be omitted in the next feature film.

Bond’s kiss from Sydney

A bit too tacky for its time on a cinematic level, for better or worse, it’s now in parentheses. And give up on his character franchise-wide, as there will be no more mentions of his events before his characters, with the exception of Ving Rhames, return.

If seeing it again today might make people cringe, Mission: Impossible II has the merit of not counting or playing the restraint card, including when it suggests dangerous reflections built into sunglasses.

Despite its obvious flaws, it resembles its director in a generous style, honoring the principle established by Tom Cruise when launching a saga on the big screen, where each episode bears the imprint of its director.

And even if John Woo is primarily in the service of his superstardom, as aware as ever of his status and determined to offer himself a gift in his (non)dimension, the result turns out to be much richer thematically than we would have believed. and in search of the battle between good and evil.

Previous Episodes:

• Mission Impossible: When Tom Cruise first breathed on us

Next episode: When Tom Cruise met the saga’s best villain