'Mission Impossible: 2'

Uberspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back. This time his mission is to foil the evil machinations of Ambrose (Doug Ray Scott) who wants to unleash a lethal virus on the world. Alas, Hunt needs help (not to mention a heroine). So, he recruits Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), as a honey trap agent (she used to have a thing going with the evil Ambrose laddie before he went all dotty on her and started talking about viruses and such like). Hall's job is to ferret more state secrets from Ambrose while cuddling and rampaging about in various stages of undress.

MI-2 is all about buff bods, devil-may-care-dudes and high tech-gizmos. The opening montage has Ethan indulging in some spectacular rock climbing whilst on vacation. Tres exciting - he perches precariously from outcroppings several thousand feet from terra firma. Seems the love of facing death is not solely an occupational activity (or do I mean hazard?) for the uberspy. Then suddenly there's a chopper which appears out of the blue, delivers this projectile that has this sunglass that is actually a video recording that is programmed to self destruct after the message has been played for the uberspy. Ahem! The height of excitement on my vacation was ....um..... forget it!

But it's improbable moments like this that make the film such an excellent time pass flick. MI- 2 is a thrill a minute actionthon. It's as good as the original and has all those typical John Woo flourishes like slow motion and crazy, non-stop action scenes. There's very little by way of plot twists and suspense (why tax the audience?). Instead the movie is a marathon of slick, fast paced action images pasted together. There's been some attempt to humanise the Hunt character, but the guy is too busy riding bikes, mountain climbing, bashing up the baddies and generally trying to save the world to develop much empathy for the rest of the human race or for gorgeous Thandie Newton for that matter.

Rating: John Woo's visually florid style tends to become exhausting pretty soon. Tom Cruise is great but you kind of wish he used his mouth as much as he did the rest of his muscles - some dialogue in the movie wouldn't have been such a bad thing at all, methinks. By the way, check out a great accompanying soundtrack.

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