Mission: Impossible 2 review

"Good morning Mr Cruise. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: to produce and star in an overblown sequel to your 1996 blockbuster; trading a crew cut and furrowed brow for cool shades and lanky shoulder-length mane; and to flash that cheesy smile in glorious slow-motion..."

Special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back to face an international crisis of terrifying magnitude. Former IMF colleague, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), has stolen a deadly, genetically-engineered toxin and is threatening to sell the technology to the highest bidder. The virus, known as Chimera, is a particularly vicious little sucker, capable of turning a healthy human into a seething mass of blood and pus within the space of 30 hours.

Hunt is assigned technical experts Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Billy Baird (John Polson) to help him on his mission, which involves stealing the antidote drug Belleraphon and recruiting Ambrose's former squeeze, jewel thief Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), as a woman on the inside.

Ambrose is still madly in love with Nyah and welcomes her back to his island retreat with open arms. Unfortunately, his chief bodyguard Hugh Stamp (Richard Roxburgh) isn't nearly so trusting, and organises a cunning ruse to test her loyalty.

Devastated that the woman he loves would betray him, Ambrose channels all of his rage into destroying the IMF team, using Nyah as the bait to flush Hunt and co into the open.

Anyone who shudders at the memory of the first Mission: Impossible movie will be relieved to learn that the sequel keeps such distractions as plot and character development to an absolute minimum. In fact, it's astonishing how little screenwriter Robert Towne manages to cram into two hours of screen time.

This leaves even more room for director John Woo to dazzle the audience with his little bag of tricks. Slow motion motorcycle chases, balletic fight sequences, and little Tommy Cruise performing all sorts of flying kicks and somersaults as if he's been watching too much of The Matrix. With the addition of a booming, gravelly voice-over, Mission: Impossible 2 would make a fantastic two-hour movie trailer.

Cruise's character is far too slick and assured in the sequel. In the first film, he lost members of his team and sometimes doubted his abilities; in M:I-2, he takes on the bad guys almost single-handed and appears to have thought of a solution for every problem before it arises - invariably putting on one of his limitless supply of peel-off latex faces.

His romance with Newton smoulders pleasantly, instigated with a sexually-charged first encounter in a bath tub, but doesn't develop during the course of the film. For her part, Newton looks gorgeous in a crop top and combat trousers and simpers all of her lines under the incredibly flattering lighting. Scott's villain is more camp than menacing and, although he is supposed to be the intellectual and physical equal of Hunt, always comes across as a bit of a wimp. "...This film will self-destruct in two hours."