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Movie Reviews:Mission Impossible 2 243

Posted by CmdrTaco from the daa-da-daa-daa-da-daa-daa-daa-da-daa dept.
Seeing's how the gf essentially implied that we would either see Mission Impossible 2, or I would die a slow painful death, it was off to the local movie-googleplex to catch the latest Tom Cruise action flick. Hit the link below to read my review of it.
The short, spoiler free review is that its a fun movie, but its no Gladiator (which rocked my lame ass into a whole new world). Its directed by Jon Woo, so that already is either a big strike against it, or for it depending on how you swing. I've enjoyed Woo's brand of action for some time... I like the wierd slow mo, the replays etc etc. It all really should work for Mission Impossible.

The last one was kinda James Bond for Dummies and this one sorta follows suit. The plot is pretty cheesy: evil biotech corporation creates killer bio disease and a cure... controlling the virus makes the cure valuable... its more complicated then that, but if you can't figure it out before the movie tediously explains it (complete with ridiculous comments about stock options that are so stupid that they make MI 1's scene about the new artificially intelligent risc chips seem like grad school level CS) then you probably should just wait for the next Pokemon movie or something 'cuz this ain't rocket science (hell, it isn't biotech either ;) There's an evil corporation complete with an evil CEO, an evil terrorist group complete with a lunatic leader and a suffering sidekick or 2.

Anyway the "Plot" is really just an excuse to show us lots of explosions, car/motercycle/helecoptor chases etc etc, along with gratuitous cleavage shots from the hot co-star (which is worth the price of admission assuming you go to a matinee), and Tom Cruise performing stupid backflip karate kicks that might work if they were in Cowboy BeBop, but don't even come close when actual human actors pretend to perform them in slow motion.

So its the roller coaster hollywood film and if you like the genre, you'll probably enjoy this one. It starts off fast and furious, but by the end I was yawning... like so many movies these days, it blows its wad in the first half hour: it just can't sustain the heat for the full 2 hours to keep you interested.

If you like your action fast and your plots brainless, you'll like this movie. If you just want to go for a good ride, you'll enjoy it. But if you gotta choose between Gladiator and MI2, grab your battle axe.
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Movie Reviews:Mission Impossible 2

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  • That was an awesome line. IMHO, the one that takes the cake here is from Anthony Hopkins, the rest of the line from the trailer.

    "This is not mission diffiult, it's mission impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you."

    Sure the line's pretty funny, but the deadpan delivery really kicked the ass!

  • There is a perfectly valid reason why you couldn't understand the plot in the original Mission: Impossible,

    You're just stupid
    I know that's not nice, but truth sometimes isn't.

    And if you really think that Gladiator is at all similar to Braveheart, they you win the DOUBLE dumbass award. Braveheart was a story about a man who started Scotland's movement to freedom, and I don't recall Wallace ever being sold into slavery, or fighting the King of England in a duel pit. Perhaps the beginning of the Gladiator can be likened to the end of Braveheart, but, with that reasoning, every movie with fighting in it is the same. Russel Crowe is definately just as good an action star as Mel, but that probably has something to do with the fact that they both are Aussies.

    To say that Mission: Impossible was confusing is like saying that Barney the dinosaur would make a decent role model. Au contrare, Mission: Impossible was way to easy to predict; the entire plot can be predicted when Phelps resurrects himself at the train station, just as Hunt tells him.

    If MI2 is a dumbed-down version of the original, there is no way in Hell I'm going to see it now. Although I began this post as a flame, I feel I should thank you for saving me $8. And as long as my soapbox hasn't collapsed yet, please do the gene pool a favor and kill yourself before you reproduce. Thanks in advance.

    ...mumbles to himself...

    ...probably thought Fight Club was about soap, too...

    supruzr
    ----------------------------------
    Windows 2000: Is that the year or the bug count?

  • Watching MI-2 was a slow painful death (Score:3)

    by doomy ( 7461 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:33AM (#1043056) Homepage Journal
    One of my friend dragged me to the premier of this Movie. I had high hopes for it specially when I saw John Woo's name in the credits. But sadly I'd have to say that the action was slightly offbase, MI-2 seem lack the heart pounding Bang-bang that I expected out of Woo. There does seem to be a higher concentration of action at the end of the movie but this does not go well with the melodrama in the rest of the movie. Yes it's a great movie to take a girl to (since I can see several reasons as to why a girl would like this love story over the rest of this summer attractions (even over dino)). The plot in this movie seem to be weak, a virus (ok close your ears if you have not seen it) that could kill all of mankind has been made at a biotech firm (they also made an antidote). The bad guys want the virus or the antidote (cause if they spread the virus and then sold the antidote they'd make tons of $$'s) and the good guys try to stop the bad guys. This movie has a similar tone as some of the later James Bond offerings (specially the one where they send a nuclear submarine off the cost of Turkey -- suposdely to vanquish the 'i kiss you' virii). Overall I give it a low 3 out of 10 and point people to other great summer attractions (Gladiator) and hope the rest of the Summer action movies has more action than B-rated love lines. I have high hopes for X-men and Titan AE
    --
  • Same Hans Zimmer. Different singer, I think. Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance) was the vocalist in Gladiator. Mission Impossible score isn't out yet (in the US anyway) and I didn't sit through the Metallica song at the end to find out who the vocalist was for some of the Gladiator-esque pieces, but it was awefully similar.

  • And Sturgeon's Law is:

    "90% Of Everything Is Crap".

    With a bonus 9% if it's a Hollywood movie.

    But then I'm an old fart who still thinks the greatest think George Lucas has ever done is THX-1138.
    --
  • The villain -- the very first time we see him at his estate, he has this look on his face that reminds me of Dr. Evil.

    If I could hear his thoughts, they'd be saying: "I'm eeeeeeevil. And I like it."

    There were SO many lines in the movie that I (and others in the theater) just couldn't keep ourselves from laughing at! And, of course, the burning doorway-smoke-dove-Hawke-slo-mo John-Woo-wants-you-to-know-this-is-HIS-film-dammit shot.

    Gladiator was better, if implausible in its own way. At least it had thought and political import. Replace "Rome" with "The U.S." and you had something to think about.

  • I would hardley call the vast majority of Linux users discerning. Most of the ones that I have talked to just don't know any better. They think that since it's not MS, it must be good. They don't realize that there are other OSes that are better in many ways then linux. I think these same sheep are using the same similar logic on movies. Its a big budget movie, it must be bad. Well, actualy MI:2 was quite entertaining, and about 3 billion times better then the first one. Just because something is mass produced, and mass marketed, does not mean its bad. Look at Dr. Pepper, or Snikers bars.

  • Re:I liked the first one better (Score:3)

    by Life Blood ( 100124 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @03:22PM (#1043061) Homepage

    It was true to its roots: it had an actual team of people doing all sorts of cool secret agenty stuff the whole time.

    You obviously didn't see the same movie I saw. In the first Mission Impossible I saw, the team was killed in the first fifteen minutes. Seeing Emilio Estevez get killed was cool mind you. The rest of the movie was the Ethan Hunt show. It was not about teamwork, it was about Tom Cruise.

    MI2 tries too hard to be James Bond. Too much leg, too little plot. I'm currently blaming the movies big faults on John Woo's lack of english skills, the dialogue just does not work on a grand scale. I felt that the team worked much better than in the first one though. The action was cool just not sustainable.

    BTW it was Versacchi not Armani.

  • 'evil biotech corporation creates killer bio disease and a cure... controlling the virus makes the cure valuable..'

    Doesn't this sound a bit like Horizon Corp and Shiva in 'Rainbow Six' (the book)?

  • I haven't seen this movie, and probably won't.

    You said that Cruise found the vaccine for Ms. Hot Chick after she injected herself. Considering that a vaccine is just a weakened virus made to stimulate the "memory" of the immune system, what good is a vaccine going to be after the host has already been effective against the unweakened form of the virus? It won't do a damn thing, and she should die anyways.

    I shouldn't even bother to point out holes in movies like this, I suppose.
  • "Although she seems much better at it!!"

    Well, I am told I have certain abilities in that depar- HEY!

    Okay, who told? >:(
  • HEY! Why din't you ever tell me!

    :(
  • Damn, that biotech company creates virus and cure and tries to unleash it on the world thing has blatantly been ripped from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, that was supposed to be made into a film at some point.

    I think R6 made much better use of this idea as a plot line and I think it would have made a pretty good film. I suspect that'll be the last we hear of it.

    Can Hollywood action writers actually think for themselves? I'm excluding a few from this of course.
  • Another problem was that the Chimera virus apparently wasn't airborne either, as evidenced by the two people in the movie who were infected by it -- the Dr. who had been infected for some time, and flew in a commercial plane that recycles its air (and yet these people were not at risk, as the Dr. was apparently not concerned about their health), and of course the one other person who had it for at least 12-14 hours and did not spread the virus to anyone else despite being in the public.

    Given that it was spliced from various strains of influenza, Chimera should have caused *real* flu like symptoms, ie sneezing, sniffling, runny nose, & stuffy head that even NyQuil won't fix. The flu needs these symptoms to spread to other people. Neither carriers showed any of these symptoms to any great degree, they just look liked they were not feeling well.

    The virus itself supposedly destroyed blood cells, but there's the problem of mechanism. As viruses consist solely of DNA and some protein, they require the hosts' builtin mechanisms of DNA replication and protein production to reproduce. However mature blood cells do not contain any DNA or replicative processes, as their sole function is gas transport (they eject their nucleus at the last stage of development). So it seems highly unlikely that Chimera could reproduce via infecting blood cells, as the blood cells would not have any ability to produce more Chimera. The sole exception is if it infects a different type of cell first, *then* attacks the red blood cells.

    Lastly, I think that Ebola works by attacking the connective tissues or something to that effect, not the blood cells, so that the person bleeds to death because their blood vessels disintegrate and their internal organs liquify. Chimera's symptoms should be a rather rapid clotting of the blood, due to the high rate of cell lysis, and the person dying of lack of oxygen. They shouldn't be bleeding out their various body orifices, the breakdown of the blood cells would cause clotting factors to activate beforehand.

    Anyhow, the rest of MI:2's plot is so weak I don't think the science behind their plot really even matters, but it would have been nice if they had tried to make it plausible.

  • Now look what you did! Stupid AC, can't even keep one little secret...
  • I remember Mission Impossible the TV show.

    I don't remember explosions, chase scenes, or fights.

    In fact, it seems that the whole point of the Mission Impossible as seen on TV was doing dangerous things and exicting missions Without using force but instead employing brains, reason, deception and cleverness.

    I like the TV show.
  • Ah yes - Cowboy Bebop is just wonderful. Next disc comes out in a couple weeks...

    Since there are 26 episodes and 6 discs they'll probably be broken up like so: 5,4,4,4,4,5. Don't expect 5 episodes on every disc. Though the extras from the Japanese Session 0 will get split onto the various 4 episode discs to make up for it, I hear.

    Best news on the net for this kind of thing: www.animeondvd.com.

    Now if only Otaku no Video would come out. Or Wings of Honneamise. Or Patlabor 2.
  • I agree about the comparative silliness of the plots. Also, no one seems to remember that Gladiator really wasn't all that good-looking a movie. The battle sequence at the beginning looked good, but then all the computer-generated backdrops throughout the rest of it looked lousy.

    M:I-2 looks great throughout. It has all the weaknesses people keep mentioning, but at least it looks and sounds great.

  • And how did Ethan know to bring along a mask of the guy with the hurt finger when he raided the compound near the end? That was really thinking ahead!

  • The thing you have to keep in mind about this movie is that it is an action flick. Even more then that it is a John Woo action flick. The plot is not going to be impecible, and the action scenes are going to show his style.

    You have to keep in mind that the target audience for a movie like this is not 18-35 geek crowd, its the 13-24 testosterone crowd. They don't care if the plot has a few holes in it, so long as 1)The explosions are cool. 2)The fight scenes are cool. 3)They get to see something to titilate them.

    Take a look at the Bond films, they follow a very similar formula, and have been wildly succesful. They say imitation is the sincerist form of flatery and I think that it shows true for the Mission Impossible movies.
  • Who needs reviews? Go to www.moviecritic.com and find out how much the collaborative filtering engine thinks you'll like the movie.
  • Honestly, why pay $7.50 plus to a see a fifty year old dance round the screen in slow mo and forget about the laws of physics? I'd rather be stuck in my basement working on my VR project (oh wait, that's fictional too!)


    Nuff Respec'

    DeICQLady
    7D3 CPE
  • I like the TV show too!

    Of course, there were a lot of similarities between episodes, but the coolest part was at the end of the episode, when the bad guys realized they had been conned. (Especially if the bad guys had bosses who treated foul ups the way Blofeld treated foul ups.)

    But just as people will take names off of classic videogames and stick them on "Just another Tomb Raider clone," people will take TV Shows and put their names on more "modern" films... (i.e. shows that fall into typical genre movies without much innovation...)

    I mean, I would've loved to see the original MI as a spy-sting movie... I guess I still have to watch No Way Out for that...

    I wonder how many people who've seen the MI movies have never seen the MI TV show... I feel old.

  • hey,

    i thought the movie was enjoyable, but that's neither here nor there. what i want to know is -- what kind of motorcycles were used in the conclusion? or, how would i find out?

    - pal
  • Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't the same director (you know, that guy named JOHN WOO) also do Face Off and many Hong Kong films before that - which Matrix BLATANTLY COPIED. Jesus Crust I'm sick of people thinking the Matrix invented that style of action. BTW, do not waste your time seeing movies that use the same action director (forgot his name) as the Matrix. Boy did he blow before he got a Hollywood budget.
  • My fav line was..

    "wait, I got to boot this suckah"

    Or something along the line ;)
    --
  • I saw Shanghai Noon yesterday as well, and while I loved it, jackie is slowing down A LOT in his old age.

    Jet Li has pretty much taken over the fighting title Jackie Chan had, but Jackie still rocks.

    -Frums
  • Not to be picky, but I thought that influenza was a retro-virus - that means it has RNA, not DNA as is continuously mentioned in the movie. Anyways, it sucked. I should have seen Gladiator again.
  • They make most of the fake OSs in Director, or at least they used to. So not only do you get a fake screen, you can have the mouse moves and window openings all scripted events so the actor doesn't even have to click on the fake boxes.
  • Does anyone on slashdot *like* anything (besides linux)? I am seriously asking. I almost never hear anyone on slashdot say good things about movies. And not all of these movies are bad.

    I seem to remember everybody thinking Austin Powers II rocked (just off the top of my head, I saw your comment, thought that, posted it :) ).
  • That's because Anthony Hopkins freaking rules. Only two other people could have delivered that line that well: Sean Connery and James Earl Jones.
  • bleh. i thought m:i-2 and gladiator were both semi-limp flicks. they've both got some good blood-and-guts action, but neither one really has much of a plot IMHO. my advice, if you like bloody hand-to-hand gore, go for gladiator; if you like high-tech specials and explosions, go see m:i-2. neither one's really worth the $8.25 anyway, movies are going so downhill...
  • Well in Sneakers the big bad Mafia guy is using Excel 4 on Windows 3.1 to balance the books. I just finished watching the Anime series Lain (Highly excellant, IMHO) and some of the screenshots look like NeXT boxen but the main Navi OS is called "Copeland". Of course there was the 3D file browser from Irix that was shown in Jurassic Park (Yes that actually shipped with old versions of Irix). That's all I can think of right now.
  • I had poor expectations based on the first film (which made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me).

    This film was fine. Basically a totally retarded way to spend two hours, but a fine distraction for a summer film. It only made slightly more sense then the first one, but I guess this time I was more prepared.

    If I were in a bad mood, I probably woulda hated it it. It's the kind of thing I'll be completely forgetting in about a day or so, much like its predecessor.

    W
    -------------------

  • I was drunk when I saw it! :) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The movie sucked... at least that's what my SOBER friends told me... I started drinking some orangejuics/VODKA as soon as ads ended... and I have to say: I REALLY ENJOYED THOSE SPECIAL EFFECTS and I didn't question myself about unrealistic stuff... It seemed quite normal to me :) SO IF YOU DECIDE TO GO: GET DRUNK! later dudes! dropsonic
  • The plot was painful and the ending simply absurd. Which is more unlikely, Cruise's nutty aerobatic fighting style, or an EMPEROR challenging a SLAVE to a duel?!?!?

    Actually, I read in Newsweek that the real-life Comodus (whose name was different, can't remember the spelling now) _did_ actually fight in the Collesium, but never against anything as dangerous as an armed man :-)

    The brief article listed several other historical problems with the movie, but I don't think they mentioned the tech related stuff.

    And then if you're willing to suspend disbelief enough for MI:2, might I suggest going to see Battlefield: Earth? You'll be treated to the sight of cavemen learning how to fly Harrier jets in less than seven days. Not to mention 1000 year old harriers still functioning perfectly :-)

  • Suspending disbelief (Score:3)

    by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @11:23AM (#1043090)
    Yeah, sure. Whatever.

    I stopped going to movies a *long* time ago because I would be "in" the movie when the an actor said a particularly dumb line and *bam* I'm sitting in a dark room surrounded by a bunch of slackjawed droolers. That's why I ROTFL'ing during Keanu's "wake-up" sequence in _Matrix_ -- I've been there!

    If the "error" is critical to the plot I'm able to live with it. (E.g., who monitored & unplugged the traitor in _Matrix_? Obviously the meeting occured while he was sitting in the chair & Neo approached, but if he could interact like that then why did anyone need to get plugged in?)

    But a lot of these errors are totally pointless oversights. E.g., the Star Trek: Borg movie (which may be the last movie I saw in a theater) had people casually walk around as an ICBM launched a few feet away. I've been a few *miles* away from a Shuttle launch, and seen plenty of footage of actual silo launches. People will *not* casually notice a launch a few hundred feet away... and that 2-second sequence left me sitting in a dark room. How hard would it be for them to put the launch silo a few hundred yards out of town? Did this missile base have a *single* silo?!

    Maybe I'm being "unreasonable," but I don't have the same problem suspending disbelief when watching older movies. To be fair, that might be a "selection effect" where only the best 5% of movies from the 30's through 60's are aired, vs. *all* contemporary movies. Somehow I doubt _Battlefield Earth_ will be aired on the classic movies channel in 2035.
  • I think the virus was supposed to become infectous/airborne after the 20 hour incubation period. I don't know why the bad guys dropped the girl off and then just left her alone for however much time she had left (they never did tell you after the first 20 hour window, although Cruise apparently did have a watch on that he checked at the end of the film) and assumed that she wouldn't incinerate herself or something.
  • At which time a new team consisting of Hunt, Luther, Franz, & the chick (forgot her name) was assembled. And they did things. Together.

    There was none of that in MI2. I guess Ving Rhames had a minor part, but like I said...

    --
  • [Warning: Tedious historical trivia ahead.]

    > I would tend to agree that his debating techniques need a little refining, but so far nobody has decided to call him on any of his facts.

    Best they didn't. I don't have the resources on hand to check the details of every claim he made, but he is by and large correct. For instance, I have a copy of Art and Myth in Ancient Greece, and by thumbing through it it took me about a minute to find five depictions of recurved bows on ancient Greek pottery. No, not Roman, but it does show that the type was known in the Mediterranean basin at least 500 years before the period in which the movie is set. Longbows? I just found a Web site (O Dubious Authority) claiming that archaeologists have found a cache of 36 Roman bows ranging 5'7" - 6'0" in length. Ballistae? Even advanced torsion types were invented in the Hellenistic era. Spears? My wargamers' guides show that Legionaires were progressively rearmed away from the pilum starting right about the time under consideration - Praetorians retaining the traditional weaponry longest - though I can't find a good description of what the new spear looked like. However, one of the new legionary types were called Lanciarii, the lancea being a long thin spear, or "lance", so draw your own conclusions.

    Re stirrup, I'm not so sure. I think thong stirrups are quite ancient, with the iron stirrup being the late invention. At any rate, lancers were known to the Parthians, Sarmatians, and Romans (Catafractarii), with the Romans even experimenting slightly later with lancers mounted on horses pulling scythed chariots! As far as "effective cavalry" goes, an army of lancers and horse archers destroyed an army of good legionaires under one of Caesar's cronies as early as 53 BCE, long before the Roman army started its decline.

    > Maybe it was just a response to what he felt was a 'know it all' attitude in the original post.

    Yeah, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way too.

    However, I do have to agree witht the original poster that Shanghai Noon is well worth the toll.

    --

  • Another review (Score:3)

    by Alan ( 347 ) <arcterex@NoSPaM.ufies.org> on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:14AM (#1043094) Homepage
    I too have written a little review of this show, and if anyone cares, it's up at this location [ufies.org].

    Sadly I've never liked Woo's "lets make that kick just a little cooler/wilder than the last one" style. Nor his "every action sequence must involve explosions or slow-mo no matter what it is".

    But that's just me :)

  • The movie sucked because it has no plot. Really. It was being rewritten as late as two weeks prior to opening night. No, I didn't make this up. You can read it yourself in Entertainment Weekly. [ew.com] Robert Towne, the only credited writer in the movie, offers very candid comments on what happened behind the scenes. Why this move is so bad can be summarized in (Mr. Towne's quote): "'Hey, Robert, here are the action sequences, how'd you like to write us a story?' I had never even tried to write something that way before, and it was frightening."

    I love thrillers. Well-crafted spy movies have always had a soft spot in my heart. Mission: Impossible was actually quite good if you followed the plot line, which wasn't as convoluted as it was touted to be. There was intrigue, and while the action sequences were very Hollywood, the script writers got all the spook-jargon straight (what's an NOC?). Those little touches of authenticity set M:I appart from other summer fare when it came out.

    M:I-2 sucks simply because there is really no plot, as it was publicly stated by the only credited writer. The action sequences were too far over the top, and they don't come close to the action sequences in the latest Jackie Chan flick Shanghai Noon. Thandie Newton can't measure up either as a beautiful woman nor as an actress (think the latest James Bond flick: The casting of Denise Richardson was for pure eye candy). The movie sucks so much, that Oscar(TM) winner Anthony Hopkins, the only person delivering witty lines in the film, doesn't appear on the credits.

    Movies are about escapism and fun. Other than the opening scene with Tom Cruise rock climbing, this movie provides neither. Save yourself $8.75 (if you live in San Francisco); wait for it to come out on video.

    Have an excellent Memorial Day,

    E
  • I'll take your word that those are perfectly valid fighting moves, but my biggest beef was with the bad guy. Whenever Tom Cruise started one of these run forward 10 paces, jump up in the air, with a backflip and catch the guy right in the face manuvers; I kept saying to myself "Why isn't he trying to block or dodge that? Why is the bad guy just standing there with his arms at his sides? Why is he ignoring all of these gigantic openings Cruise was leaving when he was setting up for these jumps?" But I guess it is just a movie, just like the Harlem Globetrotters are just Basketball...
  • Regardless, it is painful to watch any Porsche tarnished. At least it was realistic; most cars are magically repaired in the next frame.
  • >I refuse to see any MI movie that doesn't have the theme song in 5. Lalo where are you?

    For what it's worth, Schiffren later acknowledged in an interview that if he'd thought of the trick of introducing the theme in 5 and then switching to 4 like U2 did for the original MI movie, he'd have preferred to have done it that way.

    But yeah, 5 is cooler; confuse the dance crowd.

    --
  • I saw it with my girlfriend last night too. It was pritty good, but I thought that the motercycle scene was unrealistic (primarly driving road motercycles on wet sand, and crossing a road on your front wheel, at full spead, then flipping around and being stopped on a dime)

  • There is not one single straight punch in this movie. I mean, geez. It's a fun movie the first time, but I think it would be unwatchable more than once. Not enough plot depth for a repeat viewing... Not enough variety to the fights either: kick, kick, kick...

  • The plot's not THAT bad... (Score:3)

    by MaximumBob ( 97339 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:16AM (#1043101)
    I don't think the plot is quite as bad as you make it out to be. It's certainly not Magnolia, but I don't think that it's JUST an excuse for shots of Thandie Newton's cleavage and car chases.

    Also, I don't think the bad guy was really a lunatic. That's cliche, and I think that they tried to keep that from happening. I think that part of the reason for the love triangle in the movie is so that we get a good idea of why he hates Ethan Hunt so much. In that light, he's just an extraordinarily greedy, jealous human being. But I don't think he's just a cliche movie villain.

  • Huh?! (Score:1)

    by Hasues ( 63342 )
    This is slashdot material? Geeze. Tomorrow, I wonder if we are going to get a post on where someone ate lunch and who they ate it with. Get on the ball, already.

  • I liked the first one better (Score:5)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:44AM (#1043104) Homepage
    This didn't really strike me as a true "Mission: Impossible" story. Rather, as Taco mentioned, it was more of a creative outlet for John Woo. The stunts are _great_ - but after awhile there's only so many ways you can kill a guy. This movie started wearing on me at about the 1:15 mark, and never came around after that.

    If you ask me, the first M:I was a lot better. For starters, it was true to its roots: it had an actual team of people doing all sorts of cool secret agenty stuff the whole time. There was a mission. It was impossible. And so on.

    MI2 really wasn't like this at all. There are three competing strands or directions in which this movie meanders: Woo's fetish with windy slo-mos and 2x Berettas, Cruise's totally incongruous, undying love for Thandie Newton (more on that later), and same vague, yarn about diseases and Greek gods. They take precedence in that order.

    Now, if you ask me, that is just stupid. The original MI never dealt with sex in the manner this film does. Nor did it have such incomprehensible plots. I don't deny the directors a little creative freedom here, but through the whole movie I kept thinking about how they were trying to turn Ethan Hunt into a James Bond, minus the smarm. Cruise literally gets smitten (in the span of three minutes, another hiccup in the plot), and from there out his whole motivation is to get this girl back and screw the pants off of her. There are a few cool gadgets, but nothing like the first movie.

    The final straw was the portrayal of Ving Rhames. Now, I thought he really stole the show in the first movie. His swagger was the perfect foil to Cruise's cold, calculating, "Kittridge - you have never seen me upset" demeanor. Compare that to this movie, and he is reduced to an annoying caricature of himself, kind of an amalgam of John Shaft and a corner street pimp. He utters lines like "That bastard put a hole in my Armani" with total seriousness. Ugh.. I found myself yearning for the much cooler, much geekier Rhames in M:I, the guy who drooled over kickass hardware and didn't seem to worry too much about his suit.

    --
  • Both bikes were Triumph's. The red one was a Daytona, the black a Speed Triple.

    Being a bit of a motorcycle geek, I mainly went to see the motorcycle stunts, and was not disappointed. Absolutely unreal, and then to think that they were performed without protective gear - good lord.

    At first I was surprised that they could keep the bikes up on grass / sand, but then I noticed that they had full knobbies on for the off-road scenes. Never seen an MX tire on a Triumph before...
  • The whole 'evil biotech virus and cure' plot has been done many times before - A few weeks ago, the mighty Joe Bob of TNT's Monstervision [turner.com] aired Body Armor, which has the exact same plot. Perhaps not coincidently, it is currently (1:30PM EST) being shown on the local WB affiliate in Connecticut. Check your local listings. Its pretty amusing - it has Ron Perelman, a Dynasty chick, a bunch of stunt guys trying to act, and the mandatory comic relief in the form of Ron Howard's brother Clint [zdnet.com]. Also putting in a brief appearance at the beginning is John Rhys-Davies, of Sliders ?fame?. Don't waste the eight bucks - just watch Body Armor. Btw, if you can't stay up to watch Joe Bob, you should tape it. His analysis of movies is brilliant, brutal, and incredibly funny.

  • Yes, but Taco's review wasn't long, meandering and stupid.

  • Ignorance is bliss (Score:4)

    by Linuk ( 28646 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @12:15PM (#1043123) Homepage
    Roman Legion was using Mongol recurve bows

    What you saw were Syrian auxiliaries with their typical bows. These exact archers are depicted on Trajan's (beginning of 2nd century AD) column. Shorter bows (the ones that you mistakenly call Mongol) were in use at least in the 6th century BC (that's right, almost a millennium earlier) by the Scythians.

    This is roughly equivalent to Mel Gibson using a machinegun in Braveheart.

    I wanted to let this comment stand in all its singular glory. Feeling good about yourself yet?

    The Roman Legions used javelins.

    During the Roman empire (as opposed to republic), soldiers became less dependable and therefore less likely to use the sword to good effect. The spaces between cohorts lessened and the battle line again evolved to a phalanx. Pila (which is what you are thinking of) evolved to longer and sturdier spears, appropriate in a phalanx type formation.

    12th century ballistas in the 3rd century AD.

    The same evolution required more artillery for the defense of camps and for softening up the enemy's line of battle. This is perfectly illustrated in Gladiator. What you assume to be 12th century was in fact in widespread use in the 4th century BC.

    The stirrup, allowing effective cavalry, also had not been invented.

    I did not notice stirrups. OTOH, I was not looking for them, as you were with your expert eye for such things. I was amused, however, by your implication that effective cavalry did not exist since there were no stirrups. Go tell Alexander's Companions, or Attila.

    an EMPEROR challenging a SLAVE to a duel?!?!?

    Commodus, Caligula and a couple of others fought in the arena while emperor. Sue your history teacher.

  • Save us all and shut down MI (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Has anyone else noticed the bad guys in *both* the MI films to date are current or former MI employees?

    Seems to me the fastest cure for this is to just shut down the MI office.

    Did anyone else have more fun seeing Nicole Kidman and George Clooney in "The Peacemaker" than her husband in both MIs to date?
  • Disclaimer: I haven't liked Cruise in anything since Risky Business (I haven't seen Magnolia), so it should come as no surprise that I consider his performance bland and underwhelming here. He is a pretty boy, though his looks are rapidly fading into a sort of roguish version of George Hamilton. However, looks alone do not an actor make, though they do, unfortunately, make many a star.

    Thandie would look marvellous with or without the cleavage. I don't know whether she can act. I hadn't seen her previously, and nothing in this film tests her enough to pass any serious judgement.

    As for Woo... I love everything he has done except for this, though I might be alone in considering Face/Off one of his weaker works. I attribute the failure of this work to the PG-13 restriction. The storyline was no better or worse than is usual in action-adventure fare, but, frankly, this film was still twice as exciting as the original (which isn't saying much, as I thought the first film sucked).

    Just my .02 cents worth.

  • Better mark me as a troll (Score:4)

    by Raleel ( 30913 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:50AM (#1043138)
    Doesn't anyone go to the movies for just fun anymore? Do you always have to be intellectually stimulated by every movie you go to? Geez, people, lighten up. Have some fun, relax, blow some steam. If you thought it sucked, you probably went expecting a deep flick.
  • Cowboy Bebop is one of the better Anime series to come out in a while. Good storyline, funny, good action scenes. Not too much gratuitous sex or gory violence. Definitely worth renting. Props to Bandai for making it a 5 TV episode/DVD release.

    That said, MI2 is all about style. But it's copied style - they took the Matrix and Face Off, and added a cheezy sub-Bond movie plot. I mean halfway through they have a guy EXPLAIN the plot. Not worth seing, unless you don't care about any semblance of a story.
  • > Either way, I believe your right about the pila though, because if you've read Harry Turtledove's fantasy novels about the Roman Legion lost in a different world, it makes a lot of the same historical references

    FWIW, "The Roman Legion" had a history of almost 1000 years (even ignoring Byzantine history), and it evolved greatly over that period. Early on there was little to distinguish it from the armies of other ancient states, and late on there was increasingly little to distinguish it from the barbarian armies of its neighbors, which eventually superceded it.

    To whatever extent HT tries to be historically accurate in his descriptions, he will try to avoid anachronistic mixings of the features from different periods. That is to say, the more you can trust him, the narrower the time slice he must portary. Thus his may be an excellent portrayal of "The Roman Legion" at 9BCE (or whatever year it got sucked away in his story), but will be somewhat inaccurate for a legion of 200 years earlier or later, and quite inaccurate for a legion of 400 years earlier or later.

    --
  • movies use macs a lot because it's relatively trivial on a mac to start a quicktime capture of whatever is onscreen--and has been for many years.


    Actually you can create fake and realistic looking OS's with Director for Windows *or* Mac which is likely how they do it but that has nothing to do with it.


    The reason is Apple has always spent a lot of money on product placement in films and television, like when you see a barrage of name brand products being used by characters in a lot of movies. Like a movie targeted at children where the characters pass by or enter a McDonald's or a Burger King- so the advertiser can do a tie-in in real life. Apple has had tie-in promotions with movies too; just can't remember which ones. Kinda realated, the US Navy has a large PR office that actively lobbies Hollywood studios and gets involved in projects; lending advisors, equipment, etc, ala 'Top Gun'. Notice that there are a lot more Navy themed movies out there in the last 15-20 years from H'wood than other military branches? The Navy is more active: it's just another form of product placement- a recruiting film that people pay to see.

  • Well, not quite. The Navy reserves the right to review any script before they lend a helping hand, so to speak. Ever watched "A Few Good Men"? The Navy refused to help out on this film because they felt it tarnished their image (rightfully so, I might add). This is why, in the opening scenes of the film, where there are a bunch of Navy guys twirling their rifles, they don't look quite as good as real life officers. The producers had to borrow cadets from the Virginia Military Institute in place of them. Other than that you are completely right. Some of the stories I have heard about the lengths the Navy will go to accomodate a film that promotes the Navy would make your jaw drop :)

    --
  • Ok, I just sat down and read all these comments modded as Insightful, up to around 3-5, and NOT A ONE was different from the other. They all said the same thing about plot holes and slo-mo. Thanks, I think the review said that folks.

    I, for one, was glad to sit down for about 2 hours and just go 'ooooo.'

    Gratuitous slow motion? Hello, meet John Woo. I was glad enough that he had a budget to use hi-speed cameras as opposed to slowing down the frames.

    Plot holes and no character development? Hello, meet Action Genre.

    Insult to intelligence? Hello, meet the PG-13 rating. This was a concious choice to broaden the audience. Think of it as backlash from the loud "What the hell?" the audience gave the first one.

    Matrix ripoff? Hello, what the fuck did you think the Wachowski brothers are inspired by? They had Jet Li's choreographer for crying out loud.

    I walked in expecting some nice-as-hell fight scenes, explosions that weren't re-shot from five different angles, an attempt at plot, no attempt at character development, and a hot member of the opposite sex. I walked out getting what I expected.

    All in all, it's a fun flick, I'd go see it again at matinee or something.

  • > Does anyone on slashdot *like* anything (besides linux)?

    I saw Shanghai Noon today, and realy *liked* it. I heartily recommend it to you and all other /.ers.

    > It must really suck to not like anything, and not consider anything to be good enough.

    It must really suck to have to lower your standards to accept whatever plotless, humorless, amalgam of cheese and special effects that Hollywood cares to shove on the public.

    --
  • I thought that the most interesting thing contained in that review was the admission that CmdrTaco actually has a girlfriend!

    "You wouldn't know her. She lives in Niagra Falls."

    :)

  • It's not Mission Impossible anymore (Score:3)

    by Frac ( 27516 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @09:00AM (#1043168)
    Spoiler ahead: Everything that made Mission Impossible 1 really good simply isn't the focus anymore in MI2. While MI1 everything was about high-tech geek tools, infiltration, walking past guards, and stealth, MI2 was about big explosions, a LOT of Tekken-style fighting, a lot of guns. The tech gadgets used in MI2 are the same from MI1, and overused for the entire movie (How many times do we need to see someone use a fake mask?)

    Overall, I am disappointed that John Woo decided to direct this movie, because even "Ethan Hunt" isn't the same "Ethan Hunt" anymore. Shame shame. Go see Gladiator instead.

    Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)

  • The really amazing thing was that the tires morphed from nice round road wheels when they were on the road, to big knobby offroad ones when they werent.

  • SHOCK HORROR! (Score:4)

    by seldolivaw ( 179178 ) <me&seldo,com> on Saturday May 27, 2000 @09:02AM (#1043170) Homepage
    You guys have girlfriends???

    But you're geeks! Is that even allowed?

    (runs off to check rulebook)

  • The matrix is almost an exception, but for people endlessly bitching about keanu (sp?) reeves.

    I don't see why more people don't realize that Keanu Reeves was a perfect actor to play Neo. The problem most people have is that Keanu isn't a martial artist badass, and they thought Neo was supposed to be a martial artist badass.

    He isn't. Neo is no more a martial artist badass than I am a rocket-launcher-toting Strogg killing machine; both of us are just skinny, pasty white computer geeks who don't sleep regular hours. Neo just got to play with a much better computer.

    And c'mon, didn't Keanu do the "pasty white computer geek" thing pretty well? He spent all weekend in his cluttered room developing a healthy monitor tan, he acted appropriately just a little dazed each time he was forced to confront the "real world" (at least I'll give Keanu the benefit of a doubt and assume that dazed look was intentional), and he hammed it up like a goofy kid beating his dad at Soul Calibur when he finally got the chance to kick a little computer-enhanced ass. If you were a wuss who suddenly was taught every form of fighting imaginable and could move with superhuman reflexes, wouldn't your behavior be a little corny and a lot cocky too?
  • Another thing that made no sense (or someone please explain to me):

    From what I can gather, he (the bad guy) wanted stock options in the biochem company, and when the outbreak is supposed to occur in the busiest streets of Sydney, the biochem company will go rich by supplying the cure.

    however, was the "outbreak" supposed to occur because of the girl, who was told to be dropped off in a crowded place in Sydney, or or some other fashion? Clearly the virus is not airborne, and not contagious (everyone in contact with the girl, including Tom Cruise, would surely be dead, and they never hit themselves with the vaccine), so did they plan to run around with syringes injecting people with Chimera, or spray Chimera'ed blood at people?

    Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)

  • Why are you guys harping on the plot when there was all that fabulous motorcycle porn? I'd say the best moment was when he did a stoppie, pivotted around on the front tire, and took off going in the opposite direction, all the while firing a gun. Damn!

    As far as the plot went, I did think it was a nice touch that the bad guy was obviously smarter than the good guy, and anticipated his every move.

  • mindless fun (Score:3)

    by sik puppy ( 136743 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @09:11AM (#1043199)
    Anyone going to this movie for intellectual stimulation deserves to be disappointed. It was exactly what one should expect - lots of stunts, very well directed and filmed - the car and motorcycle chases were very well done. (i know there are cries about killing the porsche and audi, but if you really want to cry, there is also the hidden: victim a ferrari 308gts, the original gone in 60 seconds: victim tons of valuable muscle cars, including a hemi cuda tboned by a semi, and others)

    in fairness, i didn't have to pay to see it - not having to shell out $9 for a movie helps (what does silicon valley think it is? - midtown manhattan?!).

    anyway go to have fun, if you want intellectual stimulation - go to something else.

  • I'm wondering if anyone assciated with either movie ever bothered to watch the TV series. Jim, Roland, Barney, and crew could do anything, and they did it with style, stelth and intelligence. This is just more Hollywood pap not worthy of the MI name. I refuse to see any MI movie that doesn't have the theme song in 5. Lalo where are you? The best thing that can come of this movie is FX putting the tv series back into rotation again.
    - daniel
  • Luckly I won a bet earlier this month so I didn't have to pay for this movie. I thought the plot was incredibly cliche. The cinnematography was cool, but that was about it.

    That being said, I wasn't all that impressed with Gladiator either. Perhaps my hopes were too high after reading all the good reviews on that one.

    I usually base my thoughts on a movie by the way I feel when I'm walking back to my car after it's over. If it's good, I'm saying to myself "wow, that was just amazing". I haven't had that feeling about a movie since The Matrix.

  • Bah. (Score:4)

    by Robert Link ( 42853 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @09:55AM (#1043206) Homepage
    Movies that insult the viewer's intelligence considered not fun.


    Why is it that apologists for really bad movies always pull out the same tired cliche about ``intellectual stimulation?'' I may be pretty dense at times, but I assure you I wasn't thick enough to walk into MI2 expecting to see some sort of european art film or anything like that. Nevertheless, I don't think it is asking too much for the holes in the plot to be smaller than the helicopter our heroes were flying around in. I mean, the bad guy's master plan made no sense whatsoever, on any level (as if he's going to just walk in and take his seat on the board of directors after having released a super-flu on the world. Hello, McFly?). Add to that a love story between two characters that had no chemistry whatsoever, mix in some glaring continuity errors, add a dash of fight scenes that would make an anime director blush, stir, and simmer for two hours, and you have a recipe for a seriously mediocre film.


    I'm not saying I hated it; it had its good points. Some of the stunts were cool, and the soundtrack was pretty good, but a film can get a hell of a lot better than this without venturing into ``deep flick'' territory. If you haven't seen it already, wait for it to come out in the $2 theatre.


    -rpl

  • Speaking of the plot, I've heard quite a bit of commentary in different reviews and 'hollywood' type stuff that said that they purposely dumbed down the plot, because one of the largest weak points of the first movie was that nobody understood what the hell was going on. I admit it, after the first time I watched the first movie, I didn't have a CLUE what was going on.

    This movie was not like that. You could actually understand what was going on, even though there was quite a bit of artifice in different parts.

    I thought that the plot was not the greatest, but in terms of action, this was one of the most badass movies I've ever seen.

    Much better than gladiator anyway, which was just an extremely bloody remake of Braveheart in Roman times. (If you've seen Braveheart, you roughly know the entire plot of Gladiator except that instead of fighting for freedom, the gladiator is fighting *for* the republic of rome after a fashion)

  • All the negative comments about films here on Slashdot don't neccessarily mean that the majority of Slashdotters dislike the movies in question.

    The fact is that when I like something, I don't feel particularly motivated to share my liking of something with the world, unless it's very strong indeed. However, critisising something and expressing extreme dislike, besides being amusing, also give you an outlet for your hate/dislike/ and anger/fury at having wasted time/money.

    Therefore, people with negative opinions are more likely to post them, while people who have positive opinions aren't as motivated.

  • Some boycott (Score:3)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @07:03PM (#1043217)
    Aren't you people boycotting The Man's movies? I know I am, unless and until the DeCSS suit is dropped. There are plenty of fine independent films that don't make you fund a witch hunt against a computer programmer.
  • It seems to me that nearly everyone who posts on slashdot would be *much* happier if they just didn't go see movies in general.
    Many of us don't. Hollywood hasn't shown any interest in producing movies with better than elementary school level writing or even token attempts at realism. As a whole, the movie industry is a wonderful example of what happens when you combine a bunch of money, egotists and no clues.

    Unfortunately, going to movies these days seems to be a question of whether you're willing to lower your tastes to the swill they crank out. What's really killed the industry is the idea of the blockbuster film - nobody tries to make a smaller film that will sell reasonably well and really please fans of the genre; everyone's focused on a multi-hundred-million epic that will get most of the movie viewers in the country. It's becoming clear that nobody really knows how to make one, probably because they ignore the fact that most of the past blockbusters were genre films that were done well enough to appeal to people outside that genre.

    You can't just throw money at the problem.
    __

  • More plot holes per dollar than any other movie (Score:3)

    by toaster13 ( 36774 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:18AM (#1043221)
    I just have one question for the script writers: if the biotech scientiest could "look at" the DNA sequence of the virus to confirm that it was actually it, then why the hell would they need the virus anyway? If you know the DNA, you have the virus....DUH!
    Lets see what else...
    There's the mandatory self destruct button...
    The movie goes for at least an hour without any action happening or anything the least bit interesting going on to keep you from walking out...
    I love the way they combined the matrix and outbreak...
    I love the way the laws of physics are defied on a regular basis...
    I'm sure there's more but I'm tired of bitching
  • IMHO, this movie was excessively cheesy and poorly done. Poor plot, and ripped off many good movies: The Matrix, with it's black leather (granted, a Woo thing, but too coincidental with everything else in mind), Terminator 2, with the bike scenes, James Bond flicks, with the chick/cleavage scenes, etc.

    This is a basic consumer movie. There were aspects from almost every genere: action, suspense, chick-flick, thriller, etc... maybe even some horror, depending on how you look at it. The plot was terrible in order to make room for all the different aspects.

    The whole mask thing was waaay overdone. Too terribly predictable. You could snap your fingers on almost the exact moment when a 'special event' would take place. The characters were poorly developed and they had little interaction with each other, as was the case in MI.

    I personally enjoyed MI, and enjoy the James Bond flicks. However, mixing the two just doesn't work. They're not the same type of flick.

    I was fairly disappointed too, cuz the theater didn't have teh speakers up very loud. Gay.

    However, I did enjoy the movie. I'd not see it again, and it wasn't a good movie, but I enjoyed it. My fiance and I made fun of it the whole way through. There were sooo many rip offs from other films. She said there were even some from Tron. (I've nto seen the whole thing.)

    I doubt I would have enjoyed it at all, if I had watched it on my own. It would have been nice if it was a good, solid action flick. OR a good solid suspense, thriller, etc. That's the type of movie this guy likes. This was too terribly kludgish.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • I certainly don't mind the style being different, but I don't see the point of having a sequel if even the personality of the orginal star seems to be a different person. People watch sequels expecting to see a movie with elements they enjoyed in the original movie.

    If the next Star Wars has Samuel Jackson trying on facial expressions of the Ace Ventura, I bet it wouldn't be a good reception...

    Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)

  • John Woo? No thanks. (Score:3)

    by Darth Maul ( 19860 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:21AM (#1043234)

    Character development? He's never heard of it.
    Even the first MI movie had that going for it.
    Take out all the slo-mo and the movie would be 15 minutes long, too ;).

    Seriously, though, if you want to laugh, go see it. It's the most incredibly bad movie I've see this year. So many editing/continuity errors that I stopped counting. This movie was made for a 6th grade level audience because of the overly-cliche and explanatory script and framing. Hey, there's a zoom-up on that cigar cutter! I wonder if it'll play an important part of the next shot?

    Hey John: pick a frame rate and go with it!

    And never, never destroy a piece of artwork like a new 911 Carrera Cabriolet just for the sake of spending the money! Ouch. That ridiculous scene hurt my eyes moreso than the others.
  • Ouch. Next, I suppose you're going to tell me you don't like American Beauty. Or Fight Club. Or Boys Don't Cry.
  • movies use macs a lot because it's relatively trivial on a mac to start a quicktime capture of whatever is onscreen--and has been for many years. computer screens on movies are always animations (for various production reasons; it makes sense if you think about it--do you really want the ultra sleek computer on the big screen to perform as erratically as the one on your desk??) and it's easy to make these animations on a mac

    if you're interested in making cool fake OSes on a mac, check out kaleidoscope.net [kaleidoscope.net] or on windows, check out litestep.net [litestep.net]. these are both really nifty theming engines for their various platforms. of course, if you're lucky enough to be running X, just go to themes.org [themes.org] and take it away...

    the bottom line is that most modern OSes can be customized much more than is first apparent, so if you want more little bells and whistles and neat stuff, you can probably get it with a little tinkering...

    Enjoy!
    --

  • Does anyone on slashdot *like* anything (besides linux)? I am seriously asking. I almost never hear anyone on slashdot say good things about movies. And not all of these movies are bad.

    The matrix is almost an exception, but for people endlessly bitching about keanu (sp?) reeves.

    It must really suck to not like anything, and not consider anything to be good enough.

    btw, I haven't seen this movie yet, but I will eventually. And the first one wasn't my favorite movie in the world either... so I don't doubt that a lot of people don't like the film. But I don't consider an entire movie to be crap just because I don't like the way Woo expects everyone to open a door before walking through.

    It seems to me that nearly everyone who posts on slashdot would be *much* happier if they just didn't go see movies in general.

    --cheese
  • It becomes very obviously, very early on that this movie is brain-candy, and you will not enjoy it if you nitpick about the impossibilities. ( Physics is, of course, the first thing to go.. dropping dozens of stories only to stop at the last second inches above ground ( Tom barely stopped above the glass floor in the first movie ), spinning of cars, motorcycles in a graceful waltz, etc ).

    The character development was completely non-existant. You'll have to have seen the previous movie to be able to appretiate the hacker dude. I felt ZERO emotion in regards to the "essential" romance part of the plot. It seems to me that they didn't want to bother working out romance in an action movie, so that by making it part of the main plot it was more justifiable. Still, I have to give them credit for giving this otherwise useless female character a vital role. ( personally I didn't think she was so hot, but she wasn't bad ). Furthering the notion of character, there were no tragedies ( with the exception of the Tom Cruse getting shot scene, which was rather transparent ( though it still caught some moans from our audiance ) ). It didn't hold a candle to emotion in MI-1 in this regard.

    MI-1, I think did a good job of linking to the original series. Same basic characters, repeated use of the exploding message, strong plot around the CIA, pseudo-complicated in a spy-movie sort of way. This had minimal ties, all of which could very well have been after thoughts ( oh yea, we need to add something MI-ish ). It became it's own generic action movie ( Bond, Schwartzineger, whatever ). I liked the quote "Matrix meets Outbreak".

    Now, my biggest gripe. Many action fans like a pretty face or two ( Bond style ), no plot necessary ( or at least simple good-guy/ bad-guy.. Or even the modern, renegade good-guy/ imaculate, well respected bad-guy ), lots of action, and martial arts ( I'm still recovering from the bland Chuck Noris films ). So it definately has the elements for that genre. There's one slight problem.. IT'S BORING!! There were so many parts that I physically looked away from the screen in bordom. All the artsy fartsy slow-mo shots of the surrounding environment ( which supposedly sets the mood ), the various conversations, and side actions just all put me off. And it is by this token that I say it's a bad movie. If you exclusively focus on a genre, with the exclusion of at least good directing / writing, then you had damn well better fit the genre well. Action movies need non-stop action ( See Terminator II for reference ( minus some tiny plot scenes ) ).

    Still, the movie had some redeeming values. Some cool quotes "when yellow dot reaches the red dot", "she's a woman. She has all the necessary qualifications", "this is not mission too difficult", etc. And in the true James bond spirit, the intro scene was better/cooler than most of the rest of the movie.

    Conclusion: Go see it at a matinee JUST for the intro. You won't be disappointed. If you want, you can sneak into the ending half hour; It has the action that you might be interested in. Just ignore what the girl is doing. She's supposed to be committing suicide, even though the point of releasing her was to infect Sidney.. ( what, is she supposed to swim out there? )

    -Michael
  • Odd, there are already 124 posts (probably a couple more by the time this shows up), and not a single one has the word "clam" in its subject.

  • Those fake OSs? (Score:3)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:23AM (#1043254) Homepage
    Okay I've been wondering since the first M:I and seeing the second one brought the question back. How do they make those "fake high tech" operating systems that Hunt uses on the Powermacs. You know what I'm talking about - the sweet looking window manager and apps that he uses to do things like interface with the satellite, etc. It has tons of beeps and clicking and lots of cool features - 3D rotating heads, etc. etc. Any ideas?

    --
  • "And, uh...I get to keep the equipment when we're done." -- Luther

    ObDVDRant: Why isn't "Hard-Boiled" available yet?

  • What you saw were Syrian auxiliaries with their typical bows.

    Ah. I was under the impression that Syrian bows were about a foot or so shorter than the ones I saw on screen. It is quite possible I am mistaken there. The bows shown looked a great deal like the Mongol large bows (one of three types they used). As you, apparently a history-type person, would know, the six foot compound recurve bows they used were first brought west by them. With a gap of about 1000 years between these two times, that would be exactly like the machine gun comparison.

    During the Roman empire (as opposed to republic), soldiers became less dependable and therefore less likely to use the sword to good effect.

    Ah, again. I have not particularly studied the end of the Roman Empire, so I was not aware of this. My military history teachers never thought it important enough to mention, I guess. This would also explain an evolution away from pila. (I assumed that the average person would be more familiar with the term javelin. Which I suppose is a silly concern when I am nitpicking specifics.)

    Ballistas. What you assume to be 12th century was in fact in widespread use in the 4th century BC.

    Again, I must be misinformed, then. I was told that ballista were pretty much confined to ships and sieges before the twelfth century. Now that I think further though, that was told to me by history student aquaintence of mine.

    I was amused, however, by your implication that effective cavalry did not exist since there were no stirrups.

    Without stirrups, you tend to have horsemen, not cavalry. The riders need to be excellent and either all pretty much live on horses (the Huns) or be an elite trained unit (Alexander's Companions). Cavalry gain most of their ability to dominate a battlefield later in history from being able to rain blows down on people while effectively standing on their stirrups or from being securely on their horses and using mass to crush people in the form of lances, spears, or simply hooves.

    Commodus, Caligula and a couple of others fought in the arena while emperor.

    Never knowingly against someone competant. My point was that Cruise's fighting style was far-fetched, but no more far fetched than this.

    Feeling good about yourself yet? ... Sue your history teacher.

    Yep. Every time I am corrected, I know something else. Sooner or later, I may bother to research all of this and figure out exactly how wrong/right I was. My perceptions of what I saw can also be affected by the simple fact that I saw something once on a movie screen. As I origianlly said, what I perceived made it more difficult to suspend my disbelief. I can hardly sue my teachers for me not double-checking my information now can I? That is one of my many peeves: when people sue because they didn't perform a common sense action.

    Oh, yes ... ignorance is bliss, as I would not have thought to question the movie at all, and I would not have received an incentive to check both your facts and mine. Nah. I'll continue to be partially informed and work my way up to fully informed if I care.

    B. Elgin

  • The movie was great, up until Cruise stopped climbing the mountain. From there the entire thing was messy, thrown together and hopelessly simple. Audiences went in craving the twists of M:I, or perhaps the raised bar given to the action genre by films like the matrix, or perhaps some mind-numbingly realistic visual effects, a la Dinosaur. But no. It was obvious how the movie would end after the first ten minutes, and you wanted it to end after the first 15, the action was a lazy bach to the matrix's chopin, and the visual effects were non-existant. I just am at a loss for words describing the horrible state of the script. The only redeeming feature of the script was Hopkins' line "Difficult should be a walk in the park." The editor of this film just didnt seem to understand how to edit an action sequence. It doesn't work if all you have is slow motion money shots, you have to build up to them with high speed rock-em sock-em action. Further, if the editor had edited the movie so that no frames were duplicated, it would have been more like 100 minutes instead of the excruciating 126 that it ended up being. And quite honestly, i think that woo finished the thing, slapped it in the can and send it to the processor. the editor proceded to edit it on a movieola and no effects were added whatsoever.

    Oh, and the music! don't get me started on the music. When you were at the most tense, action packed moment of the movie, the music was trying to put you to sleep! I don't know why, but it was. But for all these fault, i do not blame the star, director, editor, composer or writer. The editor is a member of A.C.E. not something easy to do, and something to be applauded. The writer, Robert Towne, wrote Chinatown, an incredible movie. The Director, John Woo, a master of his craft. Tom Cruise, a wonderful action hero. The composer wrote lovely music.

    But you wonder, if everyone is so fscking wonderful, why did the movie suck so much? Well, i would have to say that the blame rests solely on the one who made sure the everything came together in just the right way. The producer. Because in this movie, i assure you that nothing came together the right way. well, maybe the credits did, but i was too disgusted to watch those...

    my final verdict... I want my 126 Minutes back, don't waste your time.

  • e-mail me when you find out. also anyone let me know why the hell movies keep using macs for EVERYTHING. i'd be happy if i just saw an occasional windows box or something. That reminds me, the only UNIX box I ever saw in a movie that was given no credit was in Sphere. They've got Xterms up and login data all over the screen. Kind of satisfying.
  • I was boycotting the MPAA because of the DeCSS thing. Fortunately for me, they accidentally gave one of my friends an extra ticket, so I got in without giving the bastards any of my money. If you can manage it that way, it's probably worth slightly more than what you pay for it.

    Notes:
    Excluding vehicles, 6 instances of product placement that my friends and I noticed. Versacci, Motorola, (jewelry company whose name I can't remember), Kodak, Macintosh, (one more I can't remember)

    Look for the mention of the DNA of a virus (viruses have RNA).

    If you have a good audience (we did), this is a lot of fun. At various places, people yelled things like "kill her!" "he can't, the heroine can't die", etc. Throughout all of the second half of the film, the entire audience was laughing, especially at the fight scenes.

    -Dave Turner.
  • I would tend to agree that his debating techniques need a little refining, but so far nobody has decided to call him on any of his facts.

    Maybe it was just a response to what he felt was a 'know it all' attitude in the original post. I don't know enough about Roman history to say, myself.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])

  • Brazilian Capoeira (Score:4)

    by danoboy ( 193224 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @10:37AM (#1043278)
    In regards to all of you who have said the fighting style used by Cruise in this movie is "bogus" or "unrealistic", need to try learning a little about the subject before you go blasting your mouths off. To quote a few: "...and Tom Cruise performing stupid backflip karate kicks that might work if they were in Cowboy BeBop, but don't even come close when actual human actors pretend to perform them in slow motion." "And don't even get me started about all the laws-of-physics-out-the-window stuff that happened during the fight scenes. It was all way too much like the Matrix, but wait! We aren't in a computer-generated world here! This is supposedly real!" "And I'm sorry, I don't think that doing flip-kicks are going to be that effective." Many/most of the moves used by cruise in this movie are from a brazilian martial art known as Capoeira, which I myself am a student of, and find it to be incredibly effective as a fighting style. Granted, the bad guy would never have been able to take the kind of punishment Cruise dished out, as several of the kicks used would cripple any normal human being, but the kicks themselves weren't unrealistic in any way whatsoever. Just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

  • Gladiator references... (Score:5)

    by belgin ( 111046 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @10:42AM (#1043282) Homepage
    Ok, I have to say that I am amazed at the number of people here who are saying that Gladiator is better than MI:2. I have seen both along with various other movies inthe past few weeks and I enjoyed MI:2 more because it was easier to suspend my disbelief.

    I think the thing that started Gladiator off on the wrong foot for me was the fact that the Roman Legion was using Mongol recurve bows and 12th century ballistas in the 3rd century AD. This is roughly equivalent to Mel Gibson using a machinegun in Braveheart. Never mind that longbows (the first large European bows used heavily for combat) were invented by the Welsh a noticable while later. The Roman Legions used javelins. The javelins were made with soft metal heads that would bend if they hit a shield, so that the user was stuck with dead weight instead of a useful shield. The time and place references did not get better as the movie went on, either. The stirrup, allowing effective cavalry, also had not been invented.

    As far as plot goes, it was at least as predictable as MI:2, if not more so. The only three-dimensional character in the film was the former gladiator who owned Maximus. All the rest of the characters were lucky to get one dimension. The plot was painful and the ending simply absurd. Which is more unlikely, Cruise's nutty aerobatic fighting style, or an EMPEROR challenging a SLAVE to a duel?!?!?

    I'm sorry. If you want a brainless plot with some good action and entertainment, go see either. If you want a good plot, respectable dialogue, etc. don't see either. I am just astounded that Gladiator can be held up as a better movie than MI:2, when the first is a poor rehash of old gladiator movies and the second is an occaisionally inventive action flick in the spy motif. The only possible reasons I can come up with is that people have seen more spy movies recently, or that they just want to see people dismembered.

    Argh. Anyway, if you like John Woo movies, as I do, you will be entertained by MI:2. If you are a medieval weaponry buff, as I am, you will like the fight scenes in Gladiator. If you like to laugh, as I do, you might just like Jackie Chan's mockery of the old west in Shanghai Noon better than either one. The script is witty and the action is good. Plus, it probably cost about a tenth of what either of the other two did.

    B. Elgin

  • Re:3D filesystem viewing program (Score:3)

    by fsck ( 120820 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @10:42AM (#1043284) Homepage
    FSV, the 3D File System Visualizer, allows you to view a collection of directories and files as three-dimensional geometry. It represents all or part of a filesystem as a collection of blocks of varying sizes, each labeled with a filename, and arranged in a manner consistent with the original directory structure. fsv can visualize any arbitrarily large collection of files, limited only by memory and hardware constraints. Program features include an integrated 2D interface, intelligent camera handling, and extensive use of animation. fsv requires OpenGL.

    http://fox.mit.edu/skunk/soft/fsv/ [mit.edu]

  • (MINOR SPOILER WARNING - BUT IF YOU HAVE HALF A BRAIN YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT ANYWAY :)

    I thought it was a pretty good movie overall, except for one thing- those #@$(*% masks!

    In the last scene, I half expected the two of them to pull off masks, and they'd actually be someone else - and how on earth did Ethan get masks for him and the other guy?
  • D'oh! Never mind, I was thinking of a different movie. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a purchase to make from reel.com....

  • Re:Those fake OSs? (Score:5)

    by war2k1 ( 15869 ) <gezickNO@SPAMgezick.net> on Saturday May 27, 2000 @08:31AM (#1043294) Homepage
    Unfortunately those tend to just be animations. They have just a small amount of screen time and don't have to do muh, so the cgi artists just dream up the sweetest looking thing that they can think of. kind of dissapointing from a tech standpoint, but then again, that's movie magic for you...

    p.s. i;m a film editor, so i didn't just pull that COMPLETELY out of my ass (just mostly :)

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