| Mission: Impossible 2 | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Woo |
| Screenplay by | Robert Towne |
| Story by | |
| Based on | Mission: Impossible byBruce Geller |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Jeffrey L. Kimball |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Hans Zimmer[b] |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures[2] |
Release date |
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Running time | 124 minutes[3] |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $120–125 million[4][5] |
| Box office | $546.4 million[5] |
Mission: Impossible 2 (titled onscreen asMission: Impossible II and abbreviated asM:i-2)[2] is a 2000actionspy film directed byJohn Woo, and produced by and starringTom Cruise. It is a standalone sequel toMission: Impossible (1996) and the second installment in theMission: Impossible film series. The film also starsDougray Scott,Thandiwe Newton,Richard Roxburgh,John Polson,Brendan Gleeson,Rade Šerbedžija andVing Rhames. In the film,Ethan Hunt (Cruise) teams with professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Newton) to secure a genetically modified disease, Chimera, held by rogueImpossible Missions Force (IMF) agent Sean Ambrose (Scott), who is Nordoff-Hall's former lover.
Mission: Impossible 2 was theatrically released in the United States byParamount Pictures on May 24, 2000, and grossed over $546 million worldwide, becoming thehighest-grossing film of that year. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences and Woo's direction, but criticism for the characterization. A third film,Mission: Impossible III, was released in 2006.
InSydney, bio-genetics scientist Doctor Vladimir Nekhorvich sends a message to the IMF for Dimitri (Ethan Hunt's cover name), his old friend, warning that his employer, Biocyte Pharmaceuticals, forced him to develop a biological weapon, theChimera virus, to profit from the cure,Bellerophon. He injects himself with the virus, carrying Bellerophon in a bag. However, en route toAtlanta, IMF agent Sean Ambrose, who was disguised as Dimitri, goes rogue, betrays Nekhorvich, using sleeping gas on everyone aboard, steals Bellerophon, and jumps out of the plane before it crashes into theRockies.
InSeville, IMF director Swanbeck informs Ethan about Ambrose's actions, tasks him with recovering Chimera and Bellerophon, and has him recruit Nyah Nordoff-Hall, a professional thief and Ambrose's ex-girlfriend. Despite her initial reluctance, Ethan gets her to trace Ambrose to Sydney using an injectable tracking device. Ethan assembles his team, old friend and computer hackerLuther Stickell, and helicopter pilot Billy Baird in Sydney while Nyah pretends to rekindle her relationship with Ambrose.
After Ambrose uses a video of Chimera infecting one of Nekhorvich's colleagues to blackmail Biocyte'sCEO, John McCloy, into cooperation, Nyah gives Ethan the memory card containing the video, revealing that Chimera has a 20-hour dormant period; Bellerophon is only effective if used within that window. Ethan's team kidnaps McCloy and learns that the only Bellerophon samples, taken by Nekhorvich, are now in Ambrose's hands, but he doesn't have the virus since Nekhorvich injected himself with it. Ethan breaks into Biocyte headquarters and destroys two samples of Chimera, but Ambrose's team ambushes him, having discovered Nyah's deception. At a stalemate, Ambrose orders Nyah to retrieve the virus' last sample, but she injects herself with it instead and begs Ethan to kill her to destroy the virus. Ethan refuses and flees the facility, promising to get her the cure.
Ambrose releases Nyah to wander the streets of Sydney, intending to start a pandemic. At Biocyte's storage facility onBare Island, he offers to sell Bellerophon to McCloy in exchange for enough stock options to make him Biocyte's majority shareholder, enabling him and McCloy to make billions. Ethan infiltrates the base and fights Ambrose's right-hand man, Hugh Stamp; Stamp seemingly brings a subdued Ethan to Ambrose, who executes him. However, Ambrose, upon seeing Stamp's bandaged finger (which he had earlier cut with a cigar cutter for questioning his trust in Nyah), discovers that the dead "Ethan" is Stamp, masked and gagged, while the actual Ethan has stolen the Bellerophon samples. Enraged, Ambrose and his men chase Ethan onto the mainland; Hunt kills them, while Luther and Billy locate Nyah, who has wandered to a cliffside to kill herself and prevent the outbreak.
Ethan kills Ambrose in an extended fistfight on the beach and gives Bellerophon to the arriving Luther, who injects Nyah with it. In return for her cooperation, the IMF clears Nyah's criminal record, and Ethan starts a vacation with her in Sydney.
Additionally,Anthony Hopkins appears in an uncreditedcameo appearance as Mission Commander Swanbeck.[6] Tom Cruise's cousinWilliam Mapother andDominic Purcell appear as, respectively, Wallis and Ulrich, two of Ambrose's henchmen.
William Goldman says he was the first writer on the film. "All that's left of mine is the climax... the climbing up the rocks sequence," he said. "I couldn't come up with a good villain and Bob Towne did."[7]
According to screenwriterRobert Towne, several action sequences were already planned for the film prior to his involvement and before the story had been written.[8]Ian McKellen was offered the part of Mission Commander Swanbeck, but turned it down.[9]Dougray Scott was cast in the film after he decided not to play the role ofWolverine inX-Men.[10]
Tom Cruise regretted killing off Jack Harmon in the previous film and attempted to include the character in the sequel. This idea was abandoned as Cruise andJohn Woo couldn't come up with a plausible way for Harmon to have survived his death in the previous film.[11]
Ronald D. Moore andBrannon Braga's draft of the script includedWilly Armitage as one of the team members, though the role would have been recast with a younger actor instead of original cast memberPeter Lupus.[12]
The studio expressed concern about the safety of filming Cruise's entrance scene, in which he isfree solo climbing atDead Horse Point State Park inMoab, Utah.[13] Cruise refused to drop the idea because he could not think of a better way to reintroduce the character. There was no safety net as he filmed the sequence, but he did have aharness and a thin wire.[14] He tore his shoulder when performing the jump from one part of the cliff to another.[15]
Thandiwe Newton discussed her unpleasant on-set experiences with Cruise during the shooting of the balcony sequence in a 2020 interview. According to Newton, Cruise was heavily stressed over the expectations of the sequel being good and was upset during the shooting of said scene because she had "the shittiest lines." The two decided to reverse roleplay each other as practice. However, it was unhelpful for her and pushed her "into a place of terror and insecurity." After the shooting was finished for the day, she contactedJonathan Demme, telling him what happened. Looking back on that day, Newton said about Cruise, "Bless him. And I really do mean bless him because he was trying his damnedest".[16][17][18]
During the final fight scene between Ethan Hunt and Sean Ambrose, Cruise insisted that a real knife be used. The knife was attached to a cable and was carefully measured to stop a quarter of an inch from Cruise's eyeball, and Cruise asked Dougray Scott to put his full strength down on the knife to get a realistic look for the scene.
The film'soriginal score was composed byHans Zimmer and features vocals performed byLisa Gerrard.[19] In addition, the film includes contemporary music such asLimp Bizkit's rendition ofLalo Schifrin'sMission: Impossible theme entitled "Take a Look Around" as well asMetallica's "I Disappear".[20]
While Ethan is rock climbing during his holiday,Zap Mama's remixed version of "Iko Iko" plays on the soundtrack.
About the score, Zimmer said: "The love theme fromMission: Impossible [II] was written about 6 weeks before they started shooting. I was on it that early. Then, we had a big meeting in Australia. They had the love theme, and I knew what the story was about, and I always thought it was about these two men being in love with the girl. So I said to the record company guy, "Look, here's one thing I would love you to do, when you find bands for me, make them all female. Make them all about sirens." Of course, what did I get? A bunch of heavy metal bands with guys. I promise you, it would have been a better movie, and it would have been a better score."[21]
In 2024, Diego Pineda Pacheco from Collider singled outMission: Impossible 2 as one of Zimmer's most underrated scores especially for theInjection scene: "The film's score is imbued with Spanish influences, filling the romance at the core of the narrative with passion and flair."[22]
Mission: Impossible 2 was released onVHS andDVD on November 7, 2000,[23][24] with a rare JapaneseLaserDisc release following on April 3, 2001[25] (released late in the format's life), with a potential North American release of this LaserDisc being cancelled in mid-2001.[26] ABlu-ray release followed on June 3, 2008, and anUltra HD Blu-ray version was released on June 26, 2018.[27][28]
On opening day,Mission: Impossible 2 made $12.5 million,[29] making it the fourth-highest-grossing Wednesday opening, behindMen in Black,Independence Day andStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.[30] Playing at 3,653, it had the largest number of screenings of any film, beatingScream 3.[30] The film would go on to hold this record until it was surpassed byHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the following year.[31] It grossed $57,845,297, crossing overToy Story 2 to have the third-highest-grossing opening weekend of all time, behindThe Lost World: Jurassic Park andThe Phantom Menace.[32] Moreover, the film surpassed its predecessorMission: Impossible for not only having the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film based on a TV show, but also the largest opening weekend for anyParamount film. It also dethronedAustin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me for scoring the biggest opening weekend for a spy film, a position it held untilAustin Powers in Goldmember in 2002.[32] The TV show opening weekend record would be held for seven years untilThe Simpsons Movie was released in 2007.[33] Additionally,Mission: Impossible 2 would maintain the biggest opening weekend for aTom Cruise film for five years until 2005 whenWar of the Worlds replaced it.[34]
WhenMission: Impossible 2 first opened, the film was rankednumber one at the US box office, beatingDinosaur,Shanghai Noon,Gladiator andRoad Trip.[35] For the film's second weekend, it collected a total of $27 million, outgrossingBig Momma's House in the process.[36] It held on to the number one spot for a total of two weekends until it was overtaken byGone in 60 Seconds.[37]Mission: Impossible 2 was the most recent film to top the box office for multiple weekends untilHollow Man that August.[38] During its third weekend, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film of the year in the US, surpassingGladiator.[39] It would remain so until that December when it was dethroned byHow the Grinch Stole Christmas.[40]
It started its international release on June 1, 2000, and topped theAustralian box office with a gross of $3.7 million (A$6.4 million) in its opening 4-day weekend from 366 screens, a record forUnited International Pictures.[41] It was a big success in Japan, recording the second biggest opening ever behindStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace with a gross of $13.6 million from 356 screens, grossing over $50 million in just over three weeks and $94 million in total.[42][43][5] The film also delivered the third-highest opening in Spain with $2.9 million, after the latter film andThe Sixth Sense.[44] It recorded the biggest July opening in Germany with a four-day gross of $7.9 million and had record openings in Austria ($1.3 million) and Russia ($0.3 million).[42]
At the end of its run,Mission: Impossible 2 eventually grossed $215,409,889 in the United States and Canada and $330,978,216 in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $546,388,105, making it the highest-grossing film of 2000.[5] The film was also the third-highest-grossing film of that year in the US, behindHow the Grinch Stole Christmas andCast Away.[45] It is John Woo's highest-grossing film, surpassingFace/Off, and was the highest-grossing film in theMission: Impossible series until the release of the fourth film,Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, in 2011.
Review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes indicatesMission: Impossible 2 has an overall approval rating of 57% based on 209 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Your cranium may crave more substance, but your eyes will feast on the amazing action sequences."[46]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[47] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, down from the first film's "B+".[48]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film three out of four stars, stating "if the first movie was entertaining as sound, fury, and movement, this one is more evolved, more confident, more sure-footed in the way it marries minimal character development to seamless action."[49]Shawn Levy ofThe Oregonian gave the film a B+, stating that "if you've ever wished that a really good action director -- John Woo, say -- would make aJames Bond film, you can stop wishing."[50]Owen Gleiberman ofEntertainment Weekly felt the film was a "throwaway pleasure" but also "a triumph of souped-up action."[51] Ella Taylor ofLA Weekly said that "every car chase, every plane crash, every potential drop off a cliff is a masterpiece of grace and surprise."[52] Desson Howe ofThe Washington Post said that "[John] Woo [...] takes complete command of the latest technology to create brilliant action sequences."[53]
J. Hoberman ofThe Village Voice called the film "a vaguely absurd thriller filled with elaborately superfluous setups and shamelessly stale James Bond riffs."[54] Dennis Harvey ofVariety said the film is "even more empty a luxury vehicle than its predecessor" and that it "pushes the envelope in terms of just how much flashy packaging an audience will buy when there's absolutely nada inside."[55]Jonathan Rosenbaum of theChicago Reader said that "no hero or villain winds up carrying any moral weight at all."[56]
In a retrospective commentary in 2012, Brad Brevet noted the film has significant similarities in plot and themes toAlfred Hitchcock's 1946 filmNotorious.[57]
Mission: Impossible 2 won both Best Male Performance for Tom Cruise and Best Action Sequence at theMTV Movie Awards.[58] However, it was also nominated for twoGolden Raspberry Awards at the2000 ceremony, includingWorst Remake or Sequel andWorst Supporting Actress for Thandiwe Newton[59] as well as nominated for aStinker Award at the2000 ceremony for Worst Song (Limp Bizkit's "Take a Look Around").[60]
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