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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Mission: Impossible 2

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Robert Towne
Ronald D. Moore (story)
Brannon Braga (story)
Bruce Geller (television series)
Directed by: John Woo
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 24, 2000
DVD: November 7, 2000
Running Time: 123 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action and some sensuality
Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames, and Anthony Hopkins
Ethan Hunt (Cruise) leads his IMF team to capture and destroy a German-manufactured virus before it falls in the wrong, potentially deadly hands.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Broken Arrow Mission: Impossible Mission: Impossible III
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Moves with terrific energy, alternating riveting action sequences with intimate material in a manner that's pure Woo.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The power of film to irrationally transform and exalt is almost a religion to Woo, and another reason why he was the natural go-to guy for this lucrative movie franchise.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Keeps the pulse pounding without sacrificing laughs or logic.
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Every car chase, every plane crash, every potential drop off a cliff is a masterpiece of grace and surprise.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
The real deity of the movie is director Woo, who takes complete command of the latest technology -- hyperspeed editing, breathtaking cinematography, 10-out-of-10 stunt work -- to create brilliant action sequences.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Such a feast of outlandish pleasures it'll send you home steam-cleaned and shrink-wrapped.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
More evolved, more confident, more sure-footed in the way it marries minimal character development to seamless action.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Check your brains at the popcorn stand and hang on for a spectacular ride.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
There's also a nice cheekiness to the material written by Robert Towne ("Chinatown"), and the usual cool high-tech toys are deployed.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Strangely, what it most lacks is the genuine tension found in the first "Mission"'s signature set pieces.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
At his best (Woo)'s too promiscuous with the slow motion; and once those doves start fluttering in he enters a new dimension in self-parody.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly
It is ultimately the film's reliance on this thumping action assault that keeps it from true summer-movie greatness.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The story line is the typical M:I labyrinthine mess, made even more confusing by the always challenging Robert Towne as screenwriter, and by the continuation and overuse of the flawlessly lifelike "mask" device established in Part One.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
As pure a summer popcorn overdose as you're likely to find, M:i-2 is breezy, breathless, brainless fun, falling just short of Woo's own "Face/Off" but head and shoulders above anything else out there just now.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Suggests that Cruise the actor may have outgrown this kind of stuff.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
Woo delivers a vintage breakneck, break-arm, break-face 20-minute finale.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Never as much fun as (Woo's) old Chow Yun Fat-starring Chinese pics.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
There's solid chemistry between Cruise and the stunning Newton, a superb actress previously restricted to such ethnic roles as Sally Hemings in "Jefferson in Paris" and the title role in "Beloved."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Hard-driving and propulsive as it is, the film is unable to hide the fact that Woo seems not only to be repeating himself, but parodying his earlier films on a much bigger scale, more crudely and coarsely.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
The problem is that the motion picture around these individual stunts is patently a committee-made artifact.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's actually sharper, less reverential and generally better than "Misson: Impossible."
Read Full Review >Film.com Sean Means
Isn't bad as summer action fare goes -- big and loud, impressively staged by Hong Kong action auteur John Woo, a combination of special effects and eye-popping stunt maneuvers threaded by a plotline that doesn't make sense in the slightest.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Andy Klein
Abandon all hopes of common sense, and enter the theater with high expectations for visceral entertainment. You won't be disappointed.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The stagy emotionalism Mr. Woo specializes in is not ideally suited to his gifts, and Mr. Cruise, his jaw churning to indicate ambivalence and pain, mostly registers confusion and fatigue, soon amply shared by the audience.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Marc Caro
Blanks, in a sense, are what M:I-2 is firing. You see the flash, you hear the bang, but the impact never comes.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Even the most spectacular things Woo unleashes here feel strangely impersonal.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Woo's patented pyrotechnics - intricate editing, acrobatic camera movements, slow-motion mayhem - lend intermittent sparks to the violent action sequences, but the two-dimensional characters have little personality.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Woo's aggressive, cartoony attack in the film, which makes for its biggest delights, also wipes out whatever chance it might have had of making an emotional impact.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Dispenses so many rubber masks to allow the characters to swap identities that no hero or villain winds up carrying any moral weight at all.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Even more empty a luxury vehicle than its predecessor, M:I 2 pushes the envelope in terms of just how much flashy packaging an audience will buy when there's absolutely nada inside.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
A vaguely absurd epidemiological thriller filled with elaborately superfluous setups and shamelessly stale James Bond riffs.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Mostly, you get a pain in the head from the assault on your senses and déjà vu as thick as heartburn after an anchovy pizza.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ben B. gave it a7:
Yes, this movie has cliches everywhere. Yes, its plotline was lifted from an Alfred hitchcock movie. Still, this movie is great fun with action aplenty, and enough plot and startling revelations for anybody.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
I haven't seen the first one yet. However, this one fights against its lacking story with great action and an energetic cast, and it wins for the most part. John Woo sure knows how to deliver action, and Tom Cruise readily jumps into every stunt, carrying the name of Ethan Hunt with unheard of energy. Only the cruel fans would give this film a bad rating
Paul gave it a 10:
This movie rocks!!! end of story.
Yoon C. gave it a 4:
Cruise simply isn't convincing as a dashing spy. He's perpetually Joey in Risky Business and in this overblown vehicle he relies almost entirely on his bright shiny set of smiling teeth. What legs were to Grable, teeth are to Cruise. John Woo directs action with some flair and allows Cruise to imitate Chow Yun Fat's famous two pistoled leaping antics but this is really just a case of everyone cashing in big time once again. At least DePalma in the first installment had a plot strategy; Woo is only a tactician of action.
Jack D. gave it a 7:
Okay action movie, cliches and all, flows well and is fun because it's basic and energetic.
Eric S. gave it a 5:
By the time "Mission Impossible: 2" ended, I had witnessed one brilliant action sequence and at least five really awful ones. (I confess I don't recall why she did it, but Berry injecting herself with the deadly Chimera virus, following an edge-of-your-seat descent into the virus' storage chamber WAS brilliant.) Movies like M-I:2 aren't supposed to be so consumed with plot that they become like the earliest Bond pictures. But it wouldn't hurt to make sure once in a while that when we're watching that car go plummeting to it's doom, we should care enough to hope the Leading Man jumps out in time even though we know he's going to anyway.
Harry W. gave it a 7:
It was good, but not nearly as good as the original. More action than plot and storyline.
