(warning: spoiler) Mission Impossible 2 -------------------- Cruise _IS_ Keanu as he, in slow motion, chucks his shades into the canyon and they explode mid-air in your face. Will he dodge a slow-mo bullet next and does he know kung fu? 85% of this film is head-shots of Cruise with long hair looking into mid-air in a bad-ass crafty way or in a hard-ass ninja way. It reminded me of _Legend_ (circa 1985), a weak fantasy film composed of 85% head shots of Cruise, with long hair, alternately looking stupid or high. I copped a snore during the first half-hour of romance/drama of MI2, having asked my brother to wake me up when the action started. Unfortunately, I was awakened earlier by the stench of a rank dude who sat down next to me 10 minutes into the film, hacking and smelling of B.O. mixed with stale cigarettes, cheap gin, white trash leather vest, and strong citrus aqua-velva after shave. Luckily, I had my chillba coolie hat on me and could breathe through that, utilizing it as a filter. Throughout the film, he would say to his friend (not whispering), 'I knew that was gonna happen ', to which the kid in back of us would say (not whispering), 'shut up, asshole'. The ideal way to watch this film would be on a big screen with a fast-forward remote, briskly skimming past the smarmy romance and ego-spank headshot footage. There is probably at least 1/2 hour of good action sequences in this film, though the motorcycle showdown is entirely ludicrous (where they butt-ass fly on motorcycles headed toward each other and leap off into mid-air into each others' arms; they fall to the ground hard, then start scrabbling like men). The soundtrack is tasty, intense and throbbing. They could use some more techno gizmos. The most intense war gizmo is a pipe grenade exploded by a bullet, which is SO circa WWII. The only gizmos happening are the groovy exploding recorded-mission shades, the latex masks, and stick-on voicebox modulators. Clearly, I'm a geek, but it would be cool to have more background info on how the user programs the modulator to match a certain voice (maybe this was in MI1, but I haven't seen that yet). To drone on like a crusty fart about how much the original MI TV series rocked, I dug it when Martin Landau would practice voice, language usage, and mannerisms in preparation for impersonating someone, watching videotape of the person to get all the nuances and parroting it back in front of a mirror. Of course, Barbara Bain would be standing there giving him feedback, huskily whispering in her fabulous wooden way, reminding him to get the mannerism with the right hand instead of the left because of the reverse-image of the mirror. One slip of the disguise could lead to the enemy's suspicion and exposure of the MI team, the secretary disavowing all knowledge of their intricately-woven master plan to mind-fuck some greedy terrorist bastard into a spiraling nervous breakdown of paranoia and fear! Another issue with the film is that there is no rappeling (except for Cruise's zen macho rock climb) and nobody has to navigate a rotating laser-ray alarm hallway or chamber. Though there are some decent fight scenes and the knife-to-the-eyeball techo footage is the best visual thing in the entire film. The latex mask jumping is fun, and the final twist of Stamp (first mate bad guy) is the best scene in the film. Dougray Scott (main bad dude) IS Antonio Banderas for less, smoldering when his male ego is ripped-off by a woman who makes a living as a cat burglar . I don't know who this leading chick is, but she could put a penny on her head and get work as a nail if she needed to. Everyone in the theater was whispering 'jump! jump!', hoping for her to take the Nestea plunge off the cliff and cease staggering around like a weepy Scarlett O'Hara, sifting the shallow depths of her soul, praying for a deus ex machina for which she was in no way worthy. People on the verge of mutation are such drama queens!