Mission: Impossible 2

Don't believe the hype. The real star of "Mission: Impossible 2" is Tom Cruise's nose, with a supporting role (without support) going to Thandie Newton's small perky tits. No, we don't get to see them, but even under her many outfits they seem to have more personality than Dougray Scott or the rest of Tom Cruise,. And I am definitely more interested in sucking on them.

God, what a boring action movie.

In "Mission: Impossible 2," Tom Cruise is some sort of superspy for a shadowy international organization. He is called away from a vacation designed to show off what a daredevil he is so he can tackle an "impossible" situation. I believe we are supposed to laugh at how Cruise can't have a peaceful vacation without being tracked down, but haven't we seen this lame gag in Bond movies before? I think it's also in "Police Academy Seven: The Changeling." I wonder why Cruise's character didn't say "I'm getting too old for this shit."

The "impossible" problem is mostly impossibly lame. A supervirus that kills people very slowly (30+ hours), and not in a way that is even interesting to watch, has gotten into the hands of a very bad yuppie, Dougray Scott, and he's threatening to give it to anyone who complains about how he double-parked his SUV. He is also auctioning it and the anti-virus off to the highest bidders.

Cruise's mission, if he chooses to accept it and bore the audience, is to get Scott's ex-squeeze Newton to help him steal the virus back. Yes, that's the entire "impossible" mission. No, there are no devious villains, just Scott in a big house. That's the whole fucking "impossible" story.

Cruise has no trouble finding Newton, seducing her and getting her to help him. Well, first Newtown wears a wonderbra that shoves her tits up into her jaw. Getting those little gems so pushed up must have been the job of two men, and I wish I was one of them. Anyway, once she is seduced, she and Cruise have a tango in German sports cars where they smash them up pretty good. Once working for Cruise, Newton has no trouble talking Dougray Scott into sleeping with her, and she has almost no trouble finding out his secrets.

Yawn.

In the last half-hour, there are all kinds of people doing inexplicable things so that shit will blow up. Cruise must both save the world and his hot little girlfriend. While she wanders around on a cliff with the flu and he breaks a lot of glass and kills a lot of people.

There are plenty of good stunts in this flick, at the beginning and ending. I experience a diminishing return of entertainment, though, after seeing the thirtieth flying leg-kick. The movie starts with the big action set pieces, and it ends with them. Flying cars, leaping people, the cliched fight for the loose gun, and more broken glass than I saw the night my drunk neighbor stormed the street with his pellet gun.

The biggest problem with the stunts is that the movie was written around them. They don't come from the lame plot, the lame plot comes from them. It's like Director John Woo said "I want two guys on motorcycles to jump at each other, so make up some reason for them to be on motorcycles." Actually, the writers never did come up with a good reason for the motorcycles, they just are there. And Woo has no interest in doing more than the minimum to get to the next thing he can put in the movie trailer.

Even a big dope like me can see the movie contorting to get in position for the next improbable stunt. It's sort of like the 12-year old boy at the beach who strains to see the tits of the girl with the loose bikini, and ends up falling flat on his ass.

The other big problem is that all the action is clustered at the beginning and end. The middle is really fucking boring. It's a miserable love story with no sex and Hollywood assuming we already love Tom Cruise. I don't, and nobody ever bothers to give his character any charm. Instead, the camera lingers on his big nose and Thandie's boobies.

From the first instance, the flick pats itself on the back. It has the swagger of the latent homosexual in the singles bar. It's trying to be so cool you don't see through it. And Cruise acts exactly like the latent homosexual. He struts through "Mission: Impossible 2" like a fucking frat boy posing in front of his mirror, wishing he were an underwear model (no, ladies, he does not run around in his underwear). He is filmed in slow-motion, fast motion, close-ups of those mighty nostrils, and close-ups of his teeth. It's his narcissistic photo album with a couple of lame jokes about his choppers thrown in to trick you into thinking it isn't.

There are five scenes where someone pulls off a mask to reveal he isn't who he's pretending to be. That idea is surprising once, boring twice, and lame five times. The old face-switcheroo is the trademark of a writer too lazy to think of something better. "Hmmm, let's see, I need some way for a character to confess something to the wrong person. What would 'Three's Company' do if it had a special effects budget?"

Scott is nowhere evil enough to make a good villain. He looks more like an annoying asshole who sends you anonymous notes about your dog's barking. Newton and Cruise are too busy admiring themselves to really give us anybody to root for. Actually, I was rooting for Newton's top to get torn off; she looks like someone I would happily bone, but she isn't given anything to do in the movie. She's the helpless hot chick who stands around while Cruise does the heavy lifting and grunting. In the end, all she's given to do is wander around a cliff looking like she has the flu while Cruise is busting shit up. Damn, that's pretty fucking exciting moviemaking.

Ving Rhames gets to be token black who has the "eyes rolling because this is all so unbelievable" role. Hey, Ving, I share your sentiment.

Two fingers for "Mission: Impossible 2" but I bet you fuckers will go see it anyway. Hell, it's the summer and you think you might enjoy it despite my warning. Well, enjoy the theater's air-conditioning.

For those curious about my job status: I'm still unemployed but I thank everyone who wrote. I have an interview on Tuesday at Super Save Gas on Wadsworth. Wish me luck.