It is. If you watch it on DVD, somewhere in the extras Tom Cruise offers a fascinating insight into the directorial philosophy of the master of the hard-boiled action movie when he reveals that "He's the Woo!" Thanks Tom, I feel enlightened.
Dougray Scott is an MI agent gone rogue. Thandie Newton is gorgeousness in various dresses and handy with some nifty driving and thieving. A manufactured super virus is up for sale to the highest bidder and Ethan Hunt must ignore the possibility of his name being used as rhyming slang and destroy the samples before Scott gets his hand on them.
Whoops, not quite all destroyed. There is one left when the bullets begin to really fly. So Thandie injects it into herself. Silly woman, she's got twenty hours left to live, no antidote as that is in the hands of the prospective buyer, and Cruise hasn't killed Scott yet.
Helicopters, flash bombs, masks to pretend to be somebody else, the motorbike stuff, exploding cars, trucks crashing into things, massive martial arts flavoured fist fight on the beach. It's all here, but becomes just an endless parade of implausible spectacle making the end credits something of a relief. As is the fact that Cruise gets the antidote to Newton in time. Sort of. Might have been a darkly shocking ending if she'd just died.
Yeah, yeah, it's all beautifully filmed, the panoramic shots and the tightly controlled fight scenes contrasting almost too perfectly as though Woo wanted to provide a how to do actions movies guide for student directors. One that Roland Emmerich would benefit from, granted, but isn't especially necessary otherwise.
Soon Hollywood would discover Bourne and this kind of film would never be quite the same again. Don't believe me, then watch Daniel Craig's last two outings as Bond and Cruise's last two appearances as Hunt. Better ways of spending your afternoon than watching this misfiring but stylish curate's egg of a movie.
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