The James Bond franchise has been running for something like five Bonds, 20 movies and almost 40 years. If Tom Cruise has his way, it seems, the Ethan Hunt/M:I business will be run along similar lines.
For this sequel to theBrian De Palma's 1996 Mission: Impossible (or Incomprehensible), the gossip goes that Hollywood script doctor Robert Towne had to write the story around major special-effects sequences which director John Woo had already planned.
So the story takes second place to the toys, the bangs and the chases. Which is how it should be in a super-special-agent-thriller franchise: does anyone go to McDonald's for the gourmet experience?
Hunt has to stop ex-agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from getting hold of a man-made killer virus and its antidote. He enlists Ambrose's ex, cat-burglar Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton) and falls in love with her. Which means that our man has 24 hours to save the world and his girl.
And yes, M:I 3 is on the drawing board, with Woo in the chair.
