Herald rating: * * *
Running time: 120 mins
Rental: Tomorrow
Review: Ewan McDonald
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 the
Brian 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.
