Mission: Impossible II

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Mission: Impossible II
Directed by	John Woo
Produced by	Tom Cruise Paula Wagner
Written by	Robert Towne
Starring	Tom Cruise Dougray Scott Thandie Newton Ving Rhames
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Distributed by	USA Theatrical and Worldwide DVD/Video Paramount Pictures Non-USA Theatrical United International Pictures
Release date(s)	May 24, 2000
Language	English
Budget	$125 million
Preceded by	Mission: Impossible
Followed by	Mission: Impossible III
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Mission: Impossible II, or M:I-2 as it is also known, is the 2000 John Woo-directed sequel to Brian De Palma's 1996 Mission: Impossible motion picture, based on the TV series of the same name.

M:I-2 sees IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) teaming up with former partner Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) and helicopter pilot Billy Baird (John Polson) in order to thwart the plans of former IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). The film also stars Brendan Gleeson, Richard Roxburgh and Anthony Hopkins in an uncredited role as Hunt's overseer Swanbeck.

The film combined James Bond-style espionage action (in contrast to the last film and TV series) with John Woo's visual flair, including his trademark slow-motion, double fisted pistol shootouts and white doves appearing before combat. However, the limiting PG-13 rating applied to the film meant that the final picture was considerably toned down in violence from his past works, such as Broken Arrow. However, the UK version includes the additional scenes of violence which earned the film a '15' certificate from the BBFC.

Production of the film was troubled and was shut down for several weeks as the script was re-worked. As a result both Dougray Scott and Thandie Newton lost the chance to appear in starring roles in other films. Cruise and Woo had reportedly clashed several times throughout filming over creative differences, but both walked away from it on good terms.

The film was a financial hit and grossed close to $215 million in its domestic American release and approx. $330 million abroad.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Box Office Totals 3 The Gun debate 4 Similar Plot 5 Missing scenes 6 Trivia 7 Soundtrack 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Plot

The movie's plot involves a virus which is named after the Chimera creature from Greek mythology. Sean Ambrose plans to release the virus and then make money from selling the antidote. Several characters use the mask disguises as in the first Mission Impossible film. The pre-title sequence involves a Boeing 747 seized over the Colorado Rockies where the virus is taken from the scientist bringing it to Atlanta. Hunt is recruited for the mission by helicopter after rock climbing to the top of a cliff. He later goes to Seville to recruit Nyah Nordoff-Hall, and sets up her false arrest so that Sean Ambrose will rescue her. The second half of the film takes place in Sydney with scenes at a race track and later at a research facility which Hunt must break into to take the virus. Nyah injects herself with the virus so that she will still be valuable. The finale involves a long motorcycle chase where Ethan races for the North Head where they have tracked Nyah on the GPS chip, and then a fight on the beach.

[edit] Box Office Totals

• Budget - $125,000,000
• Marketing cost - $37,200,000
• Opening Weekend Gross (Domestic) - $57,845,297
• Total Domestic Grosses - $215,409,889
• Total Overseas Grosses - $330,492,673
• Total Worldwide Grosses - $545,902,562

[edit] The Gun debate

One of the most controversial aspects of the film occurs in the final fight between Ethan Hunt and Sean Ambrose. After the two bikes collide, and before Hunt and Ambrose fall to the beach, a gun lands in the sand. As they are struggling on the ground, another gun slips out of Hunt's shoulder holster. Ambrose produces Hunt's Beretta and intones “Hunt, you shoulda killed me!” Hunt sees a gun in the sand, kicks it into the air and shoots Ambrose… except that it's a different gun than the audience has seen recently, a Heckler & Koch USP.

There are three possible explanations for this scene:

1. The gun belongs to Ethan Hunt -- it is his spare gun, the one he keeps in a holster near the small of his back. In the Biocyte shootout it is a Beretta, but he could have decided to have two different guns.
2. The gun belongs to Sean Ambrose -- it is the gun he is firing on his motocycle just before the collision (Hunt wasn't firing). In this case, it is a mistake on the part of the filmmakers as the gun Ambrose was firing was a Browning BDA.
3. The gun belongs to Sean Ambrose -- it is his spare gun.

The script confirms that Hunt shoots Ambrose with his own gun, but until further clarification, the war rages on. In John Woo's Paycheck, a similar mistake was made where a bullet is fired at a character, but when seen in slow motion, it is clear the bullet has not been used.

[edit] Similar Plot

Much of the basic storyline is derived from Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 film Notorious, which is about a spy who enlists a woman with a sordid past to obtain information from a former lover, who is involved in wrongdoing. After some reluctance, she agrees to cooperate in order to clear her name. Both films include a crucial scene at a horse racing track, a poisoning, and an affair between the spy and the woman.

In the new movie, a digital camera memory card containing key information takes the place of a key that opens a secret wine cellar, as featured in Notorious. The Macguffin in the earlier film was Nazi uranium. This time around, it's a deadly manufactured virus.

Some players of the Syphon Filter series of PlayStation games have noted a surprising similarity between the plot of the game and Mission Impossible II. Particularly with Syphon Filter II where the player chases a virus able to target specific ethnicities by parachuting from a cargo plane over the Colorado Rockies. The player is attacked by a helicopter while climbing down a mountain to retrieve the virus (albeit unsuccessfully). The purpose of retrieving the virus is to, along with taking out of enemy hands, to save a female companion of the player who has been intentionally injected with the virus. The game ends after the player travels to a research facility to take back the virus before defeating the main villain.

Both Syphon Filter II and Mission Impossible II were released the same year.

This film also contained some similarities with the James Bond film Goldeneye. In Goldeneye, Bond had to track down a rogue MI6 agent (006 - Alec Trevelyan) who used to be his former ally. Both films also featured a sequence near the beginning where the hero and a female engage in a car chase that teeters between flirting and aggression. There are many other similarities, especially between the characters of Sean Ambrose and Alec Trevelyan.

[edit] Missing scenes

There have been rumors on the Internet that a lot of footage was cut from the movie. Certainly there are some gaps in the story due to missing dialogue. Here are some ideas from the shooting script that didn't make the final cut, either because they weren't filmed or were filmed and then deleted.

• Ethan Hunt BASE-jumps off the mountain in Moab in the opening sequence after he has finished climbing it.

• Nekhorvich explains the "I'm sorry, you're sorry" line as coming from Dr. Strangelove, and that he called Hunt "Dimitri" because he didn't know his real name (implying that Hunt isn't pretending to be someone else, which is why he doesn't speak with a Russian accent). This extended monologue (which might not have been filmed) clarifies the genuine friendship between the two - that Hunt saved Nekhorvich's life - and adds an emotional depth to the scene.

• Swanbeck goes on to say that there has been an increase in cash in terrorist accounts.

• Hunt and Stickell read up about McCloy before going to the racetrack. They work out what Chimera is earlier too. The BioCyte promotional video is shown here (in the film a great play is made of Ambrose producing it from his jacket pocket, even though it's public information). [Edit: The video Ambrose shows to McCloy at the racetracks is not public information. It is an internal BioCyte recording that Nekhorvich was carrying on a "battleship grey digital camera" in his satchel to show IMF or Hunt once they had safely arrived in Atlanta. As Ambrose is watching the promotional video for BioCyte, he asks Stamp to "take care of the Nekhorvich memory card." As Stamp inquires as to the card's whereabouts, Ambrose makes a bit of a play about the jacket pocket being his right, and not his left as he had originally used. All this play was meant to tell us is that Ambrose knows Nyah is spying on him. This is most likely the reason behind Ambrose pretending to be Hunt and fooling Nyah, whilst the real Hunt (as Nekhorvich) gets information about Ambrose/Chimera from McCloy.]

• Ambrose looks through more than one offer of money. The 37 million pounds is the biggest.

• The video of Gradski has footage of other victims. Apparently there was an outbreak at Bruny Island. 500 people died. This also explains why McCloy might think he had the virus in the hospital.

• Ambrose got the video of Gradski from Nekhorvich's briefcase; the Russian planned to use it as evidence to convict McCloy.

• McCloy's speech in the hospital is longer and includes a funny reference to Viagra. It also points to the fact that BioCyte isn't doing very well and needs Bellerophon.

• Billy Baird says that Ambrose and McCloy are going around with "different halves of the same dollar bill." It's a nice line that clarifies the problem the two men have.

• Hunt tells Nyah that she has 19 hours and 57 minutes before she starts infecting people. (She has 27 hours until she dies.).

• There is another meeting with Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins) before Hunt goes to Bear Island. Swanbeck is going to try and close passport control to stop the virus leaving Australia. He knows that Hunt is going to try and rescue Nyah, but he'd rather one person died than millions. He says he wants a sample of Chimera (which explains the line at the end of the film, since Swanbeck didn't know what Chimera was when he first met with Hunt).

• As there have been no transfers of terrorist money, Hunt knows that Ambrose must be dealing with McCloy; his reason for infiltrating Bear Island.

• Hunt's entry to Bear Island is more violent. The script makes plain that Hunt is killing the guards, not rendering them unconscious.

• The revelation of the villain's project is longer:

McCloy offers Ambrose $A30 million (all he can afford, he says in the script; not true replies Wallis, but it doesn't matter). Ambrose says what he really wants are stock options. These are the options given to company employees, etc. to enable them to buy shares in the company in the future. These options are currently valued at $A31, but Ambrose (in the script) says he will buy them for $A50. (The implication is that BioCyte isn't doing so well, so the owners of the options (who do not know about Bellerophon or Chimera) will be willing to sell at the higher price).

When the panic begins over Chimera, people will begin buying Bellerophon and the stock will be worth over $A200 each, prompting people to buy shares in BioCyte. However, this would be too late; Ambrose has the options now and will use the power they afford him to buy 48,000,000 shares... 51% controlling stake of BioCyte. According to the script, Ambrose will borrow the $A1.5 billion needed to do this from various sources. All in all, Ambrose stands to make $A8 billion ($6 billion USD). McCloy will also be rich, but Ambrose could buy him out. In any case, he would have no say over what Ambrose could do with his company.

It's a risky strategy; if the Chimera plan fails, Ambrose's stock will be worth nothing. He's passing up the opportunity to make a quick 37 million pounds to pull off the biggest heist in history.

• Stamp is seen hitting Ethan in the jaw, justifying the later comment.

• The script states clearly that the gun Hunt kicks out of the sand is his own. It does not state where Ambrose got his gun from (though it was probably Hunt's spare gun; he liked to keep two different makes as a psychological backup).

• In the final briefing Hunt reveals that Bellerophon is only effective against Chimera... and by now Chimera has been fully destroyed. A report on CNN has McCloy under criminal investigation and the value of BioCyte shares plummeting.

Interestingly, the script suggests the title is “IMF 2: Chimera”.

The film was originally rated R (no person under 17 unless accompanied by an adult). To get a PG-13, cuts needed to be made to a neckbreak and a kneecapping. This version was distributed internationally; contrary to some accounts, the UK version, rated 15 (no person under that age), is the cut American version.

[edit] Trivia

• Oliver Stone was an early choice to direct.
• William Goldman worked on an unused story.
• The knife hovering a quarter of an inch above Cruise's eye was attached to a wire that prevented it from going any lower. Nevertheless, had Cruise moved his head he could have injured his eye. It was Cruise's idea to have the tip of the blade so close to his eyeball; it was originally intended to land somewhere near the eye socket.
• Nicole Kidman suggested Thandie Newton for the main heroine role to her then husband Tom Cruise. She was the first person cast in the film besides Cruise and also the only one whose part was written specifically with her in mind.
• Production was halted for a period of time so that Cruise could finish his work on Eyes Wide Shut.
• Dougray Scott dropped out as Wolverine in X-Men in order to finish this movie. Hugh Jackman took over the role.
• Screenwriter Robert Towne admitted in an interview that he wrote the story to fit the action sequences, which were already developed before he joined in.
• The initial cut of the film was three and a half hours, which studio executives strongly balked at. The studios cut it down to about two hours, however many holes in the plot formed, which were still present in the final cut of the film.
• The film was labeled as Doll House when it was sent to theaters in order to avoid theft.
• This was the first film that Metallica ever worked on after being strongly opposed to working on movie soundtracks for many years. They also contributed a song to the soundtrack of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
• The fictional festivity in Seville mixes the traditional Semana Santa of the city and the Fallas of Valencia. Together falleras and Holy Week nazarenos, it also can be seen people with the white clothes and red handkerchief of Pamplona' Sanfermines. This festival may or may not be a reference to the Orson Welles spy film Mr. Arkadin.
• The name "Nordhoff-Hall" is a reference to authors Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, who authored the 1932 based-on-a-true-story novel Mutiny on the "Bounty".
• The scene where Cruise and Scott face-off with their motorcycles by jumping in the air at the same time was parodied in Scary Movie 2.
• When Cruise and Scott are on the bike, you see the tires change from knobbly to slick then back to knobbly at the end on the chase.

[edit] Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Mission: Impossible II includes "I Disappear" by Metallica, "Take a Look Around (Theme from Mission: Impossible II)" by Limp Bizkit, Scum of the Earth by Rob Zombie, "My Kind Of Scene" by Powderfinger, "Iko-Iko" by Zap Mama, and Rocket Science by The Pimps. The original score was composed by Hans Zimmer and performed by Lisa Gerrard.

[edit] See also

• Notorious, an inspiration for part of the plotline in Mission: Impossible II.

[edit] External links

• Mission: Impossible II at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with screenwriter Robert Towne