Remarkable action movies: Mission Impossible 2 (2000)

Why : John Woo loves doves, low pitched vocals and slow motion. With Mission Impossible 2 he got his perfect canvas to paint that picture. Regardless of being a senseless action flick with no skeletal structure to hold things together, MI-2 was a huge hit, raking in $546 million globally.

The action sequences had grace and poise instead of energy and it wasn’t bad at all. Realism took a step back. But nobody complained, as the package was so much glossy. The doves, the slow motion, the vocals, the score, all added up quite well. The theme track was an instant smash hit and remains as one of the best theme tracks ever.

It didn’t have the cinematic brilliance of the first Mission Impossible movie. Weak character development, too much attention on styling and it tried to be too many things at the same time. But MI-2 is the movie which defined Tom Cruise as an international superstar. It was the movie which wannabe action movie directors looked up to when they ran short of ideas.

The movie is still a source of inspiration for film makers around the globe. Different versions of the climatic bike chase, the confrontation between Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), the presence of doves in the stunt scenes are still being used shamelessly by directors. Not to mention the mask trick, which can be seen in most souped-up slick flicks of today.