r. Nekhorvich, a geneticist with Biocyte Pharmaceuticals in Sydney, Australia, has a terrible secret, and he's taking it with him on a Denver-bound jet. Seated next to him is his confidant, Dmitri, who is actually Ethan Hunt (Cruise) of the Impossible Missions Force.
Or so it seems. As the plane encounters mid-air trouble, Hunt turns vicious, kills Dr. Nekhorvich, steals his case and then rips off a mask to reveal that he is actually Sean Ambrose (Scott), a rogue IMF agent. Ambrose and his companions bail out of the jet just before it smashes into a snow-capped peak.
The real Hunt is free-climbing a sheer cliff in Utah when he is tracked down by an IMF helicopter. Hunt's mission, if he chooses to accept it, is to recruit a sleek jewel thief, Nyah Hall (Newton), find Ambrose and recover whatever it is he stole.
A flirtation backed by flamenco music in Seville, Spain, brings Hunt and Hall close together in unexpected ways. That only complicates matters when Hunt's superior, Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins, in an uncredited cameo), tells him the real reason Hall is crucial: She is Ambrose's former lover, and the only way to draw Ambrose out of hiding.
Reluctantly, Hunt persuades Hall to take the assignment, then seethes as she insinuates her way back into Ambrose's lush life in Sydney. Meanwhile, the truth of Ambrose's plot becomes clear: he's stolen the cure to a deadly manmade virus called Chimera, and is trying to cut a deal with Biocyte to procure the virus itself. Hunt decides to infiltrate the tightly-guarded, high-rise headquarters of Biocyte to destroy the virus. But Ambrose is two steps ahead of him. The two confront each other, guns blazing, in the company's high-tech labs.
Suave thrills aplenty
Mission: Impossible 2, the sequel to 1996's monster hit Mission Impossible, is that rarest of breeds: the sequel that's better than the original.
Credit Woo's masterful direction and a smart script by veteran screenwriter Towne (Chinatown), based on a streamlined story by Star Trek veterans Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga. Where the first film was clunky and confusing, M:I-2 is elegant simplicity, combining seduction and Woo's signature balletic action, centered around a Hitchcock-like love triangle. Towne incorporates many of the Mission: Impossible trademarks--masks, deceptions, high-wire-acts and high-tech gadgets--and Woo makes them his own, calling to mind his past films from Face/Off to Hard Boiled.
Beyond this, Woo outdid himself in the choreography of the film's many mind-blowing action sequences, starting with a pas de deux for high-speed roadsters and climaxing in a thrilling duet for motorcycle and automobile. A key decision comes amid shattering glass and flying bullets in Biocyte's labs--pure opera of the automatic weapon.
In all of this, a sinewy Cruise is utterly convincing as the ninja-like Hunt, who's clearly learned a few tricks since his last Mission. It's said that Cruise performed many of his own stunts in the film, including the hair-raising opening sequence on that Utah cliff. If so, he should have his head examined, but it makes for edge-of-the seat viewing. Newton has the thankless role of the damsel in distress, but brings to it persuasive spunk and warm sensuality. She and Cruise have real chemistry, and it shows, particularly in the hypnotic flamenco dance scenes. Woo returns to the flamenco motif throughout the film, using the dance's rhythm as the emotional heartbeat of the movie.
Rare for an action film, M:I-2 also contains some canny dialogue.
Early in the movie, Hunt asks Hall, "Would it make you feel better if I didn't want you to do this?" "Yeah, much!" she replies. Hunt barks: "Then feel better!"
n the opening moments of Disney's Dinosaur, our iguanodon hero, Aladar (Sweeney), begins a fantastic and perilous journey before he is technically finished being born. While still inside his egg, Aladar is stolen from his mother's nest, fought over by scavengers, dropped into a river, snatched up again by a hungry pterosaur and carried off to a faraway island. But the pterosaur is a bit on the clumsy side, so the egg is dropped once again, this time landing safely on the forest floor, where it finally hatches in the midst of a very surprised family of lemurs.
Realizing that this cute little foundling will soon grow into a giant potential predator, Yar (Davis), the patriarch of this lemur clan, demands that the baby be left to die. But Yar's kindhearted daughter Plio (Woodard) refuses to abandon the helpless little iguanodon and resolves to raise him as one of her own children. Soon, Aladar is not so little anymore. But even as a fully grown dinosaur he is a valued and accepted member of the lemur tribe--although he does tend to stand out at family gatherings.
Things change abruptly for the happy family when a meteor shower turns their peaceful little island into a flaming crater. Barely escaping with their lives, Aladar and his adopted family of primates are forced to swim to the similarly devastated mainland. There they encounter a herd of iguanodons and other plant-eating dinosaurs who are trying to find their fertile nesting grounds.
This hungry and haggard caravan is led by the impatient iguanodon Kron (Samuel E. Wright), who drives the herd incessantly, never stopping for the older and younger dinosaurs that can't keep up the pace. Aladar tries to convince Kron to slow down so that the stragglers won't be left behind, but Kron warns Aladar not to interfere and makes it clear that his only concern is that the strong be allowed to survive, even if that means sacrificing the weak. Meanwhile, there is still no food or water to be found, and the nesting grounds are nowhere in sight. And, as if matters were not dire enough, two ravenous carnotaurs (nasty descendants of the notorious Tyranosaurus Rex) have picked up the herd's trail and are closing fast.
Feast for the eyes, famine for the ears
The opening sequence of Dinosaur is truly stunning. The world comes to life in such detail that it's easy to forget that no one really knows what things looked like in prehistoric times. It all looks so real and so natural, the Cretaceous might have been just last week and there happened to be a few cameras around. The dinosaurs move more like actual animals than shiny CGI effects. They cast realistic shadows, their scaly skin stretches and folds, and their footsteps have a real weight to them. Plus, they are seamlessly integrated into live backgrounds shot on awe-inspiring locations in places like Hawaii, Australia and South America. All of this makes the first five minutes of the movie a breathtaking and moving experience.
And then the animals start talking.
It's not that talking animals are all that bothersome. It's what they say that is so painful. The dialogue in Dinosaur is so trite and so saturated with clichés and pop-culture references that the dinosaurs might as well have been smoking cigarettes and eating candy bars between one-liners. This is particularly disappointing considering that the creatures are so lifelike that it's easy to empathize with them. But they eliminate that empathy every time they open their big prehistoric yaps. The story itself is something of a dinosaur as well. It's yet another Mickey Moses story: An orphaned innocent is raised by wisecracking outsiders and then returns to his own kind to challenge a nasty authority figure and ultimately bring happiness to all. All that's missing (thankfully) are the musical numbers.
Dinosaur might have been a tremendous film had its makers only decided what kind of film they wanted to make. Could the movie have succeeded as a jaw-dropping special-effects extravaganza that offered a realistic depiction of prehistoric life? Probably. Would it have delivered the goods as a charming and fun fable for kids, chock full of slapstick and chatty animals? Sure. Unfortunately, Dinosaur tries too hard to be a little bit of both, and winds up being a whole lot of neither.
