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Axel Matfin

Live review - Mission Impossible 2: Nu-Metal the Movie

I will be watching and providing my thoughts on Mission Impossible 2. Easily most people's least favourite film in the series, although I personally think 3 is the worst. However I'm interested to give this a spin for all the Limp Bizkit, Oakley sunglasses, John Wu hot off the serious critical and commercial success of FaceOff (something I've never understood) comedically self serious Cruise and full tilt year 2000 energy. My mission, should I choose to make it all the way to the end of the movie is to stay engaged for the film's dead zones of quality. This discussion will self destruct after my 3rd vodka soda.

Comments 96

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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Yikes, watching your GF make out with her ex from a satellite - ROUGH
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
OF COURSE HANS ZIMMER did the score! It has all the texture and quality of action spy stuff that would lead him to do BlackHawk Down a couple years later and then Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1 and 2. Dayum. Zimmer my man.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Younger Ving Rhames as Luther - outside Marcellas Wallace, his most iconic character? Fuck I love Luther.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Billy Baird, the chopper pilot - somehow did not show up in Dead Reckoning or Final Reckoning.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
I like that you can see people's pores in this movie. Lol. Modern movies digitally scrub so much so people look pristine. Or at least in action movies like this.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
GPS tracking your girlfriend? Lil sus bro.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Cruise is still soft here. He hadn't jumped on a couch. He hadn't had Scientology blow up in his face yet, he'd "just" finished eyes wide shut - and perhaps the storyline here of not only allowing, but needing your lover to go be intimate with someone else is a hyperactive reflection on Eyes Wide Shut? Hmm. I don't think it's a stretch that Cruise would want this hypercontrolled environment of chaos to make his OWN fate, as opposed to being Kubrick's doll?
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Post briefing scene walking across the fire of the festival is gorgeous.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
The premise that Ethan needs to let his new girlfriend go into a dark dangerous situation, to wheel in a former lover, to serve their mission? Is something later Ethan would never do. </br></br>"This is not mission difficult Mr. Hunt, it's Mission Impossible"
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
I love that Ethan absolutely hates the idea of Sean Ambrose "doubling" him. Classic trope of your enemy being your dark mirror.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Hopkins elevates this scene. It would not be as compelling if it wasn't him giving Ethan the exposition dump.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Cruise's tan leather jacket and this gothic setting feel like big influences on the video game Devil May Cry.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Sets, locations amazing. Anthony Hopkins introduced in a big torch bearing festival that makes me think Michael Mann saw this and stole a bit for BlackHat's ending.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
The sexy stuff is the most boring part of this movie.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Action heroes used to just look like normally fit guys too. Or Maybe that's part of Cruise, he's not big, so don't try to be too big just be good at what you do?
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
THE slow mo sequence in the chase where they are spinning is so fucking hilarious now. I mean It's like watching an anime. I love it for that. The textures and contrast here, done by Jeff Kimball, who also did the The Legend of Billie King, just brings this washed out sexy colour to a lot of it.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Fantastic car / geography stuff. Looks gorgeous.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
The "Car Sex Scene" - I remember being somewhat baffled by this when I saw it at 12-13, but it makes a lot more sense now. Fuck, look at the size of those cell phones.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
This is really the only other instance in the series where it's implied that Ethan is a thief. All the other stuff once he's in the IMF he's an operative, or an agent, the thief stuff doesn't really come up until Dead Reckoning.
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Axel MatfinAugust 25, 2025
Beautiful Thieves is always a good story idea.