Mission Improbable: What’s the Matter With ‘M:I-2’

T Like Stephen Farber, I too sat in the theater watching “M:I-2” with a feeling of deja vu (“Mission: Familiar,” May 31). Not only can comparisons be made to Hitchcock’s “Notorious” and “North by Northwest” but to “To Catch a Thief” as well.

I have always been a tremendous fan of Hitchcock’s and while I agree that much of the psychological dynamics of “Notorious” are not present in “M:I-2,” I don’t know that it is entirely a result of the “dumbing down” of mainstream audiences.

I believe that the difference has more to do with the studio’s desire to pigeonhole audiences demographically, in this case by gender. “M:I-2” was obviously marketed as a “guy” film, as was evident in the previews, which featured the tremendous car stunts, explosive special effects and the alluring Thandie Newton. The fact that many women came out to see the film was merely a bonus. The fact remains: This was not a chick flick.

“Notorious,” on the other hand, held more general appeal. Cary Grant was as appealing to women then as Tom Cruise is to women now. However, the story played out much, much differently. Romantically, if you will.

When we are first introduced to Ingrid Bergman’s character, we get the sense that while she is a party girl, she carries a lot of emotional baggage. There is no such background given for Newton’s character. She is a thief because she likes nice things, plain and simple. An audience can hardly be blamed for not buying into the quick “love” that develops between Newton and Cruise between the sheets. Therefore, we cannot truly buy into her dilemma when faced with having to sleep with her former boyfriend.

While “M:I-2” plays out very well as an action-packed, suspense movie, its lack of romantic believability when compared to “Notorious” says more about the times we live in than anything else. (For the record, the only time we come close to seeing Bergman and Grant in bed together is when he discovers that she is being poisoned and he sets his head down on the pillow beside hers.)

Perhaps the makers of “M:I-2” knew exactly who their audience was, what they would accept and what they wouldn’t.

VIVIAN RHODES

Oak Park

*

Stephen Farber suggests that “M:I-2” falls short because, among other things, Tom Cruise’s character, unlike Cary Grant’s in “Notorious,” is not “a raging misogynist” with a “sadistic attitude contain[ing] a deep-seated prejudice toward women.” Please.

There’s no doubt that “M:I-2” is not as psychologically complex as “Notorious,” but to suggest that the hero’s lack of misogyny makes the film a “completely soulless exercise without an iota of true human drama” is absurd. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a film in which the hero is truly a good guy. Yes, sometimes such simple personifications can reduce films to unengaging mush, but if ever there was a director who was skilled at using archetypal characters to enhance a film’s power, it is John Woo.

In movies like “Face/Off,” “M:I-2” and his brilliant “The Killer,” Woo uses his skills to elevate the struggle between good and evil to mythical proportions. His characters are the very embodiment of good and evil, and Woo adds complexity by always exploring the ways in which his heroes and villains are similar.

While “Notorious” is a brilliant romantic thriller with highly nuanced and complex characters, “M:I-2” is an action film that deliberately uses more archetypal characters to tell a different kind of story: a tale of good, evil and passion on a mythic scale.

KEITH PETIT

Encino

*

Hurrah for Stephen Farber. I thought there was something wrong with me; I walked out 45 minutes into “M:I-2.”

Is our generation so jaded (or is it brain-dead) that we cannot tell the difference between suspense and just a loud soundtrack? In all fairness, I cannot judge “M:I-2” in its entirety, but I was put off by the noise, the long shots of people staring at each other, Tom Cruise’s mugging (and did you catch his strut? I laughed out loud).

Cruise used to be a very good actor. He was as good as, if not better than, Paul Newman in “The Color of Money.” He was certainly as good as Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man.” Can we forget the promise shown by the teenage Cruise in “Risky Business”? Probably, his salary for these films would not hold a candle to his salary for “M:I-2,” but I wish Cruise would (could) resist doing this trash.

TOM PUTCH

Palm Springs

*

Kenneth Turan’s review of “M:I-2” is peppered with admiring references to John Woo (“An Action Arsenal,” May 24). But I’m confused: What did he think of the movie?

Turan is so obviously enamored with the Hong Kong action director that he appears to go to great lengths to avoid discussing the film on its own merits, playing it safe by focusing on “M:I-2’s” plot and gadgetry. Is he afraid that to call a spade a spade might invalidate his starry-eyed hero worship of Woo?

Allow me to speak for those of us who do not swoon at the mere mention of Woo’s name: “M:I-2” is an example of mechanical, soulless filmmaking at its worst. It is almost entirely silly, loud, derivative (of “The Matrix,” mostly) and frighteningly cold-hearted, not to mention a slap in the face to the clever Bruce Geller TV series on which it is based.

KYLE COUNTS

San Diego

*

With all due respect for the considerable talents of John Woo and Tom Cruise, I doubt very much that the late Steve McQueen could have been “intimidated” by the computer-enhanced motorcycle stunts on view in “M:I-2,” as Turan suggests.

McQueen was an accomplished off-road racer, competing in motocross and desert events for years in Southern California. In 1964, he was accepted as a member of the U.S. team that participated in the International Six Day Trials in East Germany. While his most spectacular movie stunt (jumping the fence in “The Great Escape”) was done by racer-stuntman Bud Ekins, just take a look at Bruce Brown’s “On Any Sunday” to get an idea of how talented McQueen was on a dirt bike.

Admittedly, John Woo’s over-the-top action sequences are fun to watch, but I’m sure Turan doesn’t really confuse this movie magic with reality. McQueen was the real thing.

BARRY VAN DYKE

Agoura

*Having groaned through the long, hollow, exposition-filled void of “M:I-2,” all I could think of was, this is the man who wrote “Chinatown”?

Nothing could be more emblematic of the decline of Hollywood than the degradation of Robert Towne’s once-glorious career.

I don’t expect much of Tom Cruise or even John Woo, but when Towne is reduced to writing this kind of empty swill, what hope is there for anyone?

MICHAEL GRAVES

Studio City