Mission: Impossible 2 (titled onscreen as Mission: Impossible II and abbreviated as M:i-2) is a 2000 American action spy film directed by John Woo from a screenplay by Robert Towne, and produced by and starring Tom Cruise. It is a standalone sequel to Mission: Impossible (1996) and the second installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The film also stars Dougray Scott, Thandiwe Newton, Richard Roxburgh, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson, Rade Šerbedžija and Ving Rhames. In the film, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) teams with professional thief Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Newton) to secure a genetically modified disease, Chimera, held by rogue Impossible Missions Force (IMF) agent Sean Ambrose (Scott), who is Nordoff-Hall's former lover.
Mission: Impossible 2 was theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on May 24, 2000, and grossed over $546 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of that year. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences and Woo's direction, but criticism for the characterization. A third film, Mission: Impossible III, was released in 2006.
Plot
In Sydney, bio-genetics scientist Doctor Vladimir Nekhorvich sends a message to the IMF for Dimitri (Ethan Hunt's cover name), his old friend, warning that his employer, Biocyte Pharmaceuticals, forced him to develop a biological weapon, the Chimera virus, to profit from the cure, Bellerophon. He injects himself with the virus, carrying Bellerophon in a bag. However, en route to Atlanta, IMF agent Sean Ambrose disguised as Dimitri, goes rogue and betrays Nekhorvich, using sleeping gas on everyone aboard, steals Bellerophon, and jumps out of the plane before it crashes into the Rockies.
In Seville, IMF director Swanbeck informs Ethan about Ambrose's actions, tasks him with recovering Chimera and Bellerophon, and has him recruit Nyah Nordoff-Hall, a professional thief and Ambrose's ex-girlfriend. Despite her initial reluctance, Ethan gets her to trace Ambrose to Sydney using an injectable tracking device. Ethan assembles his team, old friend and computer hacker Luther Stickell, and helicopter pilot Billy Baird in Sydney while Nyah pretends to rekindle her relationship with Ambrose.
After Ambrose uses a video of Chimera infecting one of Nekhorvich's colleagues to blackmail Biocyte's CEO, John McCloy, into cooperation, Nyah gives Ethan the memory card containing the video, revealing that Chimera has a 20-hour dormant period; Bellerophon is only effective if used within that window. Ethan's team kidnaps McCloy and learns that the only Bellerophon samples, taken by Nekhorvich, are now in Ambrose's hands, but he doesn't have the virus since Nekhorvich injected himself with it. Ethan breaks into Biocyte headquarters and destroys two samples of Chimera, but Ambrose's team ambushes him, having discovered Nyah's deception. At a stalemate, Ambrose orders Nyah to retrieve the virus' last sample, but she injects herself with it instead and begs Ethan to kill her to destroy the virus. Ethan refuses and flees the facility, promising to get her the cure.
Ambrose releases Nyah to wander the streets of Sydney, intending to start a pandemic. At Biocyte's storage facility on Bare Island, he offers to sell Bellerophon to McCloy in exchange for enough stock options to make him Biocyte's majority shareholder, enabling him and McCloy to make billions. Ethan infiltrates the base and fights Ambrose's right-hand man, Hugh Stamp; Stamp seemingly brings a subdued Ethan to Ambrose, who executes him. However, Ambrose, upon seeing Stamp's bandaged finger (which he had earlier cut with a cigar cutter for questioning his trust in Nyah), discovers that the dead "Ethan" is Stamp, masked and gagged, while the actual Ethan has stolen the Bellerophon samples. Enraged, Ambrose and his men chase Ethan onto the mainland; Hunt kills them, while Luther and Billy locate Nyah, who has wandered to a cliffside to kill herself and prevent the outbreak.
Ethan kills Ambrose in an extended fistfight on the beach and gives Bellerophon to the arriving Luther, who injects Nyah with it. In return for her cooperation, the IMF clears Nyah's criminal record, and Ethan starts a vacation with her in Sydney.
Cast
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt: An agent of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). Dougray Scott as Sean Ambrose: A rogue IMF agent who possesses Bellerophon. Thandiwe Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall: A professional thief brought on to assist Ethan in tracing Ambrose. Richard Roxburgh as Hugh Stamp: Ambrose's right-hand man. John Polson as Billy Baird: A helicopter pilot. Brendan Gleeson as John C. McCloy: CEO of Biocyte in Australia. Rade Šerbedžija as Dr. Vladimir Nekhorvich: Creator of Chimera at Biocyte.
Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell: A computer hacker and IMF agent.
Additionally, Anthony Hopkins appears in an uncredited cameo appearance as Mission Commander Swanbeck. Tom Cruise's cousin William Mapother and Dominic Purcell appear as, respectively, Wallis and Ulrich, two of Ambrose's henchmen.
Production Development In the summer of 1996, it was revealed that a sequel to Mission: Impossible was in the works. William Goldman says he was the first writer on the film. "All that's left of mine is the climax... the climbing up the rocks sequence," he said. "I couldn't come up with a good villain and Bob Towne did."
According to screenwriter Robert Towne, several action sequences were already planned for the film prior to his involvement and before the story had been written.
Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga's draft of the script included Willy Armitage as one of the team members, though the role would have been recast with a younger actor instead of original cast member Peter Lupus.
Initially, Oliver Stone was set to direct Mission: Impossible 2 after collaborating with Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July in 1989. He described it as "a vehicle to say something about the state of corporate culture and technology and global politics in the 21st century". Stone further noted that the film's commercial nature and Cruise's star power would, in a way, "[give him] some camouflage" when delving into overtly political themes. However, he had to drop out of the project following creative differences with the studio. In March 1998, John Woo had been announced to direct Mission: Impossible 2.
Cruise regretted killing off Jack Harmon in the previous film and attempted to include the character in the sequel. This idea was abandoned as Cruise and Woo couldn't come up with a plausible way for Harmon to have survived his death in the previous film. Extensive production of Eyes Wide Shut delayed Cruise's work on Mission: Impossible 2 and his ex-wife Nicole Kidman's work on Practical Magic respectively.
Casting Following production delays with Any Given Sunday, Ving Rhames dropped out of the project to reprise his role as Luther Stickell. In August 1998, Dougray Scott was selected for the role of Sean Ambrose. Ian McKellen was offered the part of Mission Commander Swanbeck, but turned it down due to a prior theatre engagement in London. Instead, he would take on the roles of Magneto in X-Men and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy simultaneously. Thandiwe Newton declined to portray Alex Munsay in Charlie's Angels in favor of Nyah Nordoff-Hall. Steve Zahn was initially cast as Billy Baird, but dropped out.
Filming Principal photography began on April 19, 1999 in Sydney. Andrew Lesnie served as the initial cinematographer, but left to work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy. At Fox Studios Australia, four soundstages were used for the film's production, the largest at the time, costing $45 million. Filming also took place at Los Angeles Center Studios in Los Angeles, California.
The studio expressed concern about the safety of filming Cruise's entrance scene, in which he is free solo climbing at Dead Horse Point State Park in Moab, Utah. Cruise refused to drop the idea because he could not think of a better way to reintroduce the character. There was no safety net as he filmed the sequence, but he did have a harness and a thin wire. He tore his shoulder when performing the jump from one part of the cliff to another.
Newton discussed her unpleasant on-set experiences with Cruise during the shooting of the balcony sequence in a 2020 interview. According to Newton, Cruise was heavily stressed over the expectations of the sequel being good and was upset during the shooting of said scene because she had "the shittiest lines." The two decided to reverse roleplay each other as practice. However, it was unhelpful for her and pushed her "into a place of terror and insecurity." After the shooting was finished for the day, she contacted Jonathan Demme, telling him what happened. Looking back on that day, Newton said about Cruise, "Bless him. And I really do mean bless him because he was trying his damnedest".
Production was delayed due to problems with the screenplay and budget and Cruise had to take a break from filming to do publicity for Eyes Wide Shut. Combined with scheduling conflicts and injuries he sustained in a motorcycle accident while filming, Scott decided not to play the role of Wolverine in X-Men.
During the final fight scene between Ethan Hunt and Sean Ambrose, Cruise insisted that a real knife be used. The knife was attached to a cable and was carefully measured to stop a quarter of an inch from Cruise's eyeball, and Cruise asked Scott to put his full strength down on the knife to get a realistic look for the scene. Filming finished on December 15, 1999.
Post-production The original cut clocked in at three-and-a-half hours. Stuart Baird made some uncredited re-edits to both Mission: Impossible 2 and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in order for Paramount to get the job of directing Star Trek: Nemesis.
Manex, who created the bullet time effect for The Matrix, was commissioned to work on the visual effects for the film. Richard Yuricich served as the film's visual effects supervisor, while CFC-London and Cinesite created visual shots for the pic, with the latter handling the digital imaging, scanning, recording and doing a portion of the composite work. Dan Piponi, Kim Libreri and George Borshukov created virtual backgrounds, which took a large number of photographs of a specific location and reproduced it as a completely photorealistic render due to the high dynamic range imagery used, then placed actors or action within that virtual environment. The resulting virtual environment was then moved through 3D space and served as background plates for green screen photography of the actors.
Music
The film's original score was composed by Hans Zimmer, who had previously collaborated with director John Woo on Broken Arrow and served as music producer on Face/Off. The score also features vocals performed by Lisa Gerrard. In addition, the film includes contemporary music such as Limp Bizkit's rendition of Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme entitled "Take a Look Around" as well as Metallica's "I Disappear".
While Ethan is rock climbing during his holiday, Zap Mama's remixed version of "Iko Iko" plays on the soundtrack.
About the score, Zimmer said: "The love theme from Mission: Impossible [II] was written about six weeks before they started shooting. I was on it that early. Then, we had a big meeting in Australia. They had the love theme, and I knew what the story was about, and I always thought it was about these two men being in love with the girl. So I said to the record company guy, 'Look, here's one thing I would love you to do, when you find bands for me, make them all female. Make them all about sirens.' Of course, what did I get? A bunch of heavy metal bands with guys. I promise you, it would have been a better movie, and it would have been a better score."