Visually stunning.

At first, I was struck by how strange it was that a big summer blockbuster movie should contain a long, slow-motion scene of flamenco dancers immediately after the opening credits.

Then I remembered that this is a John Woo movie in all its glory, sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed it immensely.

The whole film, start to finish, was amazingly beautiful. I think audiences are used to action films being dirty, grungy, and filled with all the imperfections of the real world. John Woo has a knack for removing the reality from his sets, and leaving a world that is stunning to the eye; filled with beautiful people. It gives the movie a sense of elegance, and simplicity, which I enjoyed very much. I think this simple elegance lends itself to a very focused presentation, which keeps the audience riveted to the story, as opposed to its surroundings.

Mission Impossible 2 has all of those traditional John Woo components, as well as the infamous slow motion elements, and the birds all over the place. I don't know what John Woo likes so much about birds, but they're all over the place in this movie, as well as many of his others.

I enjoyed the acting in this movie quite a bit, though I must admit that it is hard to give a good criticism of Tom Cruise's performance without seeing the movie again. There are many times when he is portraying someone else playing himself, and I'd need to look again, now that I know what's going on, to see how cohesive the characters are. Off the cuff, though, I would say I enjoyed Cruise very much in his return to the role of Ethan Hunt, and hope to see him do this again.

As a martial artist I can't ignore the action scenes in the movie. They aren't fast-paced, knock-down fights; in fact many of them are done at varying speeds, from slow motion, to hyper-speed. Still, someone was very creative with the fight sequences, and there aren't any canned, traditional 'movie moves' in there. I saw some good judo, some really strange almost-capoeira-type moves, and many things I just plain couldn't identify. It was a lot of fun to watch. My martial artist friends were disappointed, because in a couple of places you could tell that a stunt was shot in multiple parts. I think that since many of them were presented at odd angles in slow motion, though, that very little reality was possible. I guess you could call the martial arts in this move 'good, but fantastical'.

And I enjoy fantastical martial arts.

The story was interesting enough, for a 'save the word' plot, and I was amazed at how much of the audience fell for every single disguise and trick. There are lots of surprises in the film, so I won't give any more of it away.

This is a fun movie to see when you're in the mood for good action, interesting stories, and beautiful pictures. Go see it, before everyone you know blows the surprises for you!