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Let's face it: if you're going to make an absurd action movie a la Mission Impossible, why not do it with style? Brian De Palma realized this as he made the first movie and John Woo realizes it on the second. Both movies are all grace and elegance, bearing the unmistakable stamp of their directors (unusual in "franchise" movies). If the first movie was more interesting than the second because of its intricate plotting, the second is more interesting than the first because of the adrenalin rush of bullets and bodies in motion. Two more different movies have ever looked so much alike.

The plot finds IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) on the trail of a renegade (Dougray Scott) who has stolen a genetically engineered super-virus and threatens to release it into the populace of Australia if his demands are not met. To stop him, Hunt recruits Naya (Thandie Newton), a thief who has previously had relations with the bad guy, with the intent of rekindling the affair in order to trap him. Complicating things is the pharmaceuticals tycoon (Brendan Gleeson) who made the virus, who has designs on its use as well. The film builds toward a dizzying motorcycle chase in order to save Naya, who has been infected with the virus.

This is a John Woo movie to the core. There are slow-motion shoot-outs aplenty, weird shifts in identity, and even Woo's trademarked shot of doves. To a large extent, this resembles a far more restrained second draft of Face/Off, with its grotesque face-switching plot. Of course, Mission Impossible was doing that sort of stuff for years, so it isn't so out of place: but it IS a weird coincidence. The shoot-outs are the least interesting things in the movie, oddly enough. It's almost as if Woo included them as an afterthough, knowing that anyone who goes to a "Mission Impossible" movie directed John Woo is going to feel cheated without them. They are staged as well as you would expect, but other parts of the movie are better. It is the little things that count, that elevate this above the crap inflicted on us every year by Jerry Bruckheimer. Is there another action director out there who would lavish so much style on a group of flamenco dancers? Is there another action director who could conceive of the shot where flames dance in the villain's eyes? As I was watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of Woo's original version of Once A Thief and its best setpiece--the pickpocket waltz--which, like much of Mission Impossible 2 is a magnificent piece of pure styling. The exposition is excellent. It's almost disappointing when the film lets the action sequences take over. But, action sequences there are. The best of them is the motorcycle chase at the end of the movie, which Woo transforms into some weird symbolic joust.

Of course, by transforming his characters into knights, Woo reveals that he is still working through the problem of honor in the modern world. This lends the film more weight than one expects, but the first film was more than one expected, too. I mean, after all, the Mission Impossible films are built around the high concept that "Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible" will sell oodles of movie tickets (and it will). That the filmmakers, Brian De Palma on the first and John Woo on the second, have decided to offer a quality product can only be applauded. God help us all if Jerry Bruckheimer or Joel Schumacher ever get a hold of this property.