The Mission: Impossible franchise has been one of the steadiest and most successful movie franchises of the last 25 years, where you can make a case for almost any of them being the best or your favourite. There is one movie of the bunch that is almost universally agreed to be the ugly duckling of the bunch: Mission Impossible 2. It’s the only one that really doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest, with its strange mishmash of over the top action, stolen plot lines and overall odd execution. While it’s definitely the worst of the series, it is not without merit, it’s still entertaining to watch this bizarre cinematic cocktail. One does wonder how exactly a movie like this got greenlit though.
What follows is my own premise for how I imagine the screenwriters pitched this movie to Tom Cruise, purely for entertainment purposes. I like to think 2 screenwriters were given 2 weeks to come up with a basic outline for Mr. Cruise but they basically procrastinated it all away, watching YouTube videos, taking long lunches, going for early drinks, nothing got done in the allotted time. So it’s Friday afternoon, an hour before they meet with Tom and they’re just thinking of random stuff to pitch so it doesn’t seem like they haven’t been doing anything, and to buy them more time to come up with the real idea for the movie. That is the setup for the movie, the following is the “dramatization” of the meeting itself.
Screenwriter 1: Alright Mr. Cruise, we’ve got some great ideas for the next Mission: Impossible movie, plot, a few ideas for directors, some scenes, a good start. Obviously this is just getting the ball rolling on this thing, so we’re not married to any of these ideas, so whatever thoughts and input you have, we’ll take it back to the room and work it in.
Tom Cruise: Alright guys, sounds good, what have you got for me?
Screenwriter 2: Okay, so we were trying to think of old spy movies to kind of emulate and we thought of that old Alfred Hitchcock movie Notorious. The one where Cary Grant recruits Ingrid Bergman, falls in love with her, sleeps with her, then makes her go pretend to be in love with the villain so she can spy on him.
Tom Cruise: Oh yeah! I love that movie. Which parts of it were you guys thinking of taking and using in our movie?
Screenwriter 1: All of it.
Tom Cruise: All of it?
Screenwriter 2: Yeah we’re just gonna take that whole plot and do that. Ethan Hunt is just gonna recruit the love interest, sleep with her, fall in love with her and then get her to spy on the bad guy for him.
Screenwriter 1: We figure it’s from the 1940’s so most people won’t have seen it anyways. But again, you know, just a jumping off point.
Tom Cruise: No. I like it. Keep going.
Screenwriter 1: Okay so for directors, we know you want each of these movies to have their own feel, Brian De Palma did the last one and that was very thrillery. We were thinking, let’s just blow the damn roof off this thing and do an action picture. Someone who really knows how to shoot some action.
Tom Cruise: Who do you have in mind?
Screenwriter 2: Hold onto your seat. John fucking Woo.
Tom Cruise: John Woo?!? The guy who does the action scenes with guys jumping through the air with two guns in slow motion and doves?!?
Screenwriter 1: Oh yeah. That’s who we like for this, the man has a real panache for action. But again, just tossing it out there, obviously if you have better ideas we can go with those.
Tom Cruise: No. I like it. Keep going.
Screenwriter 2: So have you seen The Last of the Mohicans?
Tom Cruise: Are you kidding? Daniel Day Lewis? I love that movie
Screenwriter 1: You know that scene where they’re under the waterfall at night and Daniel Day Lewis shouts “I will find you!” to the love interest and then jumps through the waterfall?
Tom Cruise: That’s my favourite scene.
Screenwriter 2: So we’re gonna have you yell “I’m not going to lose you!” and then base jump and parachute out of the building.
Screenwriter 1: We were thinking not losing her is kind of like finding her, you know.
Tom Cruise: I like it.
Screenwriter 1: And then we thought maybe at the beginning Ethan Hunt would maybe free climbing a cliff without any equipment on his vacation at the beginning, just to kind of show how much of a badass this guy is.
Tom Cruise: Yes. I’ve been waiting my whole career to do my own stunts and climb a mountain. That’s definitely going in.
Screenwriter 2: So like we said, just some rough ideas but we’re still brainstorming and obviously we want to know what you’re thinking so we can go back and incorporate your ideas into our work.
Tom Cruise: No way. Do not change a thing. This is the movie. THIS is what we’re shooting. I LOVE IT. You are my guys. I couldn’t be more excited about this, let’s get to work! (Flashes the 1000 watt Tom Cruise smile and exuberantly exits the room)
Screenwriter 1: Well fuck. I didn’t think he’d actually go for it. What the hell are we gonna do??
Screenwriter 2: I guess we’re gonna write the fuckin’ thing.