Simon and Jim discuss John Woo’s hi-octane early-2000s take on the Mission: Impossible franchise, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2. They discuss the many issues with this film’s script, the John Wooiness of it all, the strong current of misogyny running through the entire film and how Thandiwe Newton is literally the only woman that speaks in it, how we’re starting to see the early seeds of Tom Cruise’s controversial on-set and off-set behaviour including his insistence on performing his own stunts, and the very strange top ten grossing films at the worldwide box office in the year 2000.
Content warnings: airplane travel and disaster; misogyny and sexual coercion; statutory rape; violent death including murder and suicide; chemical and biological weapons; viruses and pandemic; cult leadership.
Our theme song is Star – X – Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.
Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/PJLRKSI9