Mission Impossible 2: Action/Adventure.  Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton and Ving Rhames. .  Written by Bruce Geller. Directed by John Woo.  Rated PG-13. Now playing at Bay Area theaters.

Incredible concentration: this is what it takes Tom Cruise’s impregnable hero Ethan Hunt to artfully suspend his body weight between two pieces of sheer rock face during a typical vacation spent rock climbing. And unfortunately, concentration is what is required of the viewer as well to sit through this torturous two hours plus fiesta of tedium. Not for lack of action sequences aboard helicopters, motorcycles, on foot and in fast designer cars, M:I-2 never makes it out of the gate.  The story line is overly complicated, the acting is uninspired and the chemistry between Newton and Cruise although there in abundance, is not enough to make up for this messiness.

In an impossibly derivative set up and series of twists, M:I-2 opens with agent Ethan Hunt called back into action to retrieve a deadly supervirus that its inventor Dr. Nekhorvich has injected into his own blood stream in order to transport safely. The catch is that he has twenty hours before he will expire unless he injects himself with the antidote.  Of course, there is a former agent-turned-bad-guy (Dougray Scott) who in his greed and quest for power and the currency du jour, stock options, is trying to intercept both the virus and antidote in order to create an outbreak and make big bucks.

It’s not clear what John Woo or for that matter Tom Cruise as producer of this movie was thinking:  whether this was supposed to be a farcical martial arts action thriller in the line of Woo’s earlier Hong Kong flicks or a layered spy thriller with a built-in love story.  What has emerged from the depths of this 6-month shoot and subsequent post-production gestation is a laughable hodge-podge of interminable action sequences riddled with bullets, bombs and attempted snappy one-liner sound bites.  This is Tom Cruise at his flashiest, all toothy grin and tan biceps. He’s unsinkable as our hero.  Scriptwriter Robert Towne has concocted a scenario that is quite the antithesis of the usual team approach that Mission Impossible, the TV series took.  Here it’s all about Cruise with the supporting cast running pirouettes around him yet barely glancing off his omnipotent universal appeal.  With this much Cruise as Product running around, it’s hard to pay much attention to the lesser antics of the supporting cast, the comic attempts at subplot and clumsy grasp of romance. 

Thandie Newton gives it her best big budget college try as the jewel thief who is roped into helping Hunt snare Dougray’s villain, Sean Ambrose. She starts out with a strong showing as Hunt’s equal proving herself in a daring car chase which then quickly goes awry in a slo-mo whirling car sequence where she and Hunt lock eyes and, in some lame fashion, hearts.   From here on, Newton’s character is relegated to the status of female-as-wily-cat: she must lead Hunt to Ambrose so that his nefarious plans to market the virus and antidote can be thwarted.

There is no shortage of misogyny along the way. No sooner does she hook up with Hunt, he isasking her to jump back into Ambrose’s bed in a plot twist stolen from Hitchcock’s “Notorious.”  Gratuitous comments on the treachery and innate deceitfulness of woman abound.  In one scene when Newton’s character must choose between retrieving the last virus receptacle and giving it to Ambrose or handing it over to Hunt for destruction, Ambrose insists that she’s a woman, she’ll always opt for her own well-being first.  It’s yet another odd turn that this movie has chosen to take the low road when so many other action thrillers (the “Aliens” franchise, “The Matrix,” “Terminator 2”) have offered up such stunning examples of strong female leads.

Aside from these gaps in taste and good sense, John Woo has littered the landscape with such a clutter of obvious symbolism that he succeeds in inadvertent comedy.  In yet another ham-fisted slow motion sequence a  white dove flutters by Hunt’s side in one respite from the violent clatter of crossfire – blatantly borrowed from “The Crow” despite it being a bird of another color.  For all it’s forward motion, it’s a shame that M:I-2 never gets off the ground, mired as it is in cliches and grossly twisted plot turns.  Paradoxically, by speeding things up, Woo succeeds in creating a tremendous call to inertia.