Mission: Impossible 2 - The Spence Edit

Wow, just watched this. First things first; superb job with the score, so much better than the original. Also for doing what was possible with the slow motion excess, I was hiding behind the chair waiting for the 'shampoo commercial ' scene when the bad guy reunites with his his girl, but thankfully it was nicely cut. Spence did a great job but I'm sorry this movie is beyond saving. The fight scenes are like something out of Zoolander! Recommended for those who enjoy watching the complete series every year or two and definitely way better than the original.

I enjoyed the original version of M:I-2 while still seeing the huge flaws that the movie had. It is always fun to rewatch the action scenes of the movie, but there is too much cheesiness and the style of music doesn't work in a Mission Impossible movie. So I'm glad to say that this fan edit by Spence does fix the biggest flaws, two of which were my biggest gripes with the movie: the pace and the music. Anything redundant has been removed to quicken the pace and get to the point. The action scenes and the quieter moments are more emotional and improved thanks to the music from other M:I movies and the pace making them tighter.

Just like some reviewers have said before me, this fan edit does salvage the second M:I entry and make it worthy one as well. It does make it, at least in my books, as good (maybe even better) as the first M:I movie. Well done, Spence! I don't know how you managed to fix this movie, but you managed to do it and even made it a great action movie in my eyes.

This is the one M:I movie I could never bring myself to watch more than once every 5+ years, if only to remind myself that it was as bad as I remembered. Spence managed to salvage it, but more than that, make it a worthy entry in the series. I didn't notice any editing issues, and the 13 GB copy I watched looked fantastic. Bravo Spence! Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

The weakest MI films gets a really nice makeover. By removing nearly 20 minutes of footage, the film really cuts to the chase and excise some of the cheesier moments. The alternate score is well chosen though the volume is noticeably too high in places. I also take exception to the decision to put score over the "knife to the eye" scene. I felt that the original silent version of the moment worked much better.

Overall it is a good time that goes at a brisk pace. None of the removed bit affect the narrative in any meaningful way. I've now seen 3 Spence edit and he really has that aspect of editing down pat.

As an avid fan of John Woo (he is forever one of my 5 favorite directors), to say M:I-2 was a retroactive disappointment is an understatement (I say retroactive because I watched and hated M:I-2 years ago before I knew who John Woo was or had seen any of his films besides, but I recently watched 14 of his most excellent filmography, 13 of which were his HK films, and I fell in love, so after seeing those, I am retroactively disappointed in M:I-2). Spence set himself a defined set of goals for what his edit needed to accomplish, and he achieved them incredibly well. The visual editing is nigh flawless, his audio editing is incredible and as good as can be given the monumental task of rescoring one of Zimmer’s worst scores. So there are obviously moments throughout the edit that are noticeably rough, albeit very slightly. The pacing is much improved, as the first half moves quickly onward in its set up, but doesn’t feel overly rushed, and once we get to the action scenes, they are still awesome in all their Woo-ness, but they aren’t as far into the realm of self parody as they used to be. And while the beginning half is still a bit slow, that’s an issue at the core of the film’s writing, and is neither Spence’s fault, nor Woo’s in my opinion. Overall, a fantastic achievement and definitely my go to for future marathons of the franchise. Thank you Spence!