Mission: Impossible 2 - The Spence Edit

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II is the ugly step child of the M:I franchise.

Of all of them, it feels the most dated and, retroactively, the most stylistically out of step with the rest of the movie series.

But idea of trying to fan edit this John Woo extravaganza into something more akin to the later films, is a daunting... some might even say.. IMPOSSIBLE... concept.

But thankfully Spence has accepted this mission!

And he achieved his set goals masterfully.

This fan edit is slimmer and tighter paced, increasing the entertainment value immensely. Due to plot requirements, some of very John Woo signature elements remain, but this is no fault of the editor. The new soundtrack is great, it definitely sounds more like the other movies in the franchise. Though on occasion the viewer can noticeably hear the audio remover warble after effect and there are other times where the new soundtrack is a tad too loud and it competes with onscreen dialogue. But none of this distracts from the fun factor.

This a great popcorn edit.

MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED!!!

:)

I was not really planning on watching MI-II ever again, as I remembered it as 'everything bad about John Woo's films', but this edit actually redeems the film.
As other commenters mentioned, the theatrical cut of this film was over-the-top, with lots of slow-mo's and pigeons. Some of the slow motion scenes are still with us, sadly, as are a few trimmable shots of pigeons, but the pacing (and essentially everything else) is so much better!

From a film which was a guilty pleasure stuck in 2002 to becoming a timeless action movie. Spence has nailed it out of the park and now this movie which used to be the one we all skipped, can be watched without the cringe. 100/100

In the forum thread for this edit, Spence made two promises: it would still be our least favorite Mission: Impossible movie, and it would become significantly more watchable. And both turn out to be true. M:I-2 is still the weakest link in the franchise (editing can only get you so far), but this is a gigantic improvement. By removing the worst offenders and having an actual good music score (very well integrated, and that's one of the most painful and time-consuming aspects of fanediting) the positive qualities of the film, and there are a handful of them, are pushed to the foreground. Watching it I was thinking all the time about how much better the action scenes in this look and play in comparison to today's heavily color-filtered, everything-is-CGI approach. And thanks to the score replacement, this film now feels timeless instead of locked on the early 2000s. It now sounds and looks great. And is highly enjoyable.

My only gripe (out of the stuff that could have been resolved by editing - facts like Cruise being at his most Zoolander-ish, or that gun in the sand at the end being the mother of all contrivances, are things nothing can be done about) is that while the visuals of the Seville procession scene were beautifully fixed, the verbal reference by Anthony Hopkins' character to saints being burned stays (and the song is still from the wrong part of Spain). This is kind of a big deal for Spaniards: ask any how they felt about this movie and they'll go on a long rant about the insultingly and hilariously wrong Seville segment. For everyone else, though, this will likely pass unnoticed, so it's minor in relation to the big picture. Everything else is tremendously improved and very well realized. Highly recommended overall.

As spence made very clear in his thread, this movie needed a fanedit. So i was glad to read about his project and he didn´t disappointed with his work. The new opening fits for this edit despite not having the iconic MI intros (even though i like the original mountain opening).
The music iterations are seemlessley, some louder pieces are noticeable but necessary to cover up original track niose.
I like this treamlined version of MI:2 :)

My ony´ly gripe would be the overall video quality regarding the bitrate, but i´m kind of pedantic in this regard.