Tom Cruise stars in John Woo's action-packed thriller M:I-2

BY BRANDY BENSON

Tom Cruise and John Woo, two of the most compelling figures in the world of film, have teamed up for M:l-2, a romantic action thriller that plunges special agent Ethan Hunt into an international crisis of terrifying magnitude.

With computer genius Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) at his side and a beautiful thief (Thandie Newton) on his mind, Hunt races across Australia and Spain on what seems like an impossible mission -- to stop a villain before he can fulfill his own destructive mission.

Tom Cruise stars in M:l-2, a Paramount Pictures presentation directed by the master of the action genre, John Woo. Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner are the producers of the film, which is written by Robert Towne based on the television series created by Bruce Geller. A Cruise/Wagner Production, M:l-2 is executive produced by Terence Chang and Paul Hitchcock and Michael Doven serves as associate producer.

Also starring are Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Richard Roxburgh, John Polson, Brendan Gleeson, Rade Sherbedgia and Ving Rhames reprising his role as Luther Stickell.

Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom Inc.

A tremendous fan of the Mission: Impossible television series which ran on CBS Television in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cruise came up with the idea of translating the show onto the big screen.

In 1996, his dream came to life with the release of Mission: Impossible, a worldwide box-office success.

"Tom loved the cleverness of this group of people who would solve problems by abandoning the traditional methodology," said Paula Wagner, Cruise's producing partner. "The series was very intelligent and it had all the elements loved by audiences -- romance, drama, with adventure and action built in.

"This movie is different from the first Mission: Impossible," Wagner said. "This is a more personal story. We get to see a more romantic side to Ethan Hunt within the framework of an exciting action drama."

M:I-2, now playing at area theaters, is rated PG-13.