Mission: Impossible II Page #3

AMBROSE:

(what else)

- right -

(kidding)

- don't go too far ahead of me now -

STAMP:

Not possible..

Ulrich has rolled back the carpet over an access panel just

beneath them that leads to the belly of the plane. Stamp pulls

back the panel, hops into the compartment below which is four

walls of electronic equipment. Stamp kneels and slides back the

floor hatch. The wind howls, puffs of cloud zip by beneath them.

As they descend into the belly:

WALLIS:

Checkpoint Charlie plus 30, altitude minus

two-zero-thousand. Airspeed one-seven-

niner knots..

AMBROSE:

It's that time. Go.

They don goggles and, with Ambrose in the lead,

the team leaps, one after another from the hatch, sailing off

into the sky.

INT - COCKPIT (DAY)

An automated voice repeats in an ominous monotone:

VOICE:

Terrain, terrain. Pull up, pull up.

The co-pilot stirs. He blearily rouses himself just in time to

see:

A mountain rushing toward him. As mountain meets airplane, the

frame is filled with fire, but when camera pulls back from the

fireball, it is in fact no more than a match head filling frame,

which ignited, lights a fuse..

The MI theme music kicks in, the main credits roll to:

EXT - FACE OF MOUNTAIN (DAY)

For a moment it might be thought part of the same range when the

plane crashed but when Ethan Hunt climbs into frame the angle

widen and titles down, revealing more of where he's come from

than where he's going. Aside from the fact that he's in the

midst of free-climbing what is easily a sheer rock face of at

least a thousand feet, there's the sunny picture-postcard view of

a lovely valley and pellucid lake thousands of feet below. Ethan

climbs out of shot.

WIDE UP ANGLE (DAY)

revealing the summit, a light breeze hitting the lichen and

whatever growth has a slender purchase on the rocky mountainside,

fluffy clouds overhead.

Ethan into shot. Despite the spectacularly precarious handholds

he's using to hang onto the mountain and his life, he appears

relaxed, engaged - for him - in the equivalent of busman's

holiday. It's leisurely danger for Ethan; one might almost

expect to hear Julie Andrews trilling 'Climb Every Mountain' on

the soundtrack.

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