20 Things You Didn't Know About Mission Impossible 2
3. A Hitchcock Remake?
Copying story beats and plot lines from other movies is nothing new, so it’s no surprise that MI2 shares a very similar plot to another movie. What is surprising is that movie is Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.
There's not enough room here to go into every detail that Woo and co. 'borrowed' from the iconic filmmaker, but there are lot. The basic structure of both films is the same: Man recruits Woman for mission, man falls in love with said woman, woman has to infiltrate the bad guy who’s a former lover, man isn’t happy about this, woman is discovered to be spying by the bad guy, woman gets drugged, man rescues woman, man and woman live happily ever after (well sort of).
It’s not just the story that is the same. Entire set pieces have been lifted from the 1946 movie. Including a car ‘chase’ scene at the beginning (which also heavily ripped off GoldenEye) and an espionage scene set at a horse track.
There are enough parallels between the two movies to make a copyright claim.