Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning with Chris McQuarrie

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. The wait is over for the actioniest and Tom Cruiseiest of all Tom Cruise action movies – ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’. And we’ve got action director (and producer and writer) extraordinaire Chris McQuarrie—who is behind this and the last four Missions—in the guest spot for you this week. Our super sub Ben Bailey Smith chats to him about the much-anticipated new movie, its jaw-dropping stunts, and his longstanding creative partnership with Tom Cruise. Simon is on his holibobs this week and we bet he’s gutted to be missing this one! Plus we find out what Mark makes of this epic conclusion to the 29-year Mission: Impossible series. It’s a proper blockbuster week with reviews of two more big cinema releases too. Firstly, Disney’s live action ‘Lilo and Sitch’, which sees everyone’s favourite fuzzy blue genetic experiment accompanied by a cast of IRL actors including Hannah Waddingham as an alien and Maia Kealoha as Lilo. Secondly and more achingly-arty-quirkily, it’s Wes Anderson’s latest ‘The Phoenician Scheme’, starring Benicio del Toro, Scarlett Johansson, Mia Threapleton, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks—and indeed Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Plus all the usual top bantz from Mark and Ben, and from your stellar correspondence. Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Lilo and Stitch: 07:32 Box Office Top Ten: 12:59 Chris McQuarrie Interview: 26:10 Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning Review: 40:29 The Phoenician Scheme: 55:24 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in Questions Shmessions. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to ExtraTakes.com for non-fruit related devices.

There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're with a little bit of controversy. Hello. Hello. I'm going to say hello to you this time, Mark, because apparently word on the street is yesterday there was a very high profile snubbing. There's no apparently about it. Of which I've been accused. Yeah. Okay. So here's what happened, right? Yesterday, this is, this is Wednesday today. Okay. Incidentally, happy 60th birthday to my brother, who's the only birthday I ever

remember because it's in a Queen song, great King rap born today, born on the 21st of May. Anyway, but by the time you're listening to this, it will be tomorrow. So yesterday, which was Tuesday, we were sitting in Universal. I was sitting in Universal, Dave Norris's screening room, which is one of the best screening rooms in London, but it's not huge. So it's pretty much possible to see everyone else that is in the screening room. And I'm sitting in my usual place, which is right at the back left, blah, blah, blah in walks Ben, right? With some incredibly hip looking person with facial hair arrangement who turns out to be Scubious Pip. Scubious Pip, right. So massively hip. Okay. Edith Bowman's there.

You go to the show, right? You go, all right, Edith. She go, all right, Ben, you have a little chat. That's nice. And you turn and you walk along to get and say, and I go, hi, Ben. Nothing. Like literally nothing. So pointedly nothing that the person sitting next to me in the screening gives me a really filthy look like either you don't know him or he doesn't want to talk to you because he's got more famous friends. I did not hear or see you and all I can do is apologize. It was nothing to you.

All I can do is apologize. I was absolutely horrified to hear that. We will be discussing, apart from Snubs, how we felt about that movie later on in the show. It coloured everything. It coloured everything. My entire viewing of the film was completely ruined. As you've often said, Mark, you take out what you bring to a movie, don't you? Yes. And I brought in seething resentment, bitterness and a little bit of heartache actually. Wow. Well, I'm going to use take one and take two to work my way back into your good books, hopefully. So we can leave on a nice note and I can keep the shoobriness of this seat going for the return of Mr. Mayo next week.

Work hard. Sir Curmode, what do we have to look forward to today? We have a, we have a packed show this week. So, uh, reviews of Lilo and Stitch, which is the live action inverted commas, because obviously at least one part of Lilo and Stitch isn't live action. Uh, we have the Phoenician scheme, which is the film in inverted commas, because obviously at least one part of the Longstitch isn't live action. We have The Phoenician Scheme, which is the film in which you snubbed me so that you could talk to your more famous friends. Go, let it go. And Mission Impossible, the final reckoning with our very special guest.

Yes, the wonderful Chris McQuarrie. I met with the co-writer and director of the last four Mission Impossible films. So you can hear that chat about the latest installment in the mega franchise in a little bit. And what are our bonus reviews, Mark? In take two, we have reviews of When the Light Breaks, which is a very interesting kind of melancholic film and Fountain of Youth, which is the new film by Guy Ritchie. Yes, yes, of course. Seen it it advertised and plus all the other extra stuff, um, about every Thursday and, um, the whole back catalog of bonus joy will all be there as well. It'll all be there.

All the stuff. There's an email here, Mark. Did you want some breaking geographical news in, in response to your discussion about where Sheffield is? Um, this is, who is this from? This is from, I just said, I know exactly where Sheffield is. All right. I know very well where Sheffield is. The question was whether it counts as the North.

Yes. Okay. Yes. Says here, dear doctors, we've referenced a Marx refrain in last week's show about whether Sheffield is in the North. The social geographer and University of Sheffield professor Danny Dawling sought to settle the question academically in 2017 with a study that used various social, economic and cultural metrics to produce a North-South divide that bisects England diagonally from Grimsby to Gloucester. Dawling's line put Sheffield definitively in this cultural and economic north along

with Birmingham, Derby and Nottingham, but places less than Lincoln, for example, in the south. And he's attached an image here to sort of back this up. I'm looking at this, yeah. Yeah. It may come as a shock to residents of Gloucester, he says, to find their hometown placed on the north-south border. But Doreling's approach of treating north and south as economic and social signifiers, more than simple up-down geographical division, might help us understand why the North-South divide continues to loom large in the English cultural imagination.

Having said all that, and as Dorling himself ultimately concluded, that such an exact line can be drawn is of course a fiction. That's a quote from Dorling. So this is from another Daniel who says, anyway, up and down, or should that be north and south with the usual? Yeah. Well, I'm very, very pleased to see this. On this map, Sheffield is most definitely solidly in the north.

It's nice looking at this map as well, that they're randomly, with all the places, all the cities and towns on this map. He's also taken the time to show us exactly where the Lowry Theatre is, which is great. It's a wonderful theatre in Salford. I'm not sure why it's on here, but it's in the north. Mark, what is new and spanking and fresh and real? Well, all of those words are interesting. So, Lilo and Stitch, which is the latest in Disney's rather pointless project to produce live action in inverted commas versions of its back catalog. So whether that means the photo realist animations or

actual live action but with animation in it. So the first Lilo and Stitch is a really weird film, very strange, 85 minutes long, classified U, although if you remember, they had to cut it because there was a scene in which someone's hiding in a washing machine and it was considered to be dangerous behavior. So they had to cut that.

Anyway, but it's a really, really odd film and the animation in it is very interesting because it's a mix of styles. And I remember being a bit flummoxed by it originally, but actually over the time it's become a real favourite. Are you a fan of it? I wouldn't say it's up there with my favourites at all, but having kids, having had kids at the right age for it, what I really did note, I think it's possibly one of the strongest

sort of merchandise creating films of that canon because the little alien is so cute. So it just transcends the movie and yeah, massive success in that respect. But the weird thing is that in the movie, in the original movie, Stitch is an absolute agent of chaos. Yes. It's not cute really. It's actually very, very, oddly dangerous and scary. So anyway, this new version, 20 minutes longer, also rated U, doesn't add much to the original,

but does lose quite a lot, not least that weird hybrid of the animation and also the genuine sort of chaos of the anti-heroes. This is directed by Dean Flusha Camp, Marcel Le Chemin with shoes on, and Chris Sanders reprising the voice role as Stitch. So Maia Kealua is Lilo, who's the young girl living with her older sister, desperately trying to take care of her, hold their lives together, which of course becomes much more difficult when Lilo's prayers for a true friend are answered by something that everyone claims is a dog, but isn't a dog, is in fact a weapon built from outer space. Here's a dog, I'd say. Looks like some kind of baby bear that come out of the trash.

I like him, come here boy. Yeah, let's put this one back Lilo. Come here sweetie. You know, we do have better dogs, like way better. Not better than him. She can talk. See you Lilo. Hello.

Dogs no can talk. Dogs can't talk Lilo. Ruff, ruff, ruff. So Lilo's doing impression of a dog. So Teeqra is the social worker who's insistent Dogs can't talk, Lilo. Lilo is doing the impression of a dog. So, Tiekera is the social worker who's insistent that Lilo is going to have to be taken into custody. Courtney B. Vance is the federal agent who's trying to take Stitch into custody. Billy Megson and Zach Galifianakis are the extraterrestrials hunting down Stitch. And then we have Hannah Waddingham, who is space imperious in the way that only Hannah Waddingham could be.

So all the kind of original elements are there, you know, the Hawaiian setting, the weird Elvis gags, the chaos of Stitch, the lure of surfing. And honestly, whilst I was watching it, I kind of quite enjoyed it. However, I can't help thinking what's the point of this. I don't really know what the point of any of these remakes is. What this does do is, I mean, you know, the young star, the person who plays Lilo is great and you know, does a really, really good job and very, very young and very good on camera. The plot still makes no sense whatsoever because people look at

Stitch and go, it's a dog. You go, it's not a dog. It's standing upright, it's blue and it's talking. It's not a dog. Okay. Which is fine in an animated cartoon, but in a sort of live action in inverted commerce setting, it does make you think even more. It's not a dog. And I did spend a lot of it wondering why everyone was just going, oh, okay, that is a dog. The main change is that this is more reverently sentimental than the original. And I can sort of see that that could be charming. I mean, I can imagine people going to see this and liking it very much.

I can imagine, you know, parents and kids having a bonding experience because all the messages about, you know, family is about not letting anybody go and not leaving anybody behind and everybody moving on. And there's a lot of that stuff. What you don't have are the slightly alarming elements of the original, which actually are the thing that made the original stand out a little bit, because the original was so peculiar. And I keep coming back to this, why do we need this? And the reason is because the original was so peculiar. And I keep, keep coming back to this.

Why do we need this? And the reason is because it's incredibly saleable and Disney have just figured that this, this is the future. The future is simply go through the back catalog and redo it in inverted commas, live action. And so, like I said, softer, it's lost some of the rough edges of the original, which actually I think made the original interesting. It's not bad. There's a couple of jokes that I laughed at and, you know, it's fine. It's nothing more than fine, but it will do well.

Yeah, I'm sure it will. I mean, I feel exactly the same as you about these remakes. And I try and get inside my child mind. And I remember when I was little, children's TV, there's so much great children's TV, but I would only watch live action shows if there was absolutely no cartoons left to watch. Like as a kid, it's cartoons first, right? By the way shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush,

shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, you have Ghibli and you have such an amazing... It just seems like a strange project. I don't know that I've ever seen one of these live action adaptations that has made me think that's better than the original. All you think is it's a way of repackaging and reselling the original. I said,

in the case of this, it has taken some of the madder edges off the original. It was funny, I went back to my review of the original and I was quite alarmed by it because the thing is Stitch is a weapon. Stitch is just an absolute agent of scary chaos. Anyway, maybe there's some more imagination within the top 10. Some of these films you might have to imagine Mark, because they weren't press screened like number 10, The Chosen Last Supper. Yeah, so The Chosen, let's just, let's run through this. The Chosen Last Supper season

five part two, I haven't seen because I wasn't offered the chance to see it until Dawn came out the week that we were, that's a number nine, came out the week that we were, and I still haven't caught up with it. But at number eight, we have Hello Road, which is fabulous. Ben, have you seen Hello Road? I heard your review and I'm very excited to see it now. I heard your review of Hello Road and Sinners. I'm going to see Sinners tomorrow and I'm very excited and Hello Road hopefully I'll see on the weekend. Hello Road is like 82 minutes long. it's stripped down, lean, mean. I did an interview with Babak Anveri, who was a filmmaker whose work I love. He made Under the Shadow. And he came, I did a show at the BFI and he came on that and then he was going straight on from that to go

and do another Q&A because he's really doing the Q&A circuit. It's an independent film. It costs thrumpence. And it's just fantastic. And Child 2 went to see it because I had recommended it, which is always terrifying for your children, go and see a film because you recommended it. And he came back and went, no, it's great. It's great. It was like hugely relieved. Yeah, fabulous. And then at 7, Accountant 2, which again,

that came out the week that we were off. And I'm sorry, it's not that I'm slacking. It's just that we took a week off and that happened. And then at number 6, Hurry Up Tomorrow, similar circumstance. So we really pick up Ben in the top five. Yeah. A hurry up tomorrow sounds like a warning to you Mark to get these films watched, doesn't it? I know. I'll get on with it. I just have to throw back very quickly Mark, because I've just clocked a really funny,

uh, typo, amazing typo in an email from, uh, Cormac, um, in Dublin, who I'm not going to read the whole email because he strongly disagrees with you on, on Hello Road. Um, in fact, he even says Mark Kermode is not to be trusted within this email, but, um, you can get your own back because he's got an incredible typo. He says, dear Mark and Simon, my wife and I went to see Harrow Road yesterday evening. I saw that and I thought, my wife and I live in Kensal Rise. So we see Harrow Road every evening.

Yeah, believe me, I've seen Harrow Road more than once. So here's the thing, the reason you didn't enjoy it was you went to the wrong road. So number five, this is another film you've talked about that I actually really want to see on a big screen and I don't think I've ever seen. Oh no, what was the penguins one few years back, March of the Penguins? March of the Penguins, March of the Penguins March of the Penguins March of Penguins and there was a butterflies one I saw at the At the IMAX BFI that was fantastic as well a few years back, but this is ocean with David Attenborough though

I mean, it's you know, it is amazing. It's great that it's done so well It is obviously visually astonishing as everyone who knows that and was documentaries, they are visually astonishing. He is a national hero and the fact that people listen to him and take him seriously is really, really important. The most important thing with ocean is that it's very balanced. What it basically says is we are at a moment of crisis, but this is also a moment of opportunity. There is an opportunity here to be grasped. And if we grasp it, the oceans will rebuild themselves faster than we had ever expected. And the thing that Attenborough has always been very good at doing is saying things are very bad, but you can do something about it. And I think that's the strength of this film. So the movie has hope in it. So people shouldn't

be put off by, you know, when they feel like, Oh no, everything's, you know, hopeless and David's going to give us both sides, which is, which is great to hear. Um, at number four is a Minecraft movie. Yeah. Still there. There's, you know, the ongoing bait debate about people, uh, people joining in and throwing things is apparently been very, very annoying for cinema staff. But you know, it's a Jack Black film that happens to take place in the

Minecraft universe. I'm sort of surprised by how well it's a Jack Black film that happens to take place in the Minecraft universe. I'm surprised by how well it's done, although what it demonstrates is that a really, really familiar and well-loved IP will shift tickets. But it's- Yeah, fair enough. Number three, which I'm going to see tomorrow, very excited about, three in America as well is Sinners.

Big fan of Sinners. The more I think about Sinners, the better I think it is. Here's the thing that I think you'll find interesting about it. I think the way in which the music tells the story in the film is really, really profound. And I think it's a really good example of we don't need to do this through dialogue. We can do it through music.

And there is a sequence in it in which a group of characters are playing Wild Mountain Time and it's terrifying. And I said before when I was mentioning it, it reminded me of, oh, heaven's sake, the Jennifer Lawrence film, the name of which now completely fell. Winter's Bone, Winter's Bone, Winter's Bone in which they're playing fair and tender ladies. I really would like to know what you think of Sinners, because it has proved a little bit divisive.

Some people have thought, well, I don't really get, but I think it's terrific. Also, I think it's terrific that an original property, which is what it is, it's not a known IP, has done as well as it has. And the story that it's telling is not told in really straightforward terms. It's done, no, I think it's done really, really well. It's extra satisfying, isn't it, these days when a film is a film, you know, there's a

screenplay and they shot the screenplay. A film is a film. Exactly. Here's a film that is maybe a film, who knows? You've seen it, I haven't. Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts, asterisk, which then was sort of renamed on the opening weekend, Thunderbolts, asterisk, New Avengers, which sort of was the plot spoiler that we were all told not to reveal. But then when they did it, and it's like, but anyway, everyone kind of knew it. I mean, you know, I thought it was okay. I found it very hard to become emotionally involved in any of it.

And I think that's partly because I just suffer from, you know, exhaustion about this universe. But every time somebody writes an email that says, you know, I know you didn't get much out of it, but I got this out of it, and then talks really strongly about their own personal crisis just reminds me of the way in which cinema is an incredible tool for empathy. And for that, I think, you know, that makes it worthwhile. Absolutely. You know, everybody has that opportunity to enjoy these things in a different way. Personally, when I watched end game, I clearly foolishly thought it was the end game and that was the end for me. But you know, it's a gift that keeps on giving for others, which is great. And at number one, it's never the end. It's

never the end. It's never the end. Is it? It's never the end. At number one, number one in America as well is Final Destination Bloodlines. And this is a perfect example of it's never the end. Because the thing with Final Destination Bloodlines, which I think is, I think we're on six now, is actually it's one of the better Final Destination. You can make an argument that actually it is the best of them. I mean, it's kind of, you know, it of, yes, it's formulaic, and it starts in a very interesting way.

And then there are bits that are better than other bits. But I am not alone in thinking this. Most of the critics I know seem to think exactly the same thing, which is much better than you thought it was going to be. I mean, we went in with low expectations. Yeah. And I paid to go and see it in a cinema in the West End. And yeah, it's, we won't do any plot spoilers because I mean,

I'm sure that everybody was, you know, has probably seen it already, but honestly, it is an example of the fact that the series just keeps going. It's like the Chucky series. The Chucky series kind of became good again when we got to Bride of Chucky. I mean, suddenly Bride of Chucky was a really great film and I think that was like maybe the sixth installment by that point. Yeah. So anyway, Final Destination Bloodlines, actually not bad. And I mean, I only ever saw the first one, but I found it incredibly good fun. In fact, I dug it out not too long ago to watch with my kids now

that they're old enough and they loved it as well. Can I watch Bloodlines having not seen any of the sequels? Yeah. I mean, yes, you can. Because the thing is, it sort of explains itself. Yeah, you'll be fine. And also, Ben, yeah, no, yes, you absolutely can. It will be absolutely fine. Good. All right. Now, now last week I was listening, I was listening and there was a great convo with Simon and Craig Mazin, the creator of The Last of Us. And there's even more chat with Craig on take two for the Vanguard Easter. But it's create that chat and your opinion on everything created a lot of correspondence for us in the time that we've been away.

So I just wanted to get into a little of this Mark and then I'll get your reaction to it. There's a lot of love for the game and the adaptation. Thomas Twelvist on YouTube says that the TV series is pretty faithful to the game and the times when it diverges, it is so far always positive. The storming of Jackson is one of these. My thought after it was, wow, I wish that had been in the game. So there's a lot of love for the adaptation side of it, but there's also a lot of comparison here and questions regarding arrival series. Jamie's, Jamie's almond sculpture 8599 on YouTube says, and or makes the last of us look like child's play, which is very strange as one's a Disney show. And or is moving brutal, magnificently written as characters

you deeply care about and look stunning. The last of us just looks stunning. Dirk Funk says, thanks for this Mark, but it's time for an Andor series review. And Skywalky77 says, looking forward to your Andor review. So there's a lot of people wanting you to talk about Andor. Have you seen Andor? No, I haven't. And that's been flagged up. I will, I will do that.

I mean, I'm, I'm always kind of slightly, slightly suspicious of comparisons slightly suspicious of comparisons which go, this isn't, compared to this, this is just the, I mean, I don't think under any circumstances- Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Yeah, exactly. I don't think under any circumstances, The Last of Us just looks great. I think actually the most important thing about Last of Us is it's the characters. The characters are really important and the writing, which is why Craig Mazin was such an important interview. And incidentally, I think Simon did a brilliant job with that interview, not least because Simon himself is a writer and it was really

great to hear a writer talking to a writer about the difficulties of writing. You've seen Last of Us episodes one to five so far. I'm halfway through episode four in the second series. I absolutely loved the first series, loved the chemistry of Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal. I like zombie stuff anyway, but having watched so many series of The Walking Dead, I thought maybe I was a little bit done with the zombie thing. My eldest daughter said, no, you have to watch this. Yeah. Well, you know, 28, 28 days later was briefly in cinemas. I think it may have been

just like a one day thing. It was briefly in cinemas because they're trying to get us all ready for the 28th. So that's that that's coming up. And of course, you know, 28 days later is an absolutely mind boggling Lee good film. Mm. That the scene very, very early on when he walks through the deserted London is still one of the, I'm amazed how they got that. Yeah. And then they shot that for real and they shot it at like four 30, five o'clock in the morning. So, you know, they actually, but it's, it's that sort of depiction of an

absolutely desolate world is extraordinary. And then it's zombie mania. After the ad, we're back with two huge bangers, the Phoenician scheme, the New West Anderson and Chris McQuarrie's mission impossible, for which you'll hear my chat with Big Chris. Stay tuned. We'll be back just after this unless you're a Vanguardist because obviously you guys have way more fun than anybody else. This is an advert for Shopify.

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Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash curmode. That's better hg lp.com slash curmode. This week's guest is Chris McQuarrie. He started his career screenwriting, getting an Academy Award for the usual suspects in 1995. He met Tom Cruise on 2008's Valkyrie and the pair have gone on to collaborate on 10 films including Top Gun Maverick and the last four Mission Impossible films. I spoke with him about the latest, The Final Reckoning, which is out now. You'll hear our chats just after this clip. is out now. You'll hear our chats just after this clip. Everything you've done has come to this. When the need for certainty is absolute, and the odds are deemed impossible,

the mission falls to him. Should he choose to accept? And that was a clip from Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, and I am incredibly excited to say I'm joined right now by its director, Mr. Chris McQuarrie. Chris, how are we doing? I'm good, how are you? I'm pretty good.

In fact, I'm even better having watched this final outing. I'm a Mission Impossible completist, so I've watched them all. Oh, okay. Big, big fan. I don't know about you, I've got kids that are 16, the older one's nearly 20. So it's almost impossible to do anything together anymore I don't know about you, I've got kids that are 16, older ones nearly 20. Yeah. So it's almost impossible to do anything together anymore

for everybody else. Yes, very hard, very hard. These films, different Gatler fish, we queue up, we're in, the four of us, so thank you for that. Oh, that's great, thank you. Where does this stand? That's what we want. In the four that you've shot, directed,

was this the most emotional, the easiest, the most challenging? Where would you put this? Where do you think this one? The most in every respect. You pick a word and it's the most. It was the most difficult, the most emotional, the most complex, the most physically demanding.

It was all that and more. Every movie we make, we take what we learned and we apply it to the next. And these two movies, Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, were being made in certain places at the same time and during a global pandemic and across two industry strikes. It was a perfect storm. I guess they say, you know, a human being evading death is, you know, that's a timeless form of entertainment.

Yes. Obviously, nobody does it better than Tom. What was, what do you remember being the most challenging day? There are many, I would say, were challenging in different ways. I think the submarine sequence, getting the submarine sequence, just understanding how to shoot it was extremely challenging because there is no metric for it, there's no instruction manual.

And same thing with the aerial, we were doing things that had never been done, developing the camera rigs for those things and deciding what cameras to shoot and when, dealing with weather and dealing with planes that were almost a hundred years old. And after you've shot with helicopters in F-18s, which are moving much faster,

now you're trying to create energy with planes that are really only going not much faster than cars. And how to create energy and how to create danger out of that. And of course, the only way to do that was proximity. You had to fly low, very close to the ground and very close to things around you to create that energy. But then even some of the simpler things, the dialogue scenes, the emotion in those scenes was very, very challenging to get right.

It's funny you mentioned dialogue because there are a couple of moments, I think maybe more than two actually, where there's very pointedly no dialogue. Yes. It's just eyes and I'm thinking of one scene in particular where you've got a confrontation and the number of the heroes and villains and the whole thing is worked out what the next move should be, do eyes. I'm so glad you noticed that. Oh, I love it.

Thank you very much. It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. It was probably mine apart from Tramell. I think Tramell, the screening I was in. He is a star. Wow, the screening I was in, laughter across the board, every word he said. Which is amazing because he's not a comedic role,

but there is, he has such a, he has such presence, he has such power. And I remember the first time we tested the movie and he walked on screen and said his first line. And it absolutely killed. And you felt someone becoming a star, right? He's unreal. He's really a sensational actor.

Love, Tramell. So, yeah, to go back to the sort of this definitive purposeful lack of dialogue, what was your thinking behind having these quiet moments in what is obviously this hugely bombastic? Well, the thing is, and I'm saying this as somebody who began as a writer, I don't trust dialogue to tell the story. I don't expect the audience to listen. For me, dialogue, which started as the first line

of storytelling, for lack of a better expression, it's now the last resort for me. I rely on performance, composition, music, lens choices. All of those things are much more important for telling the story because we're making a movie for an international audience. I don't want people to have to read the subtitles when they should be looking at the actors.

So for me, the dialogue is there as a necessity rather than as a primary source of storytelling. And the more comfortable we came with that, I didn't really notice until we were in post-production how little the characters say to one another in the movie except for the plot of the movie, except for when they're explaining the rules to you. And there are whole relationships in this movie

that are comprised of one or two lines of dialogue over the course of the entire film. Moving on from that idea of human connection through just these looks of these unspoken moments in scenes, it also felt to me, it kind of ties in with a theme that I was feeling throughout, which is like this celebration of human ingenuity and emotion and empathy. Yes.

You know, we hear that line which runs through all the series, so, you know, for those of you, you'll never meet. Yes. Which is obviously important within the IMF, but I thought about it within my life, you know, how I want to carry myself the karma that I want to pass on. So I was thinking about that and I was thinking about that, and I was thinking about that versus this cold calculating robot. AI.

Yes. And it's the one weapon we have against it is our feelings and our emotions. And that was calculated very early on. Very, very, very early on. It was one of the things that traveled across the whole story. The notion of the note that the president sends with Ethan and the notion of the medal that Waddingham gives to him

to take to Dremel. These were all ways of people communicating through emotions. It was the one thing you couldn't synthesize. It's the one thing that's unique to humans. And that permeated the entire story, this idea of humanity and what makes us unique. What are your thoughts on AI, and especially as relates to our industry?

You know, to me, it was when Tom and I started talking about this story, the notion of technology as a potential weapon or what it eventually evolved into was the villain of the movie itself, is a concept that we've been talking about for years. And in fact, the first meeting I ever had on a mission impossible was years before I met Tom.

I met Oliver Stone when he was considering doing mission two. And that was 1999 and Y2K was coming and the idea of the Millennium Bug, which was a concept that interestingly enough, Oliver Stone, of all people, had not heard of it. Of the Millennium Bug? He hadn't heard about it. And I was telling him about it in this meeting and he said, I don't know, McCrory, that sounds pretty farfetched. No, this is happening right now.

That told me everything, that it was too abstract a concept, the notion of technology. And when we were making Top Gun, we had just finished Fallout, and we were in our early stages of talking about this movie, I said to Tom, I think people have a different relationship with technology now that they understand this inherently. It's not something we have to teach them, it's something they're feeling as they're

coming into the story. People are beginning to understand what effect technology, information technology, and artificial intelligence are having on their lives and how it's being integrated into their lives. And all of that was really nothing more than when we went to see Top Gun, the first Top Gun growing up or the hunt for Red October, you knew what the Cold War was. When you went to see a Cold War movie, no one needed to teach you about the Cold War. You were carrying that into the movie from your everyday life. And that was, and that's what I think allowed me to say to Tom, the audience understands this enough inherently that we don't have to teach them. It's something that they'll feel. And that permeated the movie.

I watched Tom in this movie and I get the feeling that he's almost here to partly to save cinema, you know, to bring that metaphor of human ingenuity, empathy versus this cold calculation. It's almost there in the things that he does, you know, the things that Ethan Hunt does. Well, you're talking about a guy who... Creating real cinema. ...who lives, eats, and breathes cinema and loves this medium so much,

has been doing it for his entire adult life. He started in films when he was, when he had just turned 18, has been working nonstop, has devoted his life to and risked his life for this medium. And he really does believe in it and sees it as something that is critically endangered. It's throughout the making of these two films, cinema has been facing so many revolutionary challenges

that are confronting the very act of going to a movie theater with 500 strangers and watching the same thing, experiencing the same experience, having the same adventure and feeling the same emotions. That's a very fragile and delicate thing that we really believe passionately about Preserve. Did you first work with Tom on Valkyrie? Valkyrie, yes, 2007. Oh, seven, so we're talking almost two decades ago. What's the sort of, what's the chemistry,

what's the secret that you guys have with each other? A love of story and a lack of ego. There's, you couldn't do this if there was a pride of authorship or if you were clinging to ideas. There's a real freedom in what we do and that we care totally about the story and the audience's experience. And there is no me in any of this.

Everything we do, I will suggest an idea to Tom, whether or not he gets it, he will back me 100%. Tom will suggest something to me and whether or not I get it, I'll back him 100%. And one of two things happens. Either the other person discovers how to, their way into it and how to make it their own, or the

person whose idea it was says, thanks for trying that, that was a terrible idea. Moving on, we don't cling to anything. And more than anything else, it's just an absolute and puritanical love of cinema. And there's, so there's no sort of issues with the fact that he has two, very clearly two hats, right? You've got Tom Cruise the actor, you've got Tom Cruise the producer. Well, we're asked all the time, do you ever argue? And I say, yes, we argue every day on your behalf. The only disputes we really have are, I think this is what the audience needs, or the audience doesn't need that.

Everything else that we're doing is, when you present Tom and I with a concept, we immediately understand in very similar ways how that concept needs to be communicated, or we understand we don't know how to communicate it, and we go about figuring that out. And it's a great give and take. When you're on set with somebody like that,

Tom is not just in the movie. He's not just on camera. He's watching the movie that we're making, which is also what a director's job is. You have to be able to be the audience. And I think that's probably the reason why he and I get along so well is from our very first meeting, whether or not I knew how to articulate that, that's always been my approach

to storytelling. I'm not just showing you what I think the story should be. I'm trying to look at it through your eyes while you're experiencing it. So it's great to have a partner like that, because there's on a movie this vast and this complicated, that's moving so quickly, there's no way to be able to see it all. There's no way to be able to have a completely objective perspective.

And what's great about Tom is he is never not learning. He's never not a student. Tom's not coming into this thing, look, I've been doing it for four decades and I know how to make a Tom Cruise movie. It's this not a student. Tom's not coming into this saying, look, I've been doing it for four decades and I know how to make a Tom Cruise movie. It's this way or not. Really, it's quite the opposite. It's always a process of discovery.

And he's checking me, I'm checking him. These movies couldn't exist if there wasn't that partnership. Well, I think you can feel the love of the partnership in the movie. And I think it's a great job for me as a massive fan since the mid-90s. It's a lovely way to wrap things up. It really is. Will you and Tom work together again? You think something else? Oh, there's, there's, we're already doing it.

That's what I like to hear. Chris McQuarrie, it's been an absolute pleasure. And you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. There we go. That's my chat with Chris McQuarrie. I was just constantly fascinated by the idea of Tom, because he's obviously such a hands-on producer, you know, coming to the set with all these ideas and working with a person

like Chris, who having met him, I was like, well, this is clearly someone who has very strong emotions and feelings about what he's doing as well, which I guess must be the reason he's always asked, do you clash? Do you clash? And I love that answer of like, yeah, we clash every day because we want it to be the best it can be. So we've got to try everything. We clash every day and we argue on behalf of you. Love that on behalf of you.

I'm gifting you this stuff. Okay. So let me ask you before I, before I launch into my thing. So did you absolutely love this? So I, like I said in the interview, I am genuinely, I've always been a fan of these movies and like, I like the silliness of them as well, like the removing of the faces that we never work out how they do it. I love all that stuff and I just think the stunts are phenomenal. This one, I was trying to explain because my eldest is also a big, big fan and she's really excited about watching this next one.

She said, is it as good as the first one or is it better? I said, I think it's on a as good as the first one or is it better? I said I think it's on a par maybe with the first one I wouldn't say it's better but it still has those jaw dropping like take your breath away moments. There's probably a little bit too much what I call angels and demons disease where it's just lots of explaining stuff, lots and lots and lots and you sort of get a bit of fatigue from it. But then once they stop explaining and start doing again, you're back on that ride. So I, I really, really enjoyed it. Don't know if it was better than the first. I really loved dead reckoning.

Well, so since you're sitting there wearing a football shirt, let's do a football analogy. This is a game. This is a game of three halves. Okay. reviewed the first film, I ended up saying, the last thing I said was it builds to a frankly jaw-dropping finale, which the heavily trailered site of Tom Cruise really driving a real motorbike off a real mountain top is only an appetizer for what's to come. One of the most audaciously extended action set pieces I've ever seen, which left my nails not so much bitten as gnawed to the bone. The fact this is only the beginning is cause for celebration. Roll on Dead Reckoning Part 2. Because I mean, I was absolutely knocked out. That thought would be one point. We thought it was going to be called Dead Reckoning Part 2 as opposed to the final reckoning. I did

also say in that review that you're back in a world in which the Jason Statham face off machine in which people can wear masks that make them look like other people, which is very Scooby Doo is the case. And also I said when I reviewed the first time around, every time somebody says the entity you go, could you not come up with a better name? Because they are going to say the entity a lot and that becomes an issue. In the case of this, the main plot is essentially you've got two things. You've still got the cruciform key, which was the thing from the original, and now you've got this other thing, which is the pod cover device. The cruciform key and the pod cover device have to

either be brought together or not brought together, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so game of three halves. Let's call it three acts. Act one. Act one is the setup. Act one is loads of boggy exposition, portentous scene setting. It's like wading through treacle. There's a huge amount of sub-Messianic hooey establishing Ethan Hunt as literally the potential savior of everything everywhere all at once. He is the best of men in the worst of times. He's basically Jesus. There are montages of all the stuff that he's done in the past reminding us how we got here. I did think during that thing, if he doesn't die at the end of this film, I'm going to be disappointed because they've done so much setting up of the kind of the

messianic thing. And I really did think that at the beginning, all that Basil expositioning stuff was done in a way that I thought was simultaneously confusing and boring. And I blame the writing. It's not dialogue. It's interesting that Chris McCorry said that both you and him said he loved the scenes without dialogue and he doesn't trust dialogue. Well, here it's not dialogue. There's a lot of monologuing. There's a lot of people just telling you stuff. And I really found that quite difficult to the point that as we were getting to the end of that

first act, I was thinking, okay, I'm really, I am disappointed by this because I was so excited at the end of the second one. I've waded through a lot of treacle and get going. And incidentally, the entity is still a daft name. Act two really begins when Tom gets dropped into the icy waters of the Bering Straits and has to go to the submarine. And this was a scene that Chris Macquarie referred to and you go, okay, now we're going. The submarine sequence is fantastic. I mean, Macquarie said it's one of the most challenging things he's ever shot. And, you know, I'm absolutely certain it was because it's not only that Tom Cruise is in the submarine, which is flooding and un-flooding and missiles are dropping around, but it's that the submarine

itself is rolling towards the edge of a cliff and you go, and I thought, okay, this is great. This is properly thrilling. I mean, the search for the MacGuffin, he's got to find the thing that does the thing that puts the what's it in the Hoosier Muffler. It doesn't make any difference. It's him doing this thing that has you clinging on the edge of your seat and thinking, this is really, this is a brilliantly executed set piece. This is one of those, the world is rolling very slowly set pieces that has

you completely tense. Brilliantly edited. I mean, the whole film is, this is a kind of give Oscars to the editors for the action set pieces because wow, it's incredibly well done. In fact, I interviewed the editor, Eddie Hamilton, while we were talking about editing. Anyway, so that's fantastic. However, Act Two is just an appetizer for Act Three, which has got the much advertised by plane stuff. And, you know, Chris McCorry may say, well, the planes aren't very fast. So we have to shoot very close in order to make them seem

faster than they are. But I genuinely did this thing about checking my heartbeat at one point, because I'm 62. And there was a point in it when I thought, I'm not sure that this is good for me, because I'm going to do, and I thought, okay, this is great for me because I was like, and I thought, okay, this is great. This is IMAX. This is the theatrical cinematic experience. This is what you pay for. In fact, I sat in the IMAX right at the very back, which I always do, in a corner on my own. I'm really glad I did because I found myself vocalizing my reactions without being able to go, oh no, and yelping, gasping and yelping. And I was really glad that was away from other people because it just would have looked completely stupid. So it was a fabulous cinematic roller coaster ride. It

knocked my socks off and no one is going to leave the movie feeling short changed. In fact, by the time I got to the end, I'd forgotten how dull the first act was. And audiences will forget that. As a critic, however, I do think we need to acknowledge it. There were no such longers in Dead Reckoning Part One. That didn't have any of that stuff in it. And this did feel to me like the weight of it being final reckoning was weighed heavy on the script. And I did really, really lose patience with the expositioning and with the setup and with the messianic stuff. Once we get to that submarine thing, I remember thinking, wait a minute, instead of that, whatever it felt like, it felt like an hour, why not just have Simon Pegg do a quirky little

funny line where it's like, oh my God, if we don't find this thing, it's the end of the world as we know it. Bang, let's go to the submarine. I swear they could have done that opening act in a couple of minutes. Yeah. And the weird thing is that you're not the first person to say that because I think an awful lot of people would think exactly that. Would think, why did we have to have all that stuff doing, you know, what purpose was it serving? And I think the purpose was,

on the one hand, they were just overwhelmed by the weight of the, you know, it's the final, it's the final, final, final, you know, it's not even dead reckoning part two, it's the final reckoning. I think on the one hand, that's the case. I think on the other hand, it's, you know, as I said, um, I did, I did this, I did this on-setting with Eddie, Eddie Hamilton is the editor and, um, who did I think he's done a brilliant job with editing those. I mean, you know, just absolutely astonishing. But the beginning, the first hour, it's just, it's the right, it's not probably, it isn't probably an hour.

It probably just felt like an hour. It felt like an hour. The first movement, what I'm calling act one, everything before we get to the scene which you just invented in which Simon Pegg says something funny and they drop Tom Cruise into the sea is just like, that's just writing. And it was particularly interesting that Chris McQuarrie was talking about how much he doesn't trust that stuff. And he was thinking, yeah, neither do I. So let's not do it. Let's just cut straight to the chase. Two other things I want to say. If I was Tom Cruise and I looked like Tom Cruise, I would

insist that there were two scenes in the film where I'm fighting in my pants. By fighting in your pants? It was Captain on the Pants to the Rescue. It's like, yes, it doesn't matter that he's in freezing arctic waters. He is going to do this in his pants. And then there's another scene when he's going to do it in his pants. And I was reminded of the Jason Statham oil wrestling scenes in some of his finest works. Yeah, there has to be a moment when I have to take all my clothes off and wrestle in my pants. But you know, hey, if you looked like Tom Cruise, of course you would. And the other thing is that I just, I don't need to be told time and time and time and time and time again

about how, you know, best, best man in the worst of times, the only person who could ever do that. You know, it's just that, yeah, I know, I know it's Tom Cruise, right? The last time I saw him, he was standing on top of the BFI IMAX, right? Literally standing on top of it. I know, I know just drop him in his pants into the ocean and start there. That I just couldn't agree more. I cannot say with, you know, I cannot say I came out

of that film moaning about the exposition because like you say it was so thrilling. Yeah. Editing the editing. I'm so glad you spoke about Hamilton because the edits editing is phenomenal. I just, I is phenomenal. I can't say enough about what a proper cinematic thrill ride all of that stuff is. No, but it is. But I can't stress this enough. No one is going to come out of the cinema going, the beginning was really slow. They're going to come out going, oh my god, wow. But as a critic, you do have to say the beginning is really slow

and is badly written. I really remember when that sort of process when your kids start to read to themselves, but they still like you to read every now and again. Sometimes I'd sit with them with the Harry Potter books, you know, which of course they were obsessed with when they were little. I remember getting onto like whatever it was, you know, Prisoner of Azkaban or something like that. And it would kick off with, it'd give you sort of recap of who Harry Potter is. And the kids would go, can we just get to the action? We know who Harry Potter is. Don't need this chapter. But the difference, the difference man is that that would be a little bit at the beginning of Harry Potter. He isn't a normal boy.

It turns out he's a wizard. You go, I know, I read the other books, but then it's like that. But in this it's like, it's the biggest bigness of the end of the savior of humanity. And he's got to put the cruciform thingy bob into the widgetty bong bong and you know, and I'm going, yeah, I know, I know. And it's going, you know, you know, when you go in, okay, this is, this is like, I think it's probably the longest, it's like two hours 50 pretty much, isn't it? And you know, when you go in, okay, they're going to take their time, but it is like, come on, move and then, and then it moves. All right. Let's, let's move on because we need to get to the ads, but before the ads,

Mark, you'll be happy to hear we can keep the laughter going in our lovely shiny sparkly laughter lift cue music hey Mark prepare for a meta joke I I recently bought a new car from some crazy wild-haired scientist a namesake of mine in fact it was a DeLorean actually yeah, I only drive it time to time That's joke one. That's joke one His joke to mark. Did you know what the leading cause of dry skin is? No, no well I could tell you it's towels Towels, thank you Simon pool I think this this might be the best of a pretty weak three.

Hey, Mark, did you know? I'm something of a fan of the old West. I'm something of a fan of the old West. You are a professional comedian on some level, aren't you? On some level, although every time I come on this show, my career is diminished a little bit more. Right, come on. Give this last one, give it everything. Yeah, so a lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm a huge fan of the Old West and I learned an incredible fact about the Wild West this week.

Did you know cowboys used to hang oil lamps off their horses in the dark to help them find their way back to the ranch after work. Right, it's incredible. It was actually the first known example of saddle light navigation. Saddle light navigation. And you see, even with all those professional years under your belt, nothing can save that joke. Nothing can save that joke. Awful. Absolutely awful.

If anybody is still listening, thank you. We will be back after the ads, unless you're a Vanguardista, of course. But Mark, what have we got in the last section? The Phoenician scheme and you snubbing me. After this. Hey, podcast listeners, have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free? That's good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the

Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad free podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See after details. So after the, uh, the, the horrific snubbing that took place at the, uh, the, the, the Phoenician scheme, Mark did actually set settle in and watch the movie.

Hey, maybe that snubbing was just me being very, very still like a Wes Anderson character and just not reacting in the way that you might expect me to. No, you were talking to other people like a normal human being. Okay. So the Phoenician Scheme, Mission Impossible is a Tom Cruise movie. The Phoenician Scheme is unfilm de Wes Anderson and then some. So script by Anson from a story by him and his regular collaborator, Roman Coppola. The cast includes, and of course it's very, very starry. So, Benicio del Toro, Mia Thrippleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Brian Cranston,

Matthew Almeric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Now here's the thing, no one goes to see a Wes Anderson movie expecting normal, warm human relations. What you go for is the kind of the boxes within boxes, the craft, everything sort of set up like a Kubrick shot in which everything is very, very sort of geometrical. And for me, there are two kinds of Wes Anderson movies. There are the ones which actually do strike a chord, and it's often a sort of, you know, tragicomic chord. So I mean, I love Royal Tenenbaums,

I love Grand Budapest Hotel, which I thought was really, really funny. I loved Isle of Dogs. On the other hand, there are the quirky ones, the ones that just feel self-consciously quirky, and they are Darjeeling Limited, French Dispatch, Asteroid City. And I have to say that for me, right from the title, The Phoenician Scheme, it is firmly in the latter camp and a lot of how you feel about it is going to depend on how you feel about the quirkier end of Wes Anderson.

So it shot in studios in Germany. Anderson. So it shot in studios in Germany. And well, here's a taster of the trailer. At this moment, rescue workers are laboring to recover and identify the remains of Zsa Zsa Korda, international businessman, maverick in the fields of armaments and aviation, among the richest men in Europe. This was Corda's sixth recorded airplane crash. He is survived by 10 children, nine boys, one nun, his daughter Liesl. I've appointed you sole heir to my estate, which you may come into sooner rather than later. Why? It's been six years since our last meeting. I have my reasons.

Which are what? My reasons? I'm not saying. I'm saying I'm not saying. Jason Vale So he is George Accorder, and he faces daily assassination attempts. The first time we meet him, he's on a plane, which then blows up, which he then survives. And it turns out he's largely indestructible. He's turned his back on his sons. He's disinherited them. He's appointed his only daughter, who is a nun, as sole heir to his estate. There is this new enterprise in which there is a gap that needs to be filled. They need to do it by going to lots of different places

and arranging different stuff with different people, all of whom are involved in a quirky, esoteric, caper-like plot. In a way, the fact that I've just described it like that will tell you that at no point did any part of the plot touch me on an emotional level. What I thought I was watching was a very, very mechanical Wes Anderson film. Interestingly enough, I went back to look at my review of Asteroid City, and I was amazed by how much of what I thought about Asteroid City is exactly what I think about the Phoenician scheme. I said, if you're a fan, you're going to be dazzled by the meticulous imitation of life in miniature visual aesthetic.

But I actually found myself swithering between being amused and just being irritated. I said that the cameras do that Wes Anderson thing that they go pan, pan, pan, up, down, left, right in a comedic way, which they do again. The dialogue is full of these cutesy deadpan explanations of what's going on, which they do again. The dialogue is full of these cutesy, deadpan explanations of what's going on, which you either find hilariously funny, and you were in the same screening as I was, there were quite a few titters in the audience. I didn't laugh once. I didn't laugh once, and that is a problem. I think the issue for me is this. I think that there is having now, I've seen all of Anderson's movies, and I admire his craftsmanship and everything, but I think the issue for me is this, I think that there is having now, I mean I've seen

all of Anderson's movies and I admire his craftsmanship and everything, but I think he walks a really thin line between the films that feel like an arch corduroy wearing exercise in box arrangement and the films that actually have some connection on a genuine emotional level. And despite the fact, as I said at the beginning, you don't go to Wes Anderson thinking what you're going to get is warm melodrama. The films that cut through are the films that actually really do connect on a human level. And the films that often don't are the ones that I think he thinks are hilariously funny. Because I don't find that particularly funny, I don't enjoy the films. I mean, honestly, I kind of lost patience with the title. Pardon? The Phoenician Scheme. Meaning what? Oh, right. And then there's all these chapter

things in which each chapter has got a funny, quirky little name and each box has got a funny, quirky little thing. And there are times when that stuff works really well, the boxes within boxes. And I would say that Grand Budapest Hotel is a brilliant example of that. The way in which the, you know, the, the, the, but I just thought, okay, this is one of, this is one of the Wes Anderson films that I don't like. This is one of the ones in which he's, he's going, ha ha ha ha. Oh, I didn't know. Very funny, very, very witty, wild. And I don't like. This is one of the ones in which he's going, ha ha ha ha. Oh, very funny, very witty, very witty. And I don't find, tell me what you thought. Well, very interesting for me because I think I can safely say now I am not a fan of Wes

Anderson's work. I watched Rushmore in 1998 and I loved it. And I was like, I hadn't seen bottle rocket. I saw Rushmore. That was my introduction to Wes Anderson. And I was like, I cannot wait to see what this guy does next. Cause this is a whole new form of movie making. I've just not seen before. I really had problems with the Royal ten and bounds didn't like it. Oh, life aquatic.

I like aquatic. I liked a lot. And I thought, oh, okay. So he's just one of those guys that's very particular. Then Darjeeling limited, fantastic. Mr. Fox moonrise kingdom. I was just like, I'm done with this guy. Don't like any of those films. Rambo, the best hotel was like an Ealing, a great Ealing comedy. I was like, oh my gosh, she's won me back. And I love dogs. I love as well. And Ray finds his funny. I loved as well.

And Rafe finds his funny. Rafe finds his funny. So good. And Isle of Dogs is the antidote to Fantastic Mr. Fox. Absolutely. Isle of Dogs is the antidote to Fantastic Mr. Fox. So by the time I'm at Isle of Dogs, I'm like, I just don't know how to feel about this guy anymore.

French dispatch, Asteroid City. I hated Asteroid City French dispatch, asteroid city. I hated asteroid city. I felt offensively boring. Um, yes. And I have to say, Mark, having said all of that, the last that you heard in that screening were from me. I really enjoyed this film. I really enjoyed it. Did not expect to, was ready to loathe it. And I thought it was a really fun romp. I thought it did that thing of like, you know what, let's forget all the, you know, basically poncing around, not really doing anything. Let's just get right in there with a story. You know, and you know, I didn't, like you, I didn't care about any of the characters, but I loved, I loved the way they, they looked and spoke and interacted.

And I thought it was just like completely opposite to Mission Impossible. It was just like, right, here's a guy, he's, he's, he's surviving a plane crash. He's, he's a bit of a wrong and, or maybe he isn't, let's find out, let's go. And you know, I just thought it barreled along. Okay. This is really interesting to me because it sounds to me like you have many of the same issues with Wes Anderson that I do. Oh, massively. But what's interesting is that you and I sat in the same screening and essentially had

totally different experiences of the film. And this is why I was saying, you know, when I was reviewing it just then that it very, very, it comes down to Wes Anderson can literally go either way. You know, it can go, Oh yeah, I'm with this or I'm not with this. And I think my problem was I wasn't with it. I'm not sure. But which point I wasn't, it's probably you offending me, hurting my feelings, just set everything up. But what's really fascinating was I didn't, it's probably you offending me, hurting my feelings, just set everything up. But what's really fascinating was I didn't expect you to find it funny.

I thought actually, I knew that I said there was laughing in the thing, I didn't realize that that was you. That was me. But there we go, in a nutshell, that is the perfect example of what happens with the Wes Anderson film is that they can absolutely polarise you and you can pretty much tell five minutes in which way it's going

to go. Yeah. And if I imagine you laughed early. I did. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. And I'm still not confident that I'll even remotely like whatever his next film is. The man has made 13 films.

I now like four of them. Four of 13. It's not great four of them, four of 13. It's not great. Well, great return. Wow. No, but the ones that you like, you really like, and you really enjoyed this and you know, you know, cut, you know, comedy and you found it funny. I found it funny.

I, for me, it was like, it didn't have the same emotional punch of grand Budapest hotel. I watched it as you would watch, I don't know, like the League of Gentlemen or something. I was like, this is just knock about fun. And I felt it had that Ealing comedy feel at its heart, like Grand Budapest did. I mean, for me, Grand Budapest is the high watermark because it looks beautiful, but it's also wildly entertaining, emotional, and very, very funny. Well, listen, I'm so glad that we've done this show together because in a way there is no more, there is no clearer example of just how divisive Wes Anderson can be than

our responses to this. Absolutely. And I'm delighted that both are represented here. There you go. Mark, what is your film of the week? Well, I mean, clearly my film of the week is Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, despite the first, however long it is of stodge. Because after that, Tom gets in his pants, he gets in the submarine, everything starts moving.

The short, the short review, the pithy review is Mission Impossible, Final Act. Yeah, that's right. That's our take this week. Look out for take two, which will be dropping imminently and Simon will be back in the hot seat next week. Great to have you. See you then.