TAKE ONE Presents... - The Impossipod 5: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION (2015)

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Simon and Jim discuss Christopher McQuarrie's first Mission: Impossible film of many, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION. They discuss how this film both subverts the tropes of this franchise and simultaneously develops the 'house style' for the rest of the franchise, the continuing themes around government accountability and 'Deep State' conspiracy theories, how the character of Ilsa Faust represents a new expression of femininity for this franchise and action films in general, the expression of neuroqueerness through Mission: Impossible and Ethan Hunt, and Zhang Jingchu's extremely small but top-billed part pandering to the Chinese market.Content warnings: violent death including murder and assassination; US-backed violent coups in Latin America; cult leadership and the Church of Scientology; "terrorist" actions against arms manufacturers and major financial institutions; drowning and suffocation.Our theme song is Star - X - Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/I3SDJBUL

Your mission should you choose to accept it is to obtain photographic proof, theft, shadow glitzen to his buyer, and apprehend with both. As always, should you or any member of your I am force be caught or kill Secretary of Sabo? Hello and welcome to Take One Presents the Impossible Pod. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to us watch all the Mission Impossible franchise films in order, contextualizing them and critiquing them. I'm Simon Bowie, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Jim Ross. Hi, Jim. Hello, hello.

How are you? Good, good. At the time of recording this, we're edging ever closer. to the release of the final reckoning by the time everybody listens to this it'll have been out for months but it's an interesting time to be recording this so

can I tell you my Mission Impossible story from this week yes I was at the Cine World in Glasgow where I frequently am everyone should visit it's the tallest cinema in the world and I was watching I was seated

for a screening of sinners the Ryan Cougola film and there was an advert beforehand for you know Cine World and the new Mission Impossible film I guess but these people were going to the counter and saying can we get a ticket for the new Mission Impossible and the clerk says yeah you want tickets for Mission Impossible the final reckoning that'll be 12 pounds or whatever

where they had clearly dubbed over the subtitle of the film because either they recorded it with Mission Impost and Dead Reckoning Part 2 or it was an old ad for Dead Reckoning Part 1 that they had repurposed but it was hilarious to me how obvious it was oh dear yeah but we're not covering that today because we're still plodding our way through the Mission Impossible series not plotting that makes it sound arduous zooming running like tom cruise runs with his little hands pumping we are on 2015's Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

directed by Christopher McCoy What is your experience with Rogue Nation? Do you remember seeing it when it came out? I was thinking about this. I definitely would have seen it at the cinema I don't know if I can remember where I would have seen it I mean if I had to take a guess I'd have moved back to Edinburgh at this point

it would be before I was on a horrendous work assignment to Kuwait which would last month and drain me even my spirit so I suspect I probably saw it at the Cinear World at Fountain Park in Edinburgh because I had the Sydney World Unlimited Card at the time but I'd be lying if I said I remember seeing it I kind of remember my broad reactions to it and how I felt about the film at the time

and I remember there was quite a lot of stuff in the run-up about one of the first things that we'll talk about when we get to kind of like recapping the film the opening action sequence right where he's grabbing onto the plane I remember that being trails quite a lot quite a lot in advance

we're now sort of in the era where the Mission Impossible films are marketed for these big stunts you know they are marketed for Tom Cruise grabbing onto a plane as it's taking off Tom Cruise being on a biplane that's flying

in the latest trailer jumping onto a train you know these these big tent pole stunts that are the now the backbone of the franchise yeah which we noted in the last episode I think kind of really gets

kicked off by the last film gets kicked off with the Murch Khalifa sequence yes but yeah this is the era of Christopher McCroy domination over this franchise he will be the director for the next films we're going to see

until the end of the franchise with the Final Reckoning. And he does have something of a heavy hand over these next few films. There feels like a marked change in direction. Not change in direction as such, but a marked

stamp of his directorial there. Yeah, it becomes a little bit more, you know, the run of films we're about to get into, right, this one through to the end, basically. right, we will probably cover this a little bit more. There starts to become a little bit more of a, in my view,

and you know, you can talk about whether this is the right term to use for it or not, there becomes to be a little bit more of a house style, you know? Yes, that's what I mean. Like from one, two, three and four, there's a pretty substantial shift in approach and, you know, technical aspects as well as some plotting aspects, but particularly technical aspects throughout those four films, right? It's kind of settled into a groove now, for better and worse, and we'll talk about that, but yeah.

Yes, yes. But Christopher McCrory was part of the last film. He did uncredited rewrites on the script after Tom Cruise brought him in, because Tom Cruise loves this guy. Like, they worked just before working on Falkyrie. Tom invited Christopher over to his screening room in Los Angeles, and they had a great time. Tom Cruise says,

from that meeting, I knew he was an artist that I was going to work with for the rest of my life. Christopher McCrory, McHugh, you are not only my dear friend, my creative brother,

director of the year, you are an artist of all time, you are a modern day Falberg. You are our modern day, Fowlberg. You are an asset to every artist, studio and global audience that you live to serve.

Here he is referring to Irving Fowlberg, who was a film director in the studio system known for making profitable films like he he wasn't art house by any means he was a populist profit driven director

I'm not saying against anything against Christopher McCroy here I just think it's an interesting comparison for Cruz to make you know given Cruz's position as savior of the movies yeah and I I will one thing I did actually note about this film

coming into it and I remember thinking this at the time was it felt like it did feel like an odd choice of director I won't lie right because the only film of Macquarie's that he directed before this I was

familiar with was Jack Reacher right so the adaptation of the lead child novels that came out kind of I think it was about three years before this and I thought it was a perfectly decent film but I wasn't particularly bold away by he directed one film before before that, which I've not seen.

But the primary thing that I knew Christopher McQuarrie for, and like the thing that I associated with his name was as the writer of the usual suspects, right? For a very long time, I would say, was probably my favorite film, if not one of my favorite films, if not my favorite film,

particularly when I was a little bit younger. You know, so it was a name that I kept an eye out for, but at the time that this happens, like, I mean, he's not done a huge amount of, really. I mean, like, you know, like Jack Reacher was decent, but then, I mean, one of the things he'd written that

Sardickey was the tourist, which was kind of like a widely pretty reviled thing to the point where, like, people made jokes about it. I think I got a Golden Globe nomination. It was like highlighted as kind of, you know, highlighting the absurdity of the golden globes and things like that. You know, Jack the Giant Slayer,

which I don't think really made much of an impact at all. And I think that the point of which is, turns seems to sort of start to turn around again um is edge of tomorrow right and this is the sort of that we'll probably talk about as we go here this is this is an era of tom cruz's filmmaking where

he hasn't actually just settled into doing mission possible and nothing else right he's done other stuff around this time um so just in terms of um like Cruz's creative output at this time and like what Macquarie kind of represents this point it's kind of an interesting period I find it in more interesting period in terms of their filmography than what

comes later, if I'm being honest. Yeah, no, it's just interesting. It's an interesting partnership, this one. Yes, I think his prominence on the film speaks more to Cruz's influence as a producer than anything else, because Cruz likes the guy. So Cruz has a lot of control as producer

at this point in the France. tries, arguably always did. But he brings people on because he likes them. So he gets on with Christopher McCrory, he gets on with Simon Pegg. These are the people he's bringing on. When we talk about Ilsa Faust later, I will talk about the casting of Rebecca Ferguson and how influenced that was by Tom Cruise, because again, that was driven by him. But yeah, Paramount Pictures essentially wanted another mission possible, basically as soon as the last one came out, having proved that they could break the free film cycle with number four. It was scheduled to come out on December 25th, 2015,

but they moved the day up. They moved it earlier because they didn't want to compete with Star Wars, The Force Awakens, and Specter, which were coming out in December. I can especially see that for Force Awakens because I remember the buzz around that. So, yes, it comes out in 2015. It's interesting that on the last episode,

I cited a critic talking about how 2011 was the best year for film since the 30s. And this year, Richard Brody of the New Yorker described 2015 as one of Hollywood's worst years. So here we are in 2015, and going down the box office, we have a lot of franchise films. Number one, Star Wars The Force Awakens. undoubtedly, you know, Disney bought the Star Wars and reinvigorated the franchise. And J.J. Abrams brings himself roaring back into the discussion. J.J. Abrams flies in like the Millennium Falcon at the end of New Hope. Blasting through to box office victory.

Jurassic World is at number two. So actually we will have gone through this box office before, but here we go again. Furious 7 at number three. Avengers Age of All. Ultron, Minions, Spector, Inside Out, number eight is Mission Impossible Reorganation, The Hunger Games Mockingjay, part two, and The Martian at number 10.

So that's all franchise apart from Inside Out, which is on the edge, and The Martian, which is, you know, a standalone release got film. Yeah, Inside Out's an interesting one, because, like, yes, it is an original film, It still has that sort of like, it's a pick, you know, in this sense, like Pixar is kind of a brand in and of itself at this point.

Exactly. And it has had a sequel. I don't know that that makes it a franchise, but yeah. Like you say, Pixar feels like a brand of it, in of itself. Isn't true, like, hopefully I don't go contradicting anything I said during the, um, during the, uh, the Dinopod series when we covered this. But it's also kind of like, actually, if you think about kind of like franchise stuff, there is some Drosforder down here

that's still made a decent amount of money like you go inside the top ten we've got what have we got Terminator Genesis Kingsman the Secret Service Taken 3 taken 3 I remember going to see that film I think taken 3 might be the one where basically the entire film is like

a super serious action film take on that cutaway gag in Austin Powers where you see the henchman's family upset that you got killed. I can't remember if it's taken two or taken three that has that basic plot, but it might be this one. You know, I mean, there's, there's, God, it might see, there's some crap in here. But, you know, I mean, there's some good stuff as well. Like, I mean, I like the Martian. I had a lot of time. I like the Martian, yeah. I like it a lot. I like the book. You know, but like, we've spoken before about, you know, we've spoken in other series, particularly,

particularly, actually I mean we spoke about it in the dinopod and the xenopod actually about the kind of like the, you know, look at me nudge, nudge, wink, wink, kind of don't you recognize this style of franchise filmmaking? And I've cited before Spector as a prime example of the worst tendencies there. And it's interesting to see that here. It's interesting to see where this film that we're about talk about, Rogue Nation, it occasionally you can definitely see it start to move in that direction, right? And certainly of all the films that I've seen to date, we're recording us about 10 days before I see the final reckoning.

It's definitely done that far less than a lot of other modern franchises, but you can start to see the hints of it here a little bit, I think. But it's interesting where it goes against the grain in that regard and where it kind of goes of the flow a bit more. It's an interesting film in that regard. We'll discuss it, but I get to. the sense that Macquarie is interested in this franchise's past and interested in making this a cohesive franchise rather than the previous one and done directors had done.

And we'll talk about how McCroy does that as we get into it, which we can do now. So the film opens with noticeably more production logos than usual, I've noticed. just just two or three more maybe than the previous films I've had including Ali Baba films Oh really? Yes Yeah which confused me slightly Well I mention this now before we get to the Even get to the opening credits

But uh Zhang Ching Chu is a Chinese star Who appears in the opening credits Top billing But didn't appear in the closing credits So I was curious about where she appeared She is in the film for 30 seconds during the scene where Benji is getting questioned about knowing Ethan's whereabouts, which we'll get onto. But yeah, Zhang Jing Chu is a Chinese star who gets top billing in this film is in the opening credits, and he's barely in it. Because we are into the period now where Hollywood studios are fully pandering to the Chinese market, to the Chinese box office, by giving Chinese stars cursory.

little roles in these films. I just looked up Alibaba pictures. You'll appreciate this, Seiband. They were an investor into both Terminator Genesis and Star Trek Beyond. Cool. Going well for them then. I thought you might appreciate that latter one in particular.

I found a splinter article explaining who Zhangtian Chu is, how long she is in the film, 30 seconds, and talking about how Iron Man Free cast several Chinese stars to be in the film for like 10 seconds to attract the Chinese market

in a kind of pandering and patronising way. But yes, the film opens in Minsk in Belarus. So Benji is wearing a gilly suit. He's communicating with Jeremy Renner in a control situation. Lufu is on the radio in Malaysia. There's this theme of bringing the team together. And they're talking around this plane, were a package on it that they need to stop before it takes off and they're talking around it

and then Ethan suddenly appears you know ready to go he does his signature run he jumps onto the plane it's taxing to take off takes off with crews hanging on the side waiting for Benji to open the door he gets in and he parachutes the plane out of the package it is a big unrelated action set piece that feels very James Bondi in the kind of structure you know coming before the credits opening with a bang And is in fact an indication of the kind of subversive structure of this film, where it starts with the huge action set piece and ends with a kind of simple run-and-gun scene through the streets. But we get the opening credits, including Sanctin Chu.

And then we cut to London, where Ethan goes to a vinyl shop. There's some Spycraft, he gets access to a record player that gives him his IMF briefing. And he finds out about this organisation. Well, he already knew about the organisation called The Syndicate. but they are intent on fermenting revolution. And then, oh no, it's not actually an IMF briefing. It is the syndicate and they gas him in the record shop. Sean Harris appears and shoots his IMF contact.

And again, I think there is a theme that will emerge through this film of Christopher McCrory subverting some of the tropes that have developed over these movies with some kind of ironic commentary on the franchise itself. So the briefing getting hijacked, the whole idea of the syndicate, and the structure of the film. McCrory is interested in the franchise's past and subverting some of the tropes that have developed. You know, he gets his briefing, but it's not really his briefing. It's the bad guys. Excellantly named record shop as well.

I didn't notice. Go on. It's called The Vinyl Offer. The Vinyl Reckoning. Yeah, actually. Basically, during the recording of this, I've already decided I'm going to kind of fake up that they've done a George Lucas-style re-editing of the film to call to the record shop and find no reckoning and see if anybody falls for the bait, to be honest. It's a good idea, yeah, we'll see. We'll report on that later. So we cut to Alec Baldwin and Jeremy Renner at a Senate briefing. Alec Baldwin is playing the head of the CIA, and he chews out the IMF for the reckless disregard.

This ties into kind of themes of oversight and accountability that the film will get into. So he's talking about how the IMF operates outside jurisdiction, has no oversight and no accountability. The Los Angeles Review of Books article I've mentioned before by Pat Cassells talks about the years between Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation was one of exposing the US. So Chelsea Manning was court-martialed for the WikiLeaks disclosures. Edward Snowden exposed the NSA's global surveillance programs. And these incidents led the US to somewhat reflect on itself,

to think about its position in the world. So the franchise talks about these, takes these into long-standing questions of intelligence accountability. They're given by a franchise mascot in CIA director Alan Hunley, played by Baldwin. who introduces himself by condemning the IMF before Congress. The so-called impossible mission force is not just a rogue organisation, he says. It is an outdated one, a throwback to an era without transparency and without oversight. So Casals goes on, putting aside the absurdity of the CIA, lecturing anyone about appropriate behaviour, only speech is a crucial one for the series.

The CIA, that real-life organisation known for its transparency and doing everything. With oversight, yeah, there's definitely be no coups in South America as the result of them. Not at all, no. He, Hunley, may be talking about the IMF, but we the audience can also apply his testimony to the mission franchise itself, and its star, who represents an era of action star that, despite Mission Impossible's box office dominance, is beginning to feel like a cultural relic. In the previous movies, Hunt's place in a modern world was a brushed aside detail. now it feels like the backbone of a much bigger observation now I don't think the film does a lot with these themes of oversight and accountability but they are bubbling under and they're reflected later in what we'll

find out about the syndicate and even further as we get into how the IMF continues from this film but they're introduced in this scene yeah and I think that that that um that part about um so the one that I, the line that I've got a note about myself is the, you know, their throwback to an era without transparency, without oversight. But an important part of that quote actually is also the abet immediately, um, immediately before it about them being a rogue organisation. And we're going to come back, I'm going to come back to this point several times throughout our kind of like analysis and recap of the film. Because I honestly, the more I think about it, right,

there are, you know, we've discussed kind of like some of the politics and the, you know, the geopolitics underneath the previous four films, right? And it's a bit sparse in places. It is there, but it's a bit sparse. But the thing that I find interesting about this is, this is the one which I think really has the most legs in terms of kind of like the world landscape it comes into and what will begin to develop over the next few years because it I feel like it's kind of reflecting something in a weird way which the other films are not right certainly more so than um one two and four right I think Mission Possible three because it has that element of the sort of you know the feeling of the sort of like the post-Iraq war period I think it has a that to me is the probably the most interesting

of these films politically, not cinematically, but we discussed that at length at the time. But this one, I'm going to keep returning to this point throughout it because there's a few things that end up coming up here, which are actually quite strange to look at nearly, in fact, a decade later. Yes. And it's interesting.

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting approach and like I say, I think it bubbles under rather than doing much with it, but it's there and it will influence later films well. So Even wakes up chained in a basement as Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson, prepares to interrogate him.

There's some Eastern European strongmen taking over the interrogation, and Issa ultimately helps Ethan to escape, but she stays behind. So I'll talk about Ilsa briefly here, and maybe get into more about Ilsa later on, because she's the most interesting thing that this film introduces. she's terrific Rebecca Ferguson plays her really well she's a kind of evolution of Paula Patton's completely forgotten character from the last film I think I'd feel a bit hard done by if I was Paul Patton

perfectly honest it's good at it like Rebecca Ferguson's excellent I think she's probably the better actor if you put a gun to my head but I think if I was Paul Patton I'd feel a bit hard done by here yeah I know I know but Paula Patton walked so that Ilsa Faust could run Yeah, I suppose.

And I'll talk more about Ilsa Faust and the role of women in these films later. But for now, I will say that Tom Cruise hand-picked Rebecca Ferguson to start in the film after watching her in The White Queen and noticing a resemblance between Ferguson and Ingrid Bergman, which personally, I don't see. I think Rebecca Ferguson looks a lot more like Katie Holmes, which I think a lot. lot of the women in this franchise have done. A lot of the women handpicked by Tom Cruise for this franchise have done. And if my agent came to me and said Tom Cruise has handpicked you, I would be running in the opposite direction as quickly as I could. But that is my reflection of my feelings of Tom Cruise. Yes, but he chose her because of a resemblance between her and

Ingrid Bergman. She is indeed Swedish like Ingrid Bergman. And that is why the character is called Ilsa, after Bergman's character in Casablanca, and that is why there is a scene in Casablanca later on because of this Bergman connection, which I simply do not see. Do you see it? Is it me? I can't say I do, to be honest.

But yeah, okay. Yeah, it's you know, I mean, I don't, I mean the quote you said, the opening that cruises with a chivalry, I don't really see that. I don't really see that. I think I'm just operating on a different wavelength to Tom Cruise which

thank goodness I'm okay with to be honest despite the billions of dollars he's probably made his life I'm okay with that to me so it doesn't strike me as a man who I want to be operating on the same insane wavelength as he is anyway so there you go even escapes the interrogation and he gets in touch with Brent Jeremy Renner who tells tells Ethan that the IMF has been shut down and handed over to the CIA. He's like the fourth time that the IMF has been disavowed. It very much is a rogue organisation at this point. Ethan is disavowed and he's on his own as a rogue operative, which is a plot point that

is beginning to feel a little bit stagnant. We cut to six months later in Havana where bearded Ethan is being tracked by the CIA, they break into his room, but Ethan's actually in Paris. this even has left a load of evidence in Havana of how he's tracking the syndicate. He's got a madness wall of strings and maps and whatnot. In Langley, Benji is now an analyst and he's doing product placement for Halo 5. Hilariously, he also has a Windows phone because Microsoft sent a lot of money Paramount Pictures way for this. He receives tickets for the opera in Vienna and he immediately heads off to Austria where he's intercepted in the subway

by someone giving him some glasses that let Ethan communicate with him. And Ethan's hoping to intercept syndicate operatives at the opera, particularly the one played by Sean Harris. There's some cat and mouse at the opera with two snipers, including Ilsa, who are wandering around setting up to assassinate the Chancellor of Austria. This opera seems fun. It's a reminder of the De Palma kind of spycraft that started the franchise. There's a clarinet at one point that turns into a sniper rifle.

which I just love by the way it's one of the one of these things in the CDs where it's just like it's great because it's just sort of ridiculous to be honest and it's like this is the sort of like the ridiculous sort of like you know

Spycraft assassination type stuff you can cocked in your head it's a little thing but it's just it's really good yeah now this seems fun and wandering around the opera trying to save them a soloist starts singing Nessendormer, the song that everyone gets assassinated to, and the assassins prepare to kill the

Chancellor. Ethan isn't sure which sniper to take out, so he instead shoots the Chancellor in a way that removes him from the sniper's sights. So Ethan intercepts Ilsa, and they flee to the roof of the Opera House, they slip down to the ground on a rope with some hesitation. It's like I said in the last episode, there is some hesitation around the big stunts that adds tension and speaks to kind of Tom Cruise's ageing body but the Chancellor's car gets blown up anyway I think I did I actually find

the combat in this scene quite interesting because there were two things that stood out to me the first was that it feels particularly when Ethan is having the fist fight with the you know the other

you know the other optive like in the you know up in the machinery of the theater aspect of it It had a very borny feel to it, I thought, more so than I found in kind of like other editions of this. You know, close combat,

kind of like, not frenetic, it's kind of frenetic in bursts and it's deliberate and it's kind of like very sort of like tightly and quickly choreographed. Also, shout out to Mission Possible 2

where we get another double leg kick. Yeah. Which I wasn't expecting. No. action scenes in this film. There is an underwater heist later that is fun but it didn't quite reach the same level as this. But I briefly want to talk about Ilsa, who is the focus of the Elaria Boncori journal article that I've referenced in previous episodes, Mission Impossible, a reading of the after death of the heroine.

So Ilsa is the focus of this article and up to now I've talked around it a little, but now she's introduced, we can talk about it a little more. So, Boncari says that the heroine's way of dressing in this film is remarkably feminine. She's wearing gowns, skirts, heels. You know, at one point she refers to her high heels in this scene. She is wearing a long flowing gown to the opera, to be feminine. This heroine, Boncari writes, shows a range of options that enhance rather than hide her femininity, whether in formal or casual situations.

There's a flowy gown, a silk cream skirt shirt, a skirt suit, a tight leather biker suit later on. However, some signifiers of Ilsa's outfit do not allow for a simple gendered boxing up of the character, thus permitting a more boundary-spinning gender vagueness that denies an easy gender bias ascription to her role. Compared to current practices in action movies, Ilsa's swimsuits and underwear are feminine without being over-sexual or overexposing, while carrying out a man's job, still embodies obvious visual symbolic signifiers of femininity and she has portrayed more as a classy and attractive female sparse than a sexual appendix to the hero you know this isn't like mission impossible too

where she's just a sexual object for the hero she has her own personality she has her own aims she has her own drives that push her into a a more developed character rule than we've seen from previous women in this in this franchise yeah boncari goes on to say she has acts to us as to information that Cruz wants, that he's been attracting to track in vain for months, she pulls the strings regarding the recovery of a USB later. Her professional talents, skills and abilities and an agent are well-rounded, not limited by her femininity slash sexuality, and not subordinate to the hero's needs. She has scenes on her own that are related to her own story.

And Boncari says that Ilseu is emblematic in this way of female characters in mission possible and how they have changed and embodied more important roles leading to her creation. This would suggest a positive development towards the understanding of women's changing professional positions to mirror the shifting trends of female roles and responsibilities that move away from the housewives and mothers of the 1950s and the subordinate glamorization of females in the 1990s towards a more independent and participatory role, albeit far from equal, consistent with social change. Yeah, and I agree with

a lot of that. There's something I think is probably worth putting out here because even because I think you start to see this a little bit with the Paul Patton's role in Mission Possible 4, right? But this does

go further, right? And I think there's two key things here, right, in the sense that I don't like, so Paul Patton gets that scene in kind of like the big reception in, has it been by, whatever said, where, you know, she has a, like, a cocktail dress on and there's the scene where she needs to kind of like charm the idiot billionaire and this sort of thing, right? So she does get a moment there to be, you know,

more stereotypically feminine in presentation compared to the slightly more kind of like functional look she has earlier on. But I think what's key here is this is introduced very early in Ilsa's arc in this film, right? The scene where she's presented extremely sort of like feminine and glamorous. It's also done in a very sort of like just visually contrasting and eye-catching way. I mean, it's a yellow dress, right? We're not talking about kind of like, it's a yellow dress while she's like, you know, largely in the darkness of the backstage of an opera.

It's not, you know, it's just not the same as Agent. Carter and Ghost Protocol. So that's the first thing. The second thing is she is presented independent of any romantic relationship, right? Because like her not, Paul Patton's character is introduced in the context of an agent she was involved with being assassinated, right? That is a kind of like a motivating thing for the character. That's different to what's happening that's different to what's happening here. And then as the film progresses, and I'm sure you'll talk about this as we go through it, she is shown to, well, she's not

presentationally the equal of Ethan Hunt, because he's the centre of the franchise, like, you know, that's just never going to happen. In terms of like within the world of the film, right, she's extremely capable, extremely capable

and frequently, and I think something that this film allows, which, you know, the previous one would not, is her sitting in this kind of like, weird sort of, you know, protagonist, antagonist space at the start and kind of like the constant sort of like

double crossing, triple crossing, you know, and it settles down by the time we come to the end. But that slightly uncertain relationship allows her opportunities to frankly, completely outsmart our actual kind of like established protagonists. And that's not something which has happened before, particularly if you think about the roles of women in the first one even. which I think is an excellent film,

but you think about kind of like the roles there and how that goes, especially the second one, which we railed on very hard for that, right? The third one, there's kind of lip service paid to it. It's interesting that it does it, but it doesn't really, you know, and even then it's subordinate, right, because Kerry Russell's character is a student of Ethan Hunt, and then I've spoken about the fourth one.

So it's like this really is kind of like taking a lot, of the better ideas and the better instincts that it's maybe had in more recent films and elevating them to something that's actually actually in some way meaningful and gives somebody a natural character to work with really. Exactly.

Like Boncoe says, Ilsa has arcs independent of Ethan and does things that benefit the team totally separate from Ethan. In ways that Ethan had failed to do, you know, Ilsa has in some sense succeeded more at tracking down

the syndicate than Ethan has during the previous six months and the film makes that clear the film is clear about Ilsa's prominent role in this film prominent and narratively important in a way that we haven't had from female characters in the past but yes Ethan disarms Ilsa after the bombing of the chancellor at the opera house and Ilsa is revealed as British intelligence she is undercover in the syndicate they let her go so she can continue to be undercover. Ethan and Benji go to an old IMF cash, where Ethan tries to persuade Benji to go back to D.C. and denounce him. Even tells Benji about the syndicate, which is a rogue nation. That's the name of the film. A rogue nation of former intelligence operatives for other

countries. They're now performing terrorist acts, such as taking out a secretary of the World Bank and bankrupting a global arms corporation. doesn't sound too bad. I better watch what I put it into the digital ether forever here this one. Yeah. Yes, that's terrible. That's terrible.

Damn those terrorist actions. Yeah. They need to be given a good old talking to. Shake fist. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. So.

the room while I was watching the film at that point and I had to rewind a bit to say this is what the baddies are doing isn't this? Don't you think this is terrible? You can't bankrupt arms corporations, how dare you? How terrible. Not the World Bank. Not the World Bank. Benji emphasises that he is Ethan's friend and he will stick by him. And this, this precise point, marks the point at which these films become about friendship in the same way that the Fast and Furious films are about family. The supposed connection between these characters I think here becomes more important than the work that they're doing.

This pulls the franchise into this point where they talk about their friendship all the time and the bonds between the team, but the ones between Lufa and Benji and Ethan and Ilsa that will come are of central prominence. prominence and other films will build on this in a way that becomes I don't know stagnant in a way that becomes cloying we'll talk about it when we get to them

but I want to know at this inflection point it is interesting the way it comes to lead on it though I mean and this is probably just in my mind because as I say at the point we're recording this were like days out from the release of the final reckoning and I even find it quite notable that

the end of the last trailer for the final reckoning just ends on just a, you know, almost close up shot of Ethan Hunt's face saying, I need you to trust me one last time, right? It's not, like, the thing it finishes on isn't kind of

an action thing, it focuses on kind of like a personal plea from him, right? I realize I'm probably reading too much into the end of a trailer here, but it's just when you link that with what you said there, it is interesting the way that's kind of shifts over time and that's something which is

really starting here. In the same way that the last film was the first expression of here's the big set piece we're going to hang the whole film on this is probably the first expressions or the first meaningful expressions I would say of that sort of

idea. Yeah. So Ilsa is called before Sean Harris Sean Harris is I would say a memorable villain in this he's very good, he's got a weak chin and he's a sinister figure kind of working from the shadows. I like the kind of syndicate as anti-IMF concept.

I think that is a strong concept that would be better place to anchor a two film series than the kind of nebulous AI that we actually get in Dead Reckoning and the final reckoning. I think they could have done more with the syndicate. Yeah, I actually... And I like Sean Harris a lot. Yeah, I have to admit, right,

And I think in particular, we'll talk about it on the next one, there's a couple of line readings he gives in the next film, which I've really kind of like stuck in my mind, but I really like Sean Harrison this, right? I can easily see why someone wouldn't, but there's just something about that sort of like, you know, he's, you, like, with the odd exception, he's calm, right, to sort of like an eerie extent and kind of like just, there's something about that sort of like nasally sort of, sort of. delivery that gives a weird sort of like geeky malevolence or something. I mentioned his weak chin because it is integral to the character because it feels important that he has this weak chin and he's kind of a nerdy but malevolent character. And like you say... When he does it, he shoots a henchman at some point and it's just like it's eerily calm

and he's going to find him please. You know, it's that's the planes. You know, there's just something about it which is really really hits over me and I find it quite interesting because you've got so in Mission Impossible 2 they tried to do the sort of like anti-imf

thing with Sean Ambrose being sort of like the anti-ethan Hunt. Yes, right? He's an Ethan Hunt who's come back. Yeah, but in a way I actually think Solomon Lane is a better anti-ethan Hunt right? Because he has that same kind of like you know

Spycraft background but like he's not a physical threat right? He did or at least not in any sort of like ostentatious sense he's an intellectual threat really both in terms of demeaner and kind of ideas I find it interesting it's like it feels to me like

you've taken the best the best of the Sean Ambrose kind of like let's give him a sort of like the opposite to bounce off but making it more of an intellectual thing which they tried to do in Ghost Protocol and it didn't end up that memorable This almost feels like kind of a combination of the two.

It's interested, they've continued that kind of idea of a not especially physically imposing villain, which interestingly, you can argue to go back on in the next film, but we'll come back to that at the time. But this feels like a good expression of that. I think they've kind of hit a good idea with the Solomon Lane character and the syndicate in general, to be honest. Yes, if the film franchise as a whole, balances action and spycraft, then Solomon Lane represents the kind of spycraft resurging to become a threat against the kind of Ethan representing action.

Yeah, I like Sean Harris a lot. Like you say, he does play this airy calm very well, and that's fun. But it's also fun later on when you watch his calm falling apart. He gets a little eye twitch when he's overseeing the Tower of London later. and things are falling apart. That is just great. That is just incredible to watch. So the team head to Casablanca,

because of the Fergus and Ingrid Bergman collection, but they're following a lead from Ilsa's Lipstick USB. They find Ilsa, who is practicing holding her breath underwater, and Ilsa tells them all about Solomon Lane, who created the syndicate, Sean Harris. Meanwhile, Grant goes to Lufor, Ving Rames, who again emphasizes that he, He and Ethan are friends and that's an important bond.

They again emphasise the friendship that has driven them through these films. So Ilsa has a digital ledger in a vault containing the names of all syndicate operatives. So they need to pull off a heist on a digital vault which is underground. And there's all kinds of stipulations around this. It requires them to pretend to be someone else. The underground vault has a gate analysis computer which measures how you walk, which is fun. so they need to change the security profile of the gate analysis in an underground server room so that Benji can walk into the vault.

This means that Ethan has to swim through an inlet, which has metal detectors, which means no oxygen tanks are allowed, so Ethan will need to hold his breath for three minutes. There's a lot of complication here, but I think it's fun, and I think it just stays on the right side of being too complicated. I think the script gets a little clodgy later on, but I think this scene is okay. They do the underwater heist, which is a lot of fun.

I think it's up there with some of the best heists of this franchise. Things you're wrong in a way that makes it tense. Even gets the security profiles mixed up, the cooling system in the water restarts before they're ready. Ethan can't hold his breath for long enough. I think it's fun. I think this high scene works, not as well as the opera scene, but in general pretty good.

The thing that I find interesting about this, the whole water torus scene, right? Yes. Is, it's quite an engaging scene, right? I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say it's bad, right? But it kind of speaks to me about, I think, what, if somebody put a gun to my head, what I prefer about Brad Bird's technical approach in Ghost Protocol compared to Macquarie's here. Right. And I find it interesting in that there's something about it that just feels more perfunctory.

Yes. I can think, like it's an engaging scene, but it's more to do with, it's more to do with kind of choices around other things and camera movement and representation of space, right? Framing and blocking, right? And the scene I keep returning. to, like, comparing these two. In terms of, like, where this series will now go, let's see, right, is I compare the Burj Khalifa

scene in Ghost Protocol to this, right? And there's something about the way Brad Pard moves the camera around the space, like, the thing that always sticks in my head is when it kind of like swings from being in the building to outside and you see the, the dust storm approaching. Yeah, I remember

that's up. Yeah, and also kind of like when, you know, beaten first steps out of the building and you see the drop below. There's something about birds' use of the camera and space and movement there that really elevates that scene, right? That scene, like, I realize he's leading out of the tallest building in the world, right? I don't want to be too ridiculous here, but, like, that scene is far more exhilarating at all points, and it really has any right to be, right?

it's a man attached to a rope stepping out of the building, right? It's not, you know, it's not inherently dramatic in and of itself, but he makes it so. Macquarie, with this scene, it just, there's nothing in this scene that particularly wows me. It's engaging, but not in the same way. And I think to kind of like, something that we'll get to sort of like quite, quite toward us, is thinking about a motorcycle chase. right and that's what we'll come after this and I'm sure you talk about it more at the time and again that's an engaging scene

right so I'm not saying that Macquarie can't pull off engaging exciting scenes but the way he does it feels different right it's far more bait and you see this here and it just doesn't work to the same extent it's more in sound

editing general pacing right it's more in those elements and it is to do with kind of like what for better worse feels more cinematic to me, but that's probably just a personal preference on my point than birds. And that's what I find interesting about Macquarie as a director here. He can pull off these engaging scenes, but they just feel less remarkable. There's something about

that doesn't quite catch the imagination the same way for me. I think Macquarie comes across in reflected through this film as a competent director in a way that jj abram's in Mission impossible free seemed incompetent you know but he's not enough fear yeah but he's not great like brad bird's direction in the last film was great and and really striking uh and and was better in terms of direction and cinematography in this film the action scenes are good they're fine they're engaging but the space isn't quite as well established

and the colour looks a little oversaturated throughout it's a step backwards towards the Mission Impossible free colour grading not as bad but it looks a little over saturated in a way I don't care for no there's a hint at that

I mean I made a note during the watch of it felt both Morocco and Cuba get that sort of like that weird yellow gene quote, unquote, exotic locations getting a lot of Hollywood films, which is not something that I recall happening to the same extent in Ghostbrookal, for instance. No, and it would have been easy to do it in Dubai, but Brad Bird wisely avoids it.

But here you do get it, and it's irritating to me. A good example, I think, of not establishing the space, is Ethan gets chained up to a pipe when he's being interrogated Bailsa, and then it isn't shown to be unattached. at the top of the room until it needs to be until Ethan is escaping by jumping over that

that loop at the top like you need to establish that that's there first before getting on to Ethan escaping via it otherwise it seems a bit like a cheap DSX machina

so he's just not quite as good as established in the space as Bradbird and I think that will extend to the next few films as well. But like you say, there is a motorcycle chase. So Benji and Ethan are celebrating having done the heist, Ilsa defibrillates Ethan and steals the digital ledger.

Luther and Brandt have arrived in Casablanca. They get part of the chase as well. Ilsa escapes a syndicate on a motorbike and Ethan and Benji pursue through the streets of Casablanca. Now this is a fun, this is again a subversion of this franchise's tropes because it's a chase scene where Ethan is out of it, having just been defibrillated back to life. He's in no fit state to drive. It's a kind of fun complication which admits the frailty of Ethan's human body, which we've talked about on previous episodes.

The chase scene's well shot. It's fairly exciting. Like you say, it's more sound and editing and pacing than framing and blocking. But Ethan ends up pursuing Yilsa and the syndicate on a, motorbike on a busy Moroccan highway, Ilsa gets away and the team regroup. Benji made a copy of the disc, but Lufa can't open it because the disc is a red box, a triple encrypted file that only the British Prime Minister can open. Ilsa goes to meet her MI6 handler on London Southbank to hand over the ledger and is ordered to kill Ethan to regain Solomon Lane's trust. Ilsa

meets Lane and he talks about killing to bring that change, whereas government's killed to keep things the same. Even meets Ilsa in London in a train station which I was unable to identify frustratingly. It didn't look like... Interesting, I actually looked this up while we were talking because

I... Apparently apparently according to movie locations dot com which does sort of all the other ones identified correctly. Apparently it's King's Cross which I thought it was Waterloo

Yeah, I thought Waterloo. Because I thought it was Waterloo because I made a note about it Because it was like, you know, Waterloo seems to get a bit of the rough end of the deal here Because I'm pretty too, one of the bored in films, I can't remember if it's supremacy or ultimatum was like a confrontational scene at Waterloo station So we'll just avoid Waterloo in future It's obviously where all these spies go to do their shootouts But no, according to that it's Kings Cross.

I'm not 100% sure I'm on board. I did feel like Waterloo to me, but... Yeah, it didn't quite match my kind of mental map of Kings Cross. No, it felt like it had that long, you know, that long, sort of like,

long, thin, slightly curved plaza that I associate with Waterloo. Yeah, same, same. I just couldn't see it. And I'm fairly familiar with London train stations. Anyway, this isn't exciting.

It's a sub- It's a substrited series. London Station chat. Yeah. This is our London-centric podcast. Discussing films.

So, Ilsa offers Ethan the chance to walk away and come away with her. Which even doesn't do. There are some romantic overtures, I think, between Ethan and Ilsa.

They definitely are. It's a confusing relationship in these films on that level. I have a, yeah, I have a little zine from Lily Cooper, which is called My Job is Just Mission, a neuroqueer reading of Mission Impossible, which has a lot about Rogue Nation and Fallout in it. Briefly, neuroqueerness is an idea of neurodivergence and queerness that acknowledges the overlaps and interrelations between the two. So the idea is that they're both opposed to the mainstream, you know,

to neurotypicalness to non-queerness to straightness and the idea is that you can queer you can if you can queer things you can neuroqueer things so you can set yourself up deliberately in opposition to the mainstream neurotypical way of moving through the world but Cooper reads and the Mission Impossible films through this neuroqueer lens

with Hunt as an asexual because certainly in the later films he does not get involved in sexual liaisons, he obviously does in two and three. And certainly, even if you could quibble a way to one and two, I think, like, the fact that he has a wife in three, not with Sandy,

you can definitely put that reading into every film since three, basically, including. Yeah, I can see that. But centrally, the the zine talks about even Hunt's neuroquainness, even Hunt's neurodivergence,

even Hunt is very singularly focused. He has, like, an autistic, on autistic special interest in missions, in mission, as the zine has it, where he can only structure his life by thinking through missions. And it talks about friendship as a theme in the Mission Impossible franchise. And again, he needs mission to structure his friendships.

It says, to take Benji to the Vienette Opera, it must be part of mission. He can't just see his friend. Yeah. Yeah. and yeah Ethan enacts his love for his friends through the structure of mission

and it talks about Ilsa Faust and how Ilsa would be a romantic or sexual interest in a typical spy movie but Ethan's friendship with her is treated as no less serious or intense particularly in the later films they are platonic friends

that are taken very seriously and the zine does this reads this in a neuroqueer way which is interesting Yeah, it's an interesting reading of that. It's actually, I find that, I find that interesting in the sense that looking at it from my perspective, which is a very heteronormative, your typical perspective, it is confusing, right? But the funny thing is, when you actually look at it through that lens, it does, it does kind of, it does provide logical reading to my view. It's interesting.

Yeah, as a straight autistic man, I can see some affinities with Ethan's approach to the world. He's very single-minded and very focused, and he has, yeah, like the zine says, an odd view of friendship and relationships, which doesn't seem neurotypical. But Lane, Solomon Lane, kidnaps Benji, and Lane tells Ethan that he once see unlocked red-boxed. disc and so even the team end up in the situation where they must kidnap the prime minister. Now I think especially getting to this point, the script contortions where the gangs get to the point where they have to kidnap the British prime minister is a little clodgy and a little convoluted. There's a particular scene I think with Renner where they're going through all the objection. Renner's objecting to the idea of kidnapping the prime minister and they're going through

all his objections, and it feels a bit cludgy and convoluted getting to this point, nonetheless. It's fun that when they get to the point where they have to kid have to have a It's also that scene. I feel like it's kind of... I mean, it's fine, you know, I mean, it's

only a few minutes out of the whole film, but it does feel like it's kind of rehashing a Brant Hunt dynamic that I thought they'd left behind by the sort of like the midpoint of the previous film, really. Yeah. Yeah, worth mentioning that Brent doesn't get a lot to do in this.

He's not as prominent as he was in the last film where he was being set up as a possible replacement because Hollywood has got sick of Jeremy Renner by 2015. Also, he had his Avengers money by this point. He had his Avengers money, yeah. So Brent didn't get a lot to do, but like you say, they're back on their previous dynamic to some extent. It's a step backwards falling.

But Brent does get to lure Alex Baldwin to London on the pretense of betraying the team. and Alec Baldwin contrives to save the Prime Minister by bringing him to a meeting between him and the Chief of MI6. The Prime Minister reveals that the syndicate was created by British intelligence as a surgical means of removing enemies of the United Kingdom with plausible deniability. It was a project spearheaded by British intelligence, but it's gone rogue, and so MI6 has been trying to cover it up. Uh, Baldwin has a little speech where he calls Hunt the living manifestation of destiny. Yeah, this is the... Listen, I have a complicated relationship with this scene because, like, I agree with you.

It's very clungy to get to this point, right? There's a lot of things in this scene I'd like, which I'm going to come to. It's clodgy to get to this point, but I enjoy this scene. But yeah, that line, I'm just like... Yeah, I'd write, Alec, calm down. Yeah. You know? I think you've been maybe had a bit more...

A bit too much sherry in the other room, maybe, like, you know, let's pull it back a bit. Yeah. It's up there with, this isn't Mission Difficult from Mission Impossible too. Yeah. I think what's quite good about it is, it's like, it feels, the thing about Alec Baldwin delivering that line where it's said with such sincerity and import, but it feels like it should be a Jack Donagie line in 30 Rock. Yes.

So there's something about Alec Baldwin's saying it, which really kind of lends it this slightly absurdier, to be honest. No, I've actually been re-watching 30 Rock over the past few months, and Alec Baldwin is terrific in 30 Rock as Jack Donachie. It's the role of a lifetime, and it's hard to divorce him from this, him in this from his role as Jack Donagie. In particular, that lightning note, it just feels like it should be one of those things where, like, you know, Donagy has taken things way too seriously in Thurtony Rock,

and I really just want to append lemon to the end of that line. Yeah. It's a living manifestation of destiny, lemon. You know. Yeah. Yeah. But this is a fun scene. So, the MI6 chief then rips off his mask, and he is revealed to be Hunt.

and they force the Prime Minister to decrypt the Red Box by reading a Rudyard Kipling poem. Cue dollying in on Alec Baldwin's shocked face. Yeah. So the Prime Minister decrips the red box, which it turns out contains access to billions in pound sterling, which will allow the syndicate to operate for decades. So the British intelligence have put this money to one side

to allow the syndicate to operate, and now Solomon Lane wants access to it. So Ethan arranged his to meet Solomon at the Tower of London, to hand over the box. Ethan meets up with Ilsa and Benji at the tower, where Benji is being operated as a puppet by Lane with an explosive trap to his chest. Ethan reveals that he's destroyed the disc, but he memorized all the sort codes and account numbers for the bank accounts, because that's how bank transfers work. So Ethan is the living embodiment of the red box, and Lane needs to keep him alive, and this is where Sean Harris gets his little eye to it.

So Lane deactivates the Benji bomb, and instructs his goons to bring in Hunt alive. Ethan and also run through the misty streets of London, drawing out Lane, getting him to chase them personally, and ultimately it ends up with Ethan tricking Solomon into a trap that encases him in a big perspect box. and they capture the villain through the power of friendship as they all stand around the box

and the team is like we caught you by working together he'll never defeat us as friends oh spy friend exactly and Solomon Lane's very angry about this pounds on the box but they gas him so Ethan says goodbye to Elsa and Alec Baldwin is called before the Senate committee again

and he asks for the IMF to be brought back into existence Baldwin is revealed to be the new secretary of the IMF. Now, my question for you, Jim, is, when did Baldwin become the new secretary of the IMF? Was he the new secretary from the start of the film, and the whole thing was a plot? Or did he just become it? Oh, I think he just became it.

Because I, and step down as CIA director. I think he's been convinced by the power of friendship as well. Yeah, but like, and step down as CIA director? Or is he now both? Is he CIA director and secretary of the IMF? So the problem is I'm probably bringing in the extra textual reading to this from the other film. Because he's not in the next film, I have to make the assumption that he is just the IMF secretary. Yeah.

So I thought he's not going to be able to, because it's implied that this is a secret from Congress, because they only refer to him as secretary outside the Congress room. And inside, Brant says, I can't confirm or deny that without talking. to the secretary. So it's implied that it's a secret from Congress. So I'm not sure how the CIA director steps down and becomes secretary of the IMF without congressional approval. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I was left confused as to how that transition takes place. I mean, to be honest with you, this all kind of probably plays into where I think, where I think the politics of this film is at its most fascinating, right? Because

there's a couple of things where first of all the presentation of the syndicate as a rogue nation and as kind of this anti-IMF but then where it goes there with the revelations in the scene with the capture of the Prime Minister where this film and this is the comment I made

whenever you watched it a while ago this film for all of its kind of absurdities and intricacies it understands with painful class that if you want to trace back the source of any geopolitical ill in the modern world, you can probably date it back to some upper-class British Toff doing something they shouldn't, right? And when I want to get too kind of like historically simplistic about it,

there's a certain neatness and clarity in that being the kind of source of many of the world's ills. And the Toff, it should be said, is played by Simon McBurney in this film. He's the MI6 chief. He's very good. He's also in Tinker Tail a soldier spy in a similar capacity, and he's very good, and he gets across that kind of posh British colonialism, essentially, that you're talking about. Yeah, it's also kind of like that, that strange blend of humble arrogance, to coin an oxymoron that I feel is kind of reflected in these sort of people, you know?

This sort of like cocksureness, which comes with a veneer of civility that's made. meant to obscure it. And that I find absolutely fascinating. I think what is also interesting about this is, so you think about when this film came out, right? It came out in 2015, right? So we're

just not that the world was in an amazing state before this point, but just where kind of like kerosene was thrown on the, like the smoldering wreck that it was, right? You know, we're coming to, like we're running fast.

into Brexit, the election Donald Trump, further kind of like gains by the far right in Europe, all the sort of thing, right? But one of the things which kind of underpins this whole thing, particularly the states, is also kind of this idea of the deep state, right, and becoming the predominant

conspiracy theory of the time, right? And I find it really interesting that basically what the, basically the syndicate is a feverish action film version of the deep state. right. Ill faith, you know, bad faith actors with, you know, state links

who are holding on to their own. And it's interesting. It kind of fills that role, whilst also, in kind of like Solomon Lane's little spiel to Ilsa, because it's like, you know, killing to keep things as they were, now I'm killing to bring about change. And it's weird. It really speaks to this ability that Tom Cruise as a producer seems to have for finding films which make nods towards politics, but somehow remain completely

apolitical, right? Because the syndicate is like at once reflecting this desire for change through whatever means are necessary, whilst also reflecting kind of the concerns around the deep state, of oversight, people are doing things in the shadows, right? So it's got that interesting point in it. And then when you look at who they're defeated by, it's an organisation which is criticised at the outset of the film for operating without oversight and doing things in the shadows. But then ultimately, this pseudo-deep state represented by the syndicate is defeated

by, you know, all American heroes working outside the system as rogue agents despite federal government skepticism, right? And it's just a really, I find it fascinating the way it, and whether it's doing it consciously or not, I don't know, but I kind of help think it must be, right? It's this weird thing where, like, you can't fit an ideology that is meaningful onto any of these people, right? to me, right,

and maybe somebody can bring up an article or something from the time that's going to completely contradict my point here, but Mission Impossible Rogue Nation is not a film, which is going to be subject to some nutty right-wing boycott in the States. No. Like, it's just not, because whatever way you come at it, you can't find

a leftist, liberal agenda in it. right and the way they kind of like nods to these ideas in some of the plotting and the character dynamics yet avoids that is kind of fascinating to me like I don't really know how you manage to to pull that off and it's something that seems to be a feature of Tom Cruise's modern films right because you have the same thing happening in Top Gun Maverick in terms of like who the enemy actually is it's very amorphous right and clearly that doesn't kind of like totaline quite as obliquely like it's a little bit more obvious the kind of lack of lack of kind of like agenda they're trying to attach there

but here the way it can nod to these sort of ideas and also kind of avoid attaching like making it easy to pigeonhole into a certain ideology it's kind of fascinating actually yeah no that really is interesting it's interesting how there are clearly politically engaged and linking with ideas like the deep state. And I'll point to the duology that ends the franchise talking about AI, which is a very

contemporary political concern, and yet don't have a political stance or maybe an overt political stance. Obviously, they're political. These are films about a rogue espionage organization within the US. That is ultimately, has American supremacy baked into it. But you're right. It's not like they're left or right, particularly. They are just politically engaged and yet fascinatingly apolitical, like you said.

Yeah. And the way that you can kind of see this in the public discussion around it is, for the most part, right? I would say the mission possible films, particularly now, right? Because obviously, I can't speak too much to kind of like what the general discourse was in the first three, let's say, because I wasn't as engaged with it at that point. But it avoids criticism than the way that a lot of, you know, some of the Marvel films, let's say, certainly a lot of kind of like Michael Bay's films, like the Transformers films and things. It avoids criticism for kind of like engaging with

and legitimising the sort of like the American military industrial complex which is a frequent kind of like target of criticism of those films from you know kind of more left-leaning kind of like film criticism and I do right and I have some sympathy with those things

particularly with the likes of the Transformers films right you know there's almost this fetishisation of the military might right but it's interesting that kind of like those films kind of like are criticized from that end and then you will get other films often much more benign ones in my view but it can be the target of these you know sort of like right wing boycotts because they're seemingly too

woke or they're you know undermining some fundamental you know fundamental value of kind of like modern Western society or something I mean to me it's a lot of horse shit but the thing is, because of something they've done, right, it does leave the door open to these slightly more hairbrained kind of readings and boycotts of it. And I find it interesting that on both ends of the spectrum,

those doors are maybe the tiniest bit ajar at worst in the Mission Impossible series. It doesn't seem to, it doesn't seem to invite that sort of reading, despite the fact that it does make these

illusions that I've, and it's interesting. I think, like, particularly the last film and the ones going forward are particularly so, right? And it's interesting, it's alighted on that. When you even think about Mission Possible three, which, you know, we discussed, wasn't a film I think either of us were particularly keen on, it definitely had a much more aggressive reading of the prevailing kind of like political mood of, you know, America's great, we're bringing freedom, rah, rah, rah, right? It had a much more skeptical view

of that. And it has moved away from that completely, right? And I And this is where it comes, but it all circles back to your point about kind of like the emphasis being on, kind of like, friendship and what we can do. You know, it's moved away from that idea of what is the role of Spycraft, what is the role of espionage in the modern world. Because it's even very different to kind of like, you know, the hearings around accountability that are made to and alluded to in the first film, right? It's very interesting the way it's deep politicized itself. whilst remaining very aware of the political currents into which it is released. Yeah, I keep coming back to this Patrick Cassell's article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, which goes through the whole franchise reading it in terms of accountability and government oversight.

But it's worth remembering where that article starts, which is talking about the scene in Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise is disguised as a senator talking about the real-life, Frank Church hearings, about the... the limits of American imperialism and the limits of American accountability in terms of espionage and foreign relations. Genuine politics, genuine political concerns that are not discussed anymore in the kind of political but apolitical frame that the franchise has moved into.

Interesting that it can be both, you know? I'm sure there is a reading where you can call Ethan Hunt a tool of American imperialism. But it also resists that reading because he gets disavowed all the time, like the Americans wipe the hands of him all the time. And this film starts with... Exactly, he gets disavowed all the time and he's kind of like, you know, the lone heroic actor going against kind of like his state's wishes. And then also, even this reading, even when he's kind of almost semi-back in the fold, right, in terms of like Alibaldon know what he's doing. What they're doing is they're kind of really against British imperialism at that point, right?

I made a flippant point about kind of understanding that, you know, British Toffs are the source of many of the world's ills. But it's interesting that then it kind of like that's what it gets positioned against, right? So even when it's not doing it for an American kind of like it can sometimes frame it in other way. And it's just, it's interesting. It's very hard to pin down. It is. You can tread this line between having the quote unquote deep state as a baddie

and also criticising American transparency and oversight and accountability in the forms of the Congressional Committee in the forms of Alec Baldwin's character. And yeah, there is some bubbling under themes of accountability and oversight here talking about kind of the impact of their actions and the impact of Ethan Hunt,

which going off the trailer for the final reckoning will also get discussed in the later films where they keep bringing up all the many things that Ethan has done over the years including breaking into Langley breaking into CIA headquarters and this is something that is resonant in the culture at this time so you've in your notes

mentioned Batman v Superman and Captain America's Civil War both of which deal with the impact of the superhero's actions on the world right Yeah, it's another interesting So I mean we've spoken a bit there

About kind of like The political current into which it's been released In terms of kind of like the big budget blockbuster Film current into which it's released I find it interesting that It's something that I keep coming back to in my In my head It's kind of like a theme in big budget films at the time

And I find it interesting that in a way Mission Possible got there first right? Because this came out in 2015. Those two films came out in 2016. And in my head, this is all kind of like, it's almost kind of a, certainly in the Batman v Superman case, it's a reaction to Man of Steel, right? Where you have this big bombastic fight sequence where like, you know, basically sort of like many, many blocks of a city are absolutely leveled. Like we must have been talking about like thousands dead. And it's not really addressed whether it should be. It's not really the discussion I want to have here. And I think Man of Steel is a dreadful film for different reasons. reasons and that. But it's interesting that when you then fast forward to its sequel in Batman v. Superman, the entire plot of the film is almost kind of a response to

that criticism, right? And this examination of, you know, is Superman a good or bad thing, blah, blah, blah. You know, and again, you can argue about kind of like how well that film pulls that off, right? But, you know, it's notable that you have like Superman a congressional hearing,

right? That there, and it's the same thing with Captain the America Civil War, and that comes off the back of something which is more in the text of Avengers Age of Ultron, right, rather than kind of like reaction to that film. But it's interesting that that's kind of like, it's a real theme in kind of suit the predominant type of film that is making the most money at the box office, right? It's this idea of the impact. Are the heroic acts actually heroic? How do you hold people accountable for this without kind of like hemming in their heroic actions. And it is interested that that same

theme, frankly, is a very strong thing through maybe not the end of this film, I would say, but certainly kind of like the opening act at least. It's interesting that even in a film that is not a traditional superhero film, and we've discussed both on this episode and previous ones, how it actually goes to lengths to not present him as a superhero, certainly up to this point in terms of, you know, when you think about the physical vulnerability you see in Ghost Protocol and Mission Impossible 3 and even hear that hesitancy around the action scenes here. It's interesting that in a film that is certainly not traditionally super heroic, it's still doing that same thing and picking up on that sort of current of maybe kind of getting a little bit

tired of just, you know, big bombastic action without any, any nod to what is happening around it, right? You know, it's, the superhero films don't want to have another laser in the sky that obliterates a load of people and we say nothing more about it. This film doesn't want to think about kind of like, you know, blowing up the Kremlin and saying nothing more about it, you know. And I find that, I find that interesting. Again, this way it can separate itself from the pack in terms of how it approaches things, but also kind of like actually pick up on some of the

ideas that are still kicking around in that mainstream cinema. Yeah, exactly. Culturally and politically, I think these are a response to an America thinking about itself in the wake of Chelsea Manning's revelations and Edward Snowden's revelations and thinking about

itself in terms of accountability. Yeah. And these are all responses to it, including this film, I think. to some extent. But yeah, I think that's Mission Impossible Rogue Nation. Not my favourite, but it's good. It's solid.

It works at what it's trying to do, I think, fairly well. But I think, as I have mentioned throughout, there are points in this film where you refer to this film as getting into a groove at the start, getting into a groove for this franchise, where Christopher McCrory drives it into the shape it's going to be. I think another way to think about that is going into a rut. And I think this is the start of that. This is the start of that route where a lot of these subversions of the franchise that McCroy brings to it,

you can also think of as a point of a franchise going stagnant, which I mention now, because we'll discuss it, in later episodes I don't think this is I'm not referring to this film as stagnant I think it's a good film but I think it marks the point at which this franchise

turns into something else yeah we'll probably talk about it more in the next one because it's interesting I don't want to get into discussion of fallout now because obviously the entire point of the season

we have an episode on it right but one thing that we spoke about pretty substantially in the Xenipod in particular is how aliens is an extremely good film but the franchise as a whole learnt perhaps the wrong lessons from it.

I think you, as we go through it and when we analyse it, I'll be interested where I do come out with this reading. I think you could make the same argument for Rogue Nation here, right? There is an element of I do wonder whether they've gone in the best direction after this, right?

And it's not quite the same because, like, I don't... I think every film that we're about to talk about, as I say, we're recording this before we watch The Final Reckoning, is better on some nebulous quality measure than the worst of the alien franchise, is what I would say. But it is... I do wonder if it becomes less interesting, basically, is, you know, where I'm going with this.

Um, so yeah, yeah, because it's all very, it's all very competent, you know, like that's, that's really what I've done to do with a lot of this. It's all very competent. Um, but there's little that makes me sit up and say, wow, that was good and I really didn't expect that, you know, and that's fine to a point, but, you know, we'll talk about more than the next one because I think the next one's a, a confusing one to talk about in this, right? Because this is not linear. It's not a linear thing for me in terms of the way these films develop. But, you know, we'll talk about that more than the next one, I think. Yeah, I think we'll get into that more when we talk about Fallout and these films' house style going forwards, as Quistairn going to cry, really takes the reins directorially. Yeah.

But yes, that's what we're going to talk about next time when we talk about Mission Impossible Fallout, which came out in 2018. Until then, this has been Take1 Presents, The Impossible. You can read Take1 Presents at Take1Cinema.net. You can find Take One on Blue Sky and Mastodon. You can find us on Blue Sky if you want to. We're around, but please do, you know, continue to subscribe to the feed and tell your friends about the podcast.

Please. Please. We only spread by word of mouth. and we also have sinister machinations to take down global arms corporations but yes

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but yes do subscribe to the podcast and tell your friends tell anyone who might be interested especially as a lot of people are talking about Mission Impossible this year so yeah until then thank you for joining us thank you jim thank you and we'll see you next month to discuss mission impossible fallout Thank you.