The Big Picture - ‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning’ Is Here. How Will We Reckon With It?

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Sean and Amanda need you to trust them one last time as they unpack the highly anticipated ‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning,’ starring Tom Cruise. Before diving into the film, they briefly recap all of the news headlines from the Cannes Film Festival by highlighting all of the heavy hitters, big surprises, and disappointments (1:05). Then, they unpack their complicated feelings on the newest ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie and discuss its legendary set pieces that might be the greatest of the entire franchise, plus its very deep flaws (19:42). Finally, they update their ‘Mission: Impossible’ rankings to see where this new installment fits among the rest of the series at large (1:21:04). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellamy. I'm a founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again.

Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Mission Impossible, the final reckoning. And boy, will we reckon with it today on the show before we get into Tom Cruise's eighth and maybe final Mission Impossible movie. We've got to talk about Cannes. Cannes Film Festival is happening.

It's been happening for the last 10 days. We're not there. We are not. We haven't seen any of the films that are playing there. We don't have any insider information. We've been following it along. We went to no parties. We did not witness Jeff Bezos slapping

Lauren Sanchez's ass on a yacht. No, no, I did see that in the tabloids. That there was, you know what? Love is love. It was playful, to be honest. What's wrong with that? I have many issues with them. Sure.

But that was not one of them. They were there for Ken? Yeah, I think so. I mean, just all the yachts are in town. OK, did he direct any films that were there? Does Amazon get to bring anything to Ken? No, probably not. Interesting that you mentioned that. I was just talking about who would and wouldn't go to Ken Did he direct any films that are there? Does Amazon get to bring anything to Cannes? No, probably not.

Interesting that you mentioned that. I was just talking about who would and wouldn't go to Cannes in season two of the studio on the Prestige TV podcast. Nevertheless, let's talk about the actual Cannes Fair because there were a ton of films that played there this week that I think are of significant interest to us. I would guess maybe three or four of them will actually matter to us on the show for the next 12 months. Do you think more? Yeah, probably a few more, but you can talk yourself down.

It's fine. You think more than four movies? You've been like rowing yourself, you know, along on this take of like, it was fine, I don't miss it. Like, okay, just to bring everyone behind the scenes. Sean, as you all know, went on a golf trip with Chris and with other people I'm related to. Um, and that's, that makes it sound like I'm not really,

I'm related to Chris, which I'm not. Your long lost brother, Jim. What I'd love to be, sure. And you guys had a lovely trip and it, and the pictures were cute and I'm happy for you guys, but it's, it's, you're on the way back and I'm on day four, solo with my kids. My mom came to help. Shout out to my mom.

But you know, it was like bedtime, things were getting tense. And you have the temerity to text me. So far, nothing makes me wish I were a kid. Like, and then like emoji. Like, shrug emoji, cute girl shrug emoji. And I literally, I just texted you back. I was like, I'm like emoji. Like, shrug emoji, cute girl shrug emoji. And I literally, I just texted you back. I was like, I'm not receptive to this right now. Who's doing it better than me, honestly.

When you look back on your life and you see the way that I live, is anyone doing it better than me? I haven't missed being a Ken. There are a few films there that I'm excited about and that I hope to see soon. It's because you wanted your nipples out on the red carpet and that wasn't gonna be possible.

I didn't, unfortunately. That's not something I would have pursued. But your nipples out on the red carpet and that wasn't going to be possible. I didn't, unfortunately. That's not something I would have pursued. But I wasn't really following the red carpet very closely because I was golfing. But I was looking at a lot of capsule reviews of these films. So I've organized the films into a series of categories that I've completely made up. Yeah. Do you want to hear about them?

Yes. Okay. The first category is the heavyweights. These are the films that were met with great anticipation. This is not necessarily a qualitative judgment on these movies, but I'll just start with New Ville Vogue. This is arguably the signature film of the festival, in part because it is a film about French cinema,

made by an American. It's Richard Linklater's new movie. I was already like, hey, you're missing one, but you've put that in a different category. I have. I'm not saying it is the most important or the best movie, but because it is a movie about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, starring Guillaume L'Arbeck as Godard and Zoe Deutsch as Jean Seberg, the movie got very, very good reviews.

I guess not surprising relative to what we know about Richard Linklater, but every once in a while he'll miss. Yeah, he tries something and you respect the effort and are also like, hmm, that had a lot of Jack Black in it. I didn't say that. That does not seem to be the case on New Villevog. It was met very warmly and particularly Guillaume Marbeck's performance apparently is quite good.

He looks strikingly like Godard. We will see. This movie still has no distribution. I'm quite curious to see who picks it up. I'm also quite curious to see if it is anything more than a sinuous object of affection. Do you mean that in the award sense? Or the box office?

Everything. Kind of like, will this be a widely seen film or will it be significantly smaller? It doesn't really matter to us because we'll probably enjoy it either way. But for the sake of this podcast, it does matter in some respects. One of the noisiest movies at the festival is Die My Love,

which we have been talking up quite a bit. This is Lynn Ramsey's new movie, her first movie, I believe in seven years. It is a postpartum psychological drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Welcome. AKA the Amanda Dobbins story. And it got mostly positive reviews, but kind of mixed.

It's like Jennifer Lawrence is lights out, as she always is. And it is about her, so that doesn't, I don't mean to diminish the wonderful Robert Pattinson, who is also apparently quite good. And then parts of it are really amazing, but it is... I don't even, I don't know if it seems like a tough hang, but it's just, it is about a tough time in someone's life.

So I don't know if, like, it's all just joy and wonder. Yeah, I wouldn't really describe the cinema of Lin-Ramsey as Barbie-esque. You know, these are not like fun romps historically. So it's not surprising that I think it's kind of a tough sit. There have been a handful of films at the festival that are a tough sit, but you're right, Lawrence has gotten rave reviews across the board.

Seems like she's an Oscar contender already. And I think it's becoming increasingly respected, which is weird to say for somebody who won an Academy Award at like 25 years old. Is she becoming increasingly respected by you? I, I mean, the answer is yes. Yeah. The answer, frankly, is yes. Okay.

Mubi acquired this movie for $23 million. Yeah. I believe that's a record for Mubi in terms of acquisition. And the thing that I said after the Academy Awards was, here comes Mubi. Yeah. They are out here. They are making it a three-horse race with A24 and Neon. Buying or distributing a lot of things at Cannes,

because obviously they got the substance at Cannes last year and are running with it. And they recently were capitalized pretty significantly in recent weeks. And their founder, I believe, was on the cover of Variety? Was it Variety or Hollywood Reporter? I can't recall. I read about it in What I'm Hearing, Matt Bellamy's newsletter. Yeah, so, you know. So Die My Love, look for that later this year. Another film that's getting huge ray reviews

and was recently acquired by NEON, which is a big sign that perhaps this film will win the palm door is A Simple Accident that is also known as It Was Just an Accident. This is the new film from the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. It's a thriller like his last couple of movies. It was made illegally without licenses from the Iranian government. Panahi is a very transgressive filmmaker when it comes to the expectations of Iran and also widely celebrated. This film seems like perhaps it is accessible is not the right word, but maybe a little easier to latch onto, say, than No

Bears, the movie that he made a few years ago that came out that was also very celebrated but felt very art house. And I think there's an expectation, especially with Neon jumping on, that they're going to try to put this in front of as many people as possible. It's definitely a leading contender for the Palm. If it wins the Palm, then you can expect to hear about it for a really long time here. The next film is Highest to Lowest. Yeah.

I got a little nervous because the first review I saw of it was very negative. And I was like, oh no. Everyone seemed to have a great time. And then everybody else seemed to really enjoy it, which is new Spike Lee movie, Denzel Washington, remake of the Curacao film High and Low. In this film, Denzel Washington is a high-powered record executive who becomes ensnared in a criminal situation. And that's all I really want to know about it at this point.

Apple is distributing. Yeah. And it's out August 22nd. Pretty soon. As of now. Maybe they'll change that. I hope they put it in theaters for a little longer. Denzel got a surprise honorary Palme d'Or.

He did. Yeah. I think that feels a little made up. And you've got to respect Denzel and give him a real award. But that's just me. What would the real award have been, because the film's not in competition, so you can't give him best actor, right?

Because normally you'd just be like, put that movie in competition, give him best actor, and then Denzel has his can moment. They didn't do that. Did they not do it because, and is it not in competition because they weren't sure if he was gonna go? Perhaps. That seemed to be the issue.

Okay, and so then they just like made a palm door out of construction paper and like presented it to him. Or is it because Apple is the distribution company and they don't like the streamers. And they aren't allowed to be in competition. Oh, interesting. You know, the famous no Netflix, it can situation. Sure. I don't know.

Asap Rocky and Rihanna were there. Yes, they were. And attending events. And they looked great. Asap Rocky innocent. Yeah. Rihanna pregnant. And attending events. And they looked great. Asap Rocky, innocent. Yeah. Rihanna, pregnant. Again, yes.

Announced at the Met Gala. They're hot. Yeah, they seem really into each other. I've always liked Rocky. I have always been a fan of his music. And it would be fascinating if he was able to pivot in his midlife to being Rhianna's baby daddy and the movie star. That would be a real like circle the square version of life. I'm really open to it.

I am too. The last big heavyweight, which is not to say that there weren't other notable films, but some other notable films will slide into other categories. I think it's Eddington, which is, I would say, was received about the way that I expected. This is the new movie from Ari Aster, which is an angsty, quote-unquote, accurate portrayal

of American madness in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Great. Stars Joaquin Phoenix in the Stone. And people were like, this movie really pissed me off. And I found it kind of annoying. And it's too soon to be shown something like this. Of course, for myself, Bo is a Frayed fan than I am. I say bring it on.

Um, Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler are also in this movie. And so red carpet just lights out for everyone involved. Rooney Morrow was also there with her husband Joaquin Phoenix. They looked great. Yeah. Everybody did a good job. Photo call. Yes. Red carpet. Yes. Emma Stone got st everybody did a good job. Photocall, yes.

Red carpet, yes. Emma Stone got stung by a bee, but they can't keep her down. Is that a fact? Oh, yeah, the footage, it's very good. It's very good. She got stung by a bee on the red carpet. Yeah, and she does like a full like Emma Stone cartoon like reaction and then like keeps posing. It's very good stuff. She's a treasure.

You know how I feel about her. Okay, next category, the big bumps. Now, you and I, worst person in the world, super fans that we are, had expectations of sentimental value. Sure. This is the new Joachim Trier film, his follow-up to that 2022 movie, which is so wonderful, a reunion with Renata Rensby. Stellan Skarsgård and Al Fanning are also in this movie.

And the reviews of this movie are rapturous. They are. So... I mean, the standing ovation meter means nothing, but this was reported as 19 minutes, which is just really long. That's really long. That's like really long. That's like the length of the finale of the studio. Yeah. I really appreciate, so Kristen Stewart

debuted a film at Cannes that she directed. And so the camera on her while she's getting her standing ovation, and she just looks, it's so like, what am I supposed to do right now in a way that I thought, I already love Kristen Stewart, but I was like, what do you do for 19 minutes? Do you think we should be doing pods in front of live audiences and then getting honest standing ovation reactions?

They don't do standing ovations at Telluride? Not in the clocked sense. honest standing, ovation reactions? So they don't do standing ovations at Telluride? Not in the clocked sense, no. Right, because at Venice, they do. And it's- There's a lot of older people who maybe don't want to stand that long? I mean, I would think so as well. The other thing is that it's not like, you know,

at the opera or the ballet or something, where these people are up like on some stage far away from you and they'll, they're just like in the middle of the ballet or something, where these people are up on some stage far away from you. And they're just like in the middle of the movie theater and everyone's just kind of like checking their phone and then also like half applauding. It's very strange and 19 minutes is very long. It is one of the silliest of all of the film festival vagaries

and I don't really care how long it is, that being said. Sentimental look like 2X the length of any other movie that played this week at the festival, so that's notable. This film is an interesting one. It splits the two halves of the big players at this festival. Neon is distributing the movie in the US.

Mubi has it in Europe and elsewhere. OK. We'll see. We'll see. I'm very, very excited to see that film. Oh, my. The Secret Agent is another one that is notable, which we also earmarked when we talked about the preview.

Uh, this is Clayber Mendocca Filo's new film, uh, set in 1977 Brazil. It's a thriller. It stars Wagner Mora. Um, Neon had just acquired it. They're working really hard right now. Um... This is their time, you know? It is. I've heard this film described as like a more propulsive companion to I'm

Still Here, the film from last year. I'm into it. Which sounds interesting, obviously set in a very similar time in history in that country, so looking forward to that. And then The Mastermind, I believe, is premiering today, right? This is the new Kelly Rieckert film, which Mubi is also distributing, an art heist thriller set against the events of the Vietnam War. They posted a clip of that film of Josh O'Connor stealing something from a museum in a very

subtle way to a jazz score. And it was very interesting. Yeah. I'm really excited. Yeah. I would say it's very big picture coded, that film. Okay, the Under really excited. Yeah, it's very, I would say it's very big picture-coded, that film. Okay, The Underwhelmers. Yeah, people are just very rude to Julia DiCarno.

Yeah, Julia DiCarno returns, not so triumphantly, to the Cannes Film Festival with Alpha. Mm-hmm. This is her first film since Titane. Neon is also distributing this movie. This movie's getting dunked on. Yeah. I heard the phrase, by far her worst movie, uttered a few times about this.

She only made three films. Where? Where did you hear that? Just on the internet. Okay. I heard it with my eyes. I didn't speak to anyone who was there, but, you know, I'll occasionally get emissive from a journalist or a critic. Okay.

You know me, I'm sort of connected. Sure. I just, I wanted to clarify that at no point were you on the Croisette. I was not. Or anywhere in'm sort of connected. Sure. I just wanted to clarify, at no point were you on the Quasette. I was not. Or anywhere in the south of France. Julia Ducourneau called me, and she said, this is by far my worst film.

And I was like, wow, that's an odd thing for you to share with me. We don't even know each other. The History of Sound also premiered yesterday. This is Oliver Hermanus's period romance about two men falling in love secretly. MUBI also distributing this film. It stars also Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal.

Reviews were pretty eh. Yeah. I think that the people who want to see Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal fall in love will not care. Seems like maybe not as much fucking. That seemed to be some of the concerns. Yeah. Like this feels awfully staid and sort of restrained.

OK, well, you know, I didn't make up how things were in 1811 or whatever. Is that when the film takes place? I don't know. It takes place in the year 37. OK. Actually, well, I think there was more fucking back then, just across the board.

Very good point. You know, Phoenician scheme that. I saw Megalopolis. OK. Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, which I've seen, got mixed reviews. I don't care. I don't care what anyone but me thinks. And then also... No kidding.

Also, Mucia Prada hosted a screening of The Phoenician Scheme at the Prada Foundation in Milan. So I care what I think and what Mucia thinks. Okay. Mrs. Prada, that's a very weird... Excuse me for pretending I'm on a first name basis. Your personal Venn diagram makes no sense, but that's fine.

I have seen the film. It's very, very good. So I'm not too worried about it. No one like got Asteroid City, even like when we were like, this is revelatory and the best movie ever. And then we didn't put it on our top ten list.

I would describe the Phoenician scheme as very different from Asteroid City in terms of its intentions and in terms of its scope, but that's all very purposeful and I think maybe that like the pullback and the tight focus on a small number of characters may throw be throwing people for a loop because he has been so expansive in the last two or three movies that he's made. The new Dardenne movie also kind of arrived quietly, Young Mothers, it's actually been a few years since they've had a big breakout at Cannes. But let's talk about breakouts. Handful of quick titles. We haven't seen these movies, we're not gonna pretend

to know what they're all about. Most of them are from filmmakers we haven't seen films from before, but Sound of Falling was probably the first big breakout. This is Masha Shalinsky's temporal exploration of four girls from different time periods experiencing their youth on a German farm. girls from different time periods experiencing their youth on a German farm. And then those time periods sort of blend together in interesting ways. This movie was very, very, very well received. And Mubi also acquired this one.

We've said Mubi 300 times on this podcast already. Yeah, they're also, they're showing up. They're really in the mix. A lot of strong reviews for The Little Sister, which is Hafsia Hersey's new film, particularly the performance of Nadia Maliti. It's a French-Algerian coming-of-age story about a young woman realizing who she is in the world. Sirat has been divisive, but has gotten some very strong reviews from Spanish filmmaker Oliver Lacks.

It's about a father and a son trekking into the Moroccan desert to retrieve their daughter, who apparently is getting involved in some desert raves and some hard drugs. Okay. And then there's been, you know, you mentioned Kristen Stewart's The Chronology of Water. That premiered in Uncertain Regard. Your boy, Harris Dickinson. If only he were my boy. It's apparently good, Urchin.

Urchin got very strong reviews, his directorial debut. Pillion, Harry Leighton's BDSM drama starring Alexander Skarsgård feels very in your zone. Did you see any of his red carpet looks? I didn't. He's going for it. He was wearing thigh high, I believe they were YSL, or Sailor Moon. Leather boots with his tux.

Nice. What a kig. Okay. And then Eleanor the Great, not as great reviews for Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, which is starting June Squibb. I like June Squibb. As do I. Of all of the movies that we've talked about, anything that you're like, I need this in my eyeballs right now. Sentimental value and highest to lowest.

Yeah. That's where I am. Not much has changed. So this, to my point is, did we need to go to Cannes? Well, I also need the Phoenician scheme. Yeah, well that'll be, I mean, that movie's out in a week. I know, I know. We have it on the calendar to go see it.

We do. I want to see New Velva. I do too. I'm very excited about that. The other film that linked it. Mastermind. Yeah. I'm excited. There's good stuff.

Yeah, there's good stuff. I'm open to the experience of Eddington also. All right. Well, I should hope so. With the exception of sentimental value, though, I would not say that there's a film that has premiered there that people have been like, wow, this has really changed the way I see cinema.

Yeah, but last year, many of the people who attended Cannes were like, wow, I saw Amelia Perez. So... Very good point. It's a very good point. It's fine. Should we be suspicious of sentimental value? I don't know.

No, it can be the Anora, you know? It can be, it certainly feels like the Anora and in some ways has some similarities. All right, enough thorough clearing on this episode. Let's talk about Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Sure. You've seen it once. I've seen it once. You've just returned from the second screening. I have seen it twice.

I wanted to see it a second time. We made plans with Jack Sanders to see it a second time, and then I lost power in my home, and I could not leave my home. I also wanted to reflect on the circumstances in which you saw the film. Okay. Which was in the afterglow of a Nick's win that you watched on Playcast on your phone very tensely in the front row of the IMAX

theater. Yes. And the game concluded right as the movie started. So you're as high a high as you can be. This was game four of the Nick Celtic series, A game that I did not think that they would win, and that they won in incredibly dramatic comeback fashion. And we are recording this Thursday evening, one day after, maybe one of the lowest lows in Knicks.

I'm not an expert on Knicks history, but I did watch the last shot, and then that overtime, and that was excruciating. It was one of the single worst sports experiences of my life. I've been appearing on many sports podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. What is happening with the Knicks broadly has been very exciting for me. What happened yesterday genuinely sucked out my soul. I felt really, really bad.

So I would just say that you have some complicated associations with this film. I do. And your emotions and then the state that you're in when you're receiving Mission Impossible. And I'll, you know, we've talked about Mission quite a bit recently because we had Fallout on our 25 for 25 list. We just did the Tom Cruise movie draft

where Mission Impossible was a category. You and I are huge fans of this series. And it's honestly a big part of the show. And so this movie was very, very high on my anticipation list, which makes it a little bit of a series. And it's honestly a big part of the show. And so this movie was very, very high on my anticipation list, which makes it a little bit of a challenge. I was just chatting with Jack before we started recording. The early word on the film was not super positive. And so I think that that has lowered the expectations of a lot of people who went in. But when I saw it and when you saw it, we were like, could this be the movie of the year? I don't know. We hadn't seen a single

review. And... It's be the movie of the year? I don't know. We hadn't seen a single review. And... It's not the movie of the year. It's not the movie of the year. Um, I'll provide a few data points, and then we'll get into our feelings about it. So it is directed by Christopher McQuarrie. This is his fourth feature as Mission Impossible director. Um, it's co-written with Eric Gendresen.

Of course, it stars Tom Cruise, Haley Atwell's back, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegger there, Henry Cherney and Angela Bassett are here, along with a rogues gallery of that guys and those gals and very notable performers. And a couple scenes dealers. Absolutely. And we will talk about the good works

of Tramell Tillman very soon. Yeah. Um, so, you know. Okay, he's so good. He was wonderful in this movie. We'll talk about him. The major crew from Dead Reckoning is returning to this movie.

This is of course a sequel, the DP, Fraser Taggart, and the editor, Eddie Hamilton, who's edited a bunch of these movies, production designer, Gary Freeman. Notably, the composer, Lorne Balf, did not work on this movie. And I will say, within the first five minutes, I noticed. Because it is a different vibe and Balf's, what Balf kind of figured out, I think with Macquarie, played a part in my appreciation of the films

that they've done together. So, you know, the story is, it picks up more or less where the previous film left off, more or less. More or less, about three to four months later, it would seem. When we last saw Ethan Hunt, he was on a, what's that thing called? The what wing?

The jet wing? The bi-wing? The fly wing? That thing he jumps out of and like that sort of parachute. Oh, right. Out of the train. Yes, oh sure. He was sort of escaping.

He had retained one half of the cruciform key. They don't have that in Richard's Gary, so I don't know. No, they don't. He had, for the of the cruciform key. So I don't know. No, they don't. He had, for the moment, defeated Gabriel, Esi Morales' character, who was trying to get the key, which would then unlock access to control of the entity, the AI superpower that was sort of buried in a submarine at the bottom of which sea?

Bearing. The Bearing Sea. Though I don't know if they know that at the end. At the time they do not know where it is. Yeah, they don't know. They just know that the keys were found in frozen ice. Yes. And so this film is all about how Ethan Hunt

is the only man that can retain the other half of the key, get to the bottom of the submarine, unlock it, grab control somehow of the entity, and save the world from true nuclear holocaust. That's the whole thing. That's it. Now, obviously interspersed in this, there are fantastical set pieces. There is tremendous amount of self-serious Tom Cruise dialogue. And then there are some other things.

So, with all that throat clearing, what did you think of Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning? Two hours of throat clearing, 35 minutes of exhilaration. And it's a real shame that they had to split the two movies up. You know, it's very, very clear now that they had a story arc for, and a villain, and a beginning, middle, and end for one movie, and then life happens, especially when you're jumping out of planes all the time.

It got split into two. And so they find themselves at a real disadvantage. They've essentially, they've written themselves into a corner and have to set up a whole new set of stakes in the second movie that are preposterous, that take too much time. And I say that preposterous even in the context of a Mission Impossible film, which is supposed to be preposterous, that take too much time. And I say that preposterous even in the context of a Mission Impossible film, which is supposed to be preposterous. But these are like...

I mean, there's just like a lot of nuclear codes talk in this in a way that isn't fun. And... So by the time you get to, like, a truly stunning set piece, I mean, I've seen it twice. It's the biplane, you guys. You've seen the trailer, you know, but like I cannot, like Jack, am I wrong? You are not wrong at all. What is going on? Sean, you said to me yesterday that you don't want to see the making of the feature of that because you just want it to be magic. And I think I agree, but I am also like...

Like, how, what? How did they do it? So it's in, like, it's... And it's beautiful, by the way. They filmed it, you know, somewhere in South Africa that is very beautiful, and it's like, the red plane, the yellow plane, it's soaring. Like, great stuff. I just had to sit through two and a half, two hours and 15 minutes of, like, not super rewarding content to get to it. Yeah, we're more or less on the same page.

I think this film in particular features arguably the highest highs of the franchise and pretty clearly the lowest lows. The first hour of the movie, I found really, really unfortunate. There were a couple of choices that were made that you could tell in the first film, obviously, reintroducing the Kittredge character in Dead Reckoning. Right.

That there was gonna be a focus on the entirety of this franchise, the history of the Ethan Hunt character. Sure. You know, it's not that they haven't done that previously. Julia pops up in Fallout after, you know, moving on from Ethan's life. So, you know, keeping the ball rolling on characters who mattered in previous films is not entirely new. But you could sense that they were trying to sync up 30 years of this franchise

together. In this film, in the first hour, it's not just that characters are coming back who we'd previously seen. It's that we're seeing sequences from those older films interspersed, intercut in a kind of frenetic fashion that reminded me of almost, it felt almost at times like it was an hour long version of the now very familiar Mission Impossible title sequence. Yes. You know, which is a cool thing that I think Macquarie in particular has done where he shows you events that are coming in The movie during the the credits but this movie while it's trying to move the plot forward

For example, there's a prison break sequence early in the movie Which is also a callback to something that happens in an earlier Mission Impossible movie and there's a series of these callbacks I'll throw out the film but after this prison break sequence, which is pretty cool It's kind of like a and There's a mask rip-off. Yeah, and there's like a moment of humor when Cruz is like trying to, you know, handle the standoff. Like, it's not not funny. It's not the best opening set piece

or the best set piece in the franchise history, but it's not bad. But it's kind of familiar territory in a good way. You're like, yeah, we're back with our friends. And that to me is like the last time that the film is having any fun. yeah, we're back with our friends. And that to me is like the last time that the film is having any fun. Well, so I remembered that as well.

And so I looked at my watch this time. And that happens within the first 15 minutes. And then the next action sequence, you know, give or take some fighting. Some hand to hand, yeah. Some hand to hand, where even that is like, there's a choice for a lot of it to be shown off screen that's like a little funny, but there's not that much action.

The next action sequence is 70 minutes into the movie. That's a long way to go. And that first hour is extremely challenging, in my opinion, in part because there was a whole other movie that came before this movie that introduced to us the stakes. So I genuinely don't know whether or not that idea of showing us, reminding us

of everything that had happened in the previous film, and then also front loading that with the history of the franchise in that first hour was a studio note or something specifically that Macquarie and Cruz wanted to do or felt was necessary. But it felt to me like watching a clip show of a sitcom, you know, when they would be like, ah, well, we didn't have time to make one

for episode 22 this year, so it's near the end of the season and we'll have one character come out and start looking at a yearbook and then they'll remind you of all the great moments you had with this show over the years. Which is just not cinematic. It's the opposite of what these movies are supposed to be.

It really doesn't work. To me, it did feel like filler in the sense of... They have a second act, which is the submarine. And they have a third act, which is convoluted, but like leads to the violence. But basically, the movie, part one, or Dead Reckoning, sorry. Not part one, how dare you. Yeah, excuse me, Mr. Cruise, I apologize.

Dead Reckoning ends with, like, almost like with a shot of the submarine underwater in a way that I don't love submarine sequences, so I'm like underwater things. So I was like, Oh God, the next one's going to be all about, but so if, if the next, if you only have like two acts in your, like story wise, you got to figure out something to do if you have to make a whole other movie, I not great choices. I'm not going to tell this movie what it should be, but it's two hours and 49 minutes. Right.

The previous film was a little bit shorter than that. These are by far the longest Mr. Impossible movies. Why did the first act need to be 70 minutes, and then the second act needed to be 70 minutes? You know what I'm saying? Like, there was something in the design of the story, and I don't know if that's because the production was complicated and it kept getting expanded or more characters were getting added.

I think we do understand that they do the stunts first. And they build around that. They build around and they write like, you know, things on set. And so my husband did a piece with Macquarie for GQ. It's great piece about how these things get made and there's a lot of good fallout stuff in there. I mean, I'm biased, but whatever.

And, but there is one scene where it's like, they're just, they pull up like a reaction trove of just like Tom Cruise, like doing reactions in front of the mission screen and they're like, no, we need something else. And it's just, they have like hours of Tom just filming his face in different ways so that they have the range of options.

Now like that is what movie stars do and that is how franchises get made and that is, you know, smart. But it also does speak to the fact that they're, they are sometimes searching for the images or the plot pieces that will help smooth the thing together after the fact. Yeah, I recently made reference to something that Macquarie wrote about close encounters on the rewatchables last week. And I had him on this show back in 2018 for Fallout. I've read a lot of interviews with him over the years, including Zach's. I think of him really as like a samurai of movie construction. I think he's incredibly good at understanding great classical adventure films. That's like

his thing. He has really admiration for like the Magnificent Seven and Bridge on the River Kwai and films like that that are in the mold of the Tom Cruise hero vehicles. And this movie just feels like it breaks so many of his rules, you know, especially in the first hour where he, and I'm, I genuinely was surprised and disappointed. And I can say on the flip side of that, the second act submarine sequence, which I definitely liked more than you did, and we can talk about it in some more detail. And then that biplane sequence that you're citing is as jaw dropping and as like worth your money

as anything you'll see in a movie this year. Like it is spectacular what they accomplish. And you can almost sort of forgive them writing the movie around those events, but not totally. Yeah, it's just, I found myself losing focus a few times when they were, you know, when they're doing

all the like the nonsense exposition, there still is that a little bit of like in jokiness and there are several like, so like that's the plan. Like, wait, you're telling me that this is the plan. And they like kind of know, but it's never as funny as in fallout when like Henry Cavill's like, what is it? Like hope is a plan. Yeah. You must be new here.

You must be new here. Yeah. But then even some of the, filler is the only word that I can use for it where like I, and they're cutting between like people hitting each other in different circumstances. And I was just kind of like, oh, okay, this feels real shaggy. I still wish, like, it just is so clear to me it was one movie, you know? And it, like, could have been a, like, tightly Macquarie-structured movie. Or maybe not tightly, but at least more of the shit we like.

Well, it's ultimately a five and a half hour movie. Yeah. And in that way, it kind of makes it feel a little bit more like episodic TV with the biggest budget of all time. Right. And it's just the drag. It doesn't mean that there's not, it's not worth seeing. It doesn't mean that it's not significantly better than most action movies. It's just that the bar for this franchise is very high and it does not mean the bar. No. It's, it is still fun. I, I saw it with like a paying crowd as opposed to the press screening.

And people were hooting and hollering and laughing at the jokes. And some of the absurdity and the things that are played a little bit for laughs, they were more willing to give in to than the critics. So I had a good time. It's fun. If you're going to go see it, go see it on the biggest screen possible. Absolutely. It is worth seeing in the IMAX format.

Yeah. But I have a lot of nitpicks. I know this isn't the rewatchables, but I just, I have some questions I would like answered. I do as well. I mean, I think the set pieces are the things that are easy to say, this is what makes this movie special. Um, there are a handful of moments.

Particularly the biggest gasp that the movie got out of me was the transition from the aircraft carrier to the helicopter to jumping into the Bering Sea, which comes in the second act of the movie after Cruz's character convinces the president of the United States. Angela Bassett. Angela Bassett. Congratulations, Madam President. Who was formerly the director of the CIA, which I guess George H.W. Bush was as well,

but I was like, in 2025, would the director of the CIA be the president? I'm not sure if I could see that, but maybe I'm wrong. The aircraft carrier was the George H.W. Bush that he commandeers. It very much was. I just think that there's a little bit more skepticism of those institutions.

I completely agree with you. Okay. Just a small note. I mean, we're also introduced to her cabinet, for lack of a better term. And I really like her defense department. Sure. It's like I haven't seen their credentials, you know? But I have some questions about their strategy.

A lot of hitters in there, though. Yeah. Colm McAlaney, Nick Offerman, Janet McTeer. He was in the last one. But yeah, it's like. There's some real strong actors given 1.7 lines of dialogue in this movie. Um, so anyway, he convinces them that he's the only one

who can accomplish this extraordinary feat, which when described in the movie, you're like, this plan makes no sense. It makes an Avengers movie look insane. It does, because it's all about, they just have to outthink the entity. But only Ethan understands how to out think the entity, but only Ethan understands how to out think the entity. Yes. And they just keep being like, no, the entity wants us to do this.

So I have to do that. And the entity just wants to do exactly what Ethan thinks that they should do. And if they don't, then all of the world's nuclear missiles are going to be set up simultaneously. Yes. It's, um, I don't know if you were a Seinfeld fan, but you know, Costanza-ing is a thing where George Costanza realizes one day if he just does the opposite of every impulse he has, that he will have a great life. And in fact, it does go amazingly well for him

for a stretch of time. And he kind of pulls a Costanza in the movie by out thinking the entity, but the things that he has to do to accomplish this are ludicrous. And also, this is fresher in my mind, I'm sorry. But so he only has three days to do it because somehow we don't know how they know, but we know that exactly in exactly three days is how long it will take the entity to take control of the entire world's nuclear stockpile if Ethan

doesn't get there first. So there's a giant countdown clock to three days because they understand enough about the entity to know its timelines, but not enough how to stop it. Also, last thing, when he is giving this speech, when he is giving this speech before he jumps into the sea, when he's like, this is our only option. And there are three days left. Half of the world's nuclear stockpiles are already under control by the entity. The other half, including the U S which is the largest, uh, our TBD.

We are still only at DEFCON three. And I gotta tell you, like, and they but the US is down by like day two and it's still only DEFCON 2. And it is only when the US missiles are no longer available that we are at DEFCON 1. And I don't think that's an accurate representation of the DEFCON system. I lived through the 2000s, you know? I don't have enough data on hand to confirm that supposition, but I think you're probably right.

OK, thanks. You know, obviously, it's an action movie. It's ridiculous. We can say, oh, well, this is an event movie, whatever. Like, the rules are always a little bit ridiculous. Even in Mission Impossible, there are all of these bold proclamations made about what could happen. But they're so specific.

And they spend so much time, and they want you to take this seriously. And also, once you're, you know, once you're showing us pictures of the nuclear missiles of every country that, you know, has them, there's a tonal thing that's like not quite funny enough for me to just be like, oh, okay, well, you guys are just being ridiculous. So then I'm worried about DEFCONs. No, to me, this is a challenge of the movie, because on the one hand, when he does jump into the ocean and is miraculously saved.

You like hooted. I was like, woo! This is like movies, man. You were just like, yo! I was like, that was awesome. The way they shoot it, the way the crew is clearly shooting him, like flying into the ocean. Just the energy of the action filmmaking that they can accomplish in this movie is fucking awesome.

And we're going to nitpick the movie to death, but there are a few things that they pull off that just like get me so jazzed about movies. But everything leading up to it and then everything in the aftermath of it. Well, not everything in the aftermath of it because then you wind up on the USS Ohio with one Trammell Tillman.

Yeah, I think the way that he's saved is extremely unlikely. The frogmen on the submarine float up just in time before he freezes to death in the Bering Sea. Even that, I don't care, because even that's a cool shot where they show up one by one

and you don't know if they're friendly. It is cool. You know, there's some cool shot where they show up one by one and you don't know if they're friendly. It is cool. You know, there's some cool, are they, they're Navy officers in the submarine, correct? I mean, I would think so. So the Naval officers say that one of which is Katie O'Brien, last seen in Love, Lies, Bleeding. She's awesome. She's awesome in this movie.

And Tramell Tillman is the commander of the submarine. I know you don't watch Severance, but he is, in my opinion, the best part of Severance. And when he showed up in this movie, I was like, this is gonna be good. Several people in our screening also cheered as soon as he showed up. He's just a terrific actor and somebody who can like immediately, he reminds me of like old, not in the same way, but like when Joe Pantaleone would show up in a movie and you'd be like, we're about to have a fun scene here. Like it's the same thing with Tillman.

And he's, he's one of the only characters in the whole film, in my opinion, that has that old mission Impossible feeling of like, what's this fucking Ethan Hunt guy doing? You know, like that thing of like, everyone's like, what's this guy's deal? Yeah. But it's funny. And his delivery is very arch and amusing. Somehow he has chemistry with Cruz. He does. So does Katie O'Brien.

Like they are actually interacting with each other. And he's... He gets to both, like, be in on it. You know, he says, like, if you want to poke the bear, then you came to the right place. While also just, like, absolutely casting doubt on every single thing. In a funny way. Like, he's funny.

He has comedic timing. He really does. And he is on that submarine so that he can, um... Basically get, like, Insta-training to deep sea dive so that he can, now that he's in possession of the cruciform key, unlock the power of the entity and then... I guess the idea is to destroy it, right? To make it inoperable for anyone so that no one can have control of it.

Yeah, because Luther made him a poison pill. We didn't even talk about... I mean... This is a... Okay, I'm sorry. We went too far. This was a huge sin, in my opinion. The way that they edited the storyline of Luther and Luther's death and the way that Gabriel set Luther up to be killed and drew Ethan Hunt into this, which happens in the first act. I forgot about this.

I apologize. But they edited it in a way where they show you an aspect of it and then they go back to what really happens, and then they go forward again to Luther's death. And I don't know why that was better than just showing it to us in a linear fashion. I don't know why that sequence was chopped up, because... This is complicated in the world of Mission Impossible,

but the most meaningful emotional relationship that Ethan Hunt has in his life is with Luther. That is his best friend, that is the guy who's been his road dog in all of these movies. Ving Rhames is Team TC for life. And they kill his character, which I think is honestly a good choice. I have no problem with it.

I wanted Chewbacca killed in The Last Jedi, or The Last Skywalker. Like I think that- You said it, not me. But I think that those making choices like that in movies can be very powerful because it shows you real stakes. And if you're like, this is the last one,

we're making big choices. We're not letting people survive this stuff. It could be done well. It just wasn't done well in this movie. But before he dies, he does make this poison pill. Right. Which then Gabriel steals so that getting to Gabriel can, you know, be part of the tension of the movie as well.

And then Tom Cruise has to, like, run through London really fast. I guess he has to run through London really fast to get to Ving Rhames. When I said that there was no action for the first 70 minutes besides the prison break... There was some running. If you count running, which it's not a sports thing, maybe it's action to you. I did get a little emotional when he ran under Big Ben.

But... yeah, that sucks. So he has a poison pill. Gabriel has a poison pill, and Cruz needs to retrieve access to the entity, and then draw out Gabriel so that he can get the poison pill from him. That's essentially the plan. So here's another thing. The keys, it turns out, are useless.

I mean, that's fine. A MacGuffin's a MacGuffin, but like, come on guys, what are we doing? Well, what do you mean by it being useless? Well, it turns out that the Russians also have one. Right. So, whatever. I mean, I guess Ethan still needs it to open the place, but it's like... It wasn't this rare object that we thought it was.

I don't think it's useless. I think it has value in that, for Ethan when he eventually gets to the submarine, and he does get to the submarine. And this is the second biggest of the dramatic set pieces in the movie. Right. There's some shooting in between. And some sled dogs. Yeah. I mean, the other thing we should mention is, is like, there's an attempt on Ethan's life

when he's on the submarine by a zealot who believes that the entity should take power and that there, we see on news reports that there are people around the world who have turned their lives over in a kind of QAnon or Jim Jones fashion to the all-seeing power of the entity. The other thing to note about that sequence or Jim Jones fashion to the all-seeing power of the entity. The other thing to note about that sequence is that Tom Cruise defends himself

and does the hand-to-hand fight in Boxer Briefs, which is not the only time he will do an action sequence in Boxer Briefs in this film. I would say it's at least 15% of the movie. I'm just gonna be honest. He looks good. Like I have no notes. He's in his 60s. He looks good. Like I don't, I have no notes. He's in his 60s.

It's fine. And as long as he's healthy. I'm sure a lot went into that or whatever. He looks, it's actually jarring. It's just a pure costuming choice. That it is just like his boxer brief for like a very long period of time. It's the same thing as him being shirtless in Jack Reacher for like six minutes, you know, why is this happening?

But now it's 10 years later and he's still doing the same thing. He typically looks very, very, um, real inside of these fight sequences, inside of these action sequences. Like obviously he is notorious for doing a lot of his own stunts, or at least partially a lot of his own stunts, but he is just very credible for as a man in his sixties, I'm in my, I'm 20 years younger than him and I'm dying. So I gave him credit for that. The whole sub-sequence, when he does actually become

a deep sea diver, there's a couple of incredible moments where a submarine flies past him that is quite scary and really, really well done. And then the film moves into like a different kind of state where the music stops and we are submerged literally inside of this flooded submarine, which is sliding down the shelf of the sea, the bottom of the sea.

I really enjoyed this. I think this may be a slightly divisive sequence because it is quite quiet and it lacks the kind of like daring do thrum of the best of Mission Impossible. Um, this is a, this is a film and a series that is very indebted to James Cameron and a movie about AI a la Skynet from Terminator and then submarines and the under the world under the world of the Abyss. It's just a lot of Cameronian influence going on, maybe a little bit too much for my liking.

But I did think that the way that they orchestrated the scene, it's another thing where I'm just like, I don't know how they did this. I have no idea what they shot inside of, how they made that tank look the way that it did, how Cruz spent all of that time underwater is very obviously him doing all of the swimming through the sequence. Yeah, he's definitely diving. Yeah. There's something kind of extraordinary about it, but the quiet approach will lead to some

people, I think, thinking it's boring. And it is also wordless, and I obviously, because he's just by himself underwater and he's focused on breathing. And then I think it's almost, it's over 10 minutes. It might be close to 15 minutes long. I found it a little boring. I am not a fan of the underwater sequences. I just kind of always feel like I'm watching someone like get their scuba diving license. And that's great for them. But there are parts of it that I like you. I'm like, how did you do this? It does look very real. Um, but it's long.

That's, I mean, that's just the thing. It's, it's, it's a little too long. It is very long. Eventually he is successful. How long, how deep do you think the ocean is by the way? I have no idea. Because they say he's growing 500 feet, which is like going to kill him. But 500 feet doesn't seem that deep to me.

So I just Googled it's 12,000 feet is how deep the ocean is. But he's only going 500 feet. Yeah. So the bottom of the Bering Sea is 500 feet? He's at 500 feet. Don't they say that, Jack? Back me up. They do.

Yeah. Well, that explains how he's able to survive because that's the one thing that I found quite confusing is if you were at the bottom of the ocean and your suit has been torn from your body as it is near the end of the sequence Yeah, I got that's that's boxer briefs. Number two the boxer brief stay on though Google also says the Bering Sea is 12,000 feet deep. So Well, I mean it is on the ledge as Sean noted like it hit one part and like it's gonna keep sliding further But they say... He's just on the sandbar there, 500 feet deep.

And they're like, you can't at that depth. And they're saying this is like extraordinarily low for a diver. And you go any lower, your survival chances decrease by the second. The other thing they say is that, and this was just a good life tip, when you are going up, when you're ascending back to the water, you have to breathe out continuously or else your lungs will explode. So that is one thing we learned from Mission Impossible Final Reckoning. That will be helpful when you are deep sea diving in the Bering Sea in the near future.

Obviously it's extraordinarily cold there, and most of it is also covered in sheets of ice. Mm-hmm. And so... They've got a chainsaw. The suit is torn. He somehow finds a space where he can be saved via chainsaw and then is CPR'd back to life in a, what is the tent called that he needs to enter? It's a hyperbaric chamber, right? Yes, they call it something different.

It's the pressurization. Yeah, oh, I'm getting thumbs up from Jack. Yeah, there we go. See? I know all about C Technology. It's super dumb to be like, this is not realistic in a Mission Impossible movie, but I'm like, what the fuck? It does look like a tent that you buy at REI.

Like, kind of a fashion one, you know? It's shaker than, you know, it's, but... Where did they get that? Simon Pegg just made that? No, no, he has it in a box. And he's like, our plan is that we have to get this box to wherever Tom Cruise tells us to. To these coordinates. To these coordinates.

And then when Haley Atwell and her friend pull up the dog sled, they show it, they're like the... But it really does look like some sort of device that you order on Amazon to help your toddler get through a five-hour flight, you know? It does. You've just reminded me of the concurrent action happening alongside of the sub-sequence,

which is that the rest of the team, which includes Simon Pegg, Haley Atwell's character, Grace, and Paris, Pam Clementeves' character... Who's very funny in this. She does, she retains some of the humor that is otherwise missing from the movie. She also arrives at the home of a man named Don Lowe,

who people recognize as the original kind of quant designer of the security system at Langley from the very first film. And that space that Hunt is able to breach, which then leads to Don Lowe being reassigned to this Arctic nowhere. And he is a listening station. A listening station, yes. Which is what many people are doing at home right now. They're sitting in their listening station, quietly listening to us speak about the film.

And Don Lowe's up there and he fell in love. He met a gal and a woman native to the area. And they spent some time falling in love and they built a life together. Sorry, just local woman falls in love. Just make sure. Pretty much how they pitch it to you. Yeah, but they seem to have a nice connection

and their house is lovely. Yes, it is. They made a nice little life for themselves in the middle of goddamn nowhere. And he seems very happy about it. And he, of course, is a person. Too many dogs. A lot of dogs, a lot of dogs.

He's been keeping up on the technologies of the world. He's got a lot of info and floppy disks hidden in his house. This is fucking weird. But he has information that everyone wants. And also the Russians are there. Yes. The Russians want this information. The Americans want this information.

We do have this potential nuclear holocaust that coming. And so access to the entity and power over this circumstance is much desired. And so there's a big fight. That home catches fire. There's some hand to hand combat, some people throwing bookshelves on each other. Eventually, Grace is able to escape thanks to Don Lowe's wife and her sled dogs. Grace and Don Lowe's wife are sent out separately with the codes because he memorized them. Yes, the coordinates for where the crew will land.

Yeah, but they're actually not the coordinates. They're the coordinates exactly halfway across the ocean. Don't forget it in case the Russians were listening. That was stupid. Which is fine. You know what I realized? We also didn't even talk about Hannah Waddingham. No. Not my favorite performance in the film.

I think that I could have done that. Okay. And like next time you need a steely American, consider casting someone who knows how to do an American accent. That's all. And I do. Are you saying that you don't feel that women

should be commanders of aircraft carriers? I think I should be. OK. That would probably go really well for all of us. Eventually, Grace does meet up and she revives Hunt, and then the plan continues to pace, where Hunt draws in Gabriel and they have a confrontation in South Africa, and then they go on a chase,

and then that leads to the biplane finale. Yeah, but there's all this other stuff about another bomb that Gabriel's gonna set off, that then everybody else has to defuse, because they gotta give them something to do. And then like, Pom's gotta do surgery on Simon Pegg and you know, on Benji, excuse me. So it still is incredibly complicated and I'm not sure I understand everything.

Also Angela Bassett has to decide to save the world in her own way. She does. Um, she also has a son who is in the military and whatever decision she makes will also affect him and the entire world. We're trying to get a little bit of emotional gravity around the president, which I don't think we needed necessarily in this movie, but it's nice that Angela Bassett's character has a son.

The big finale is extraordinary. As you said, it is like top tier stunt filmmaking. The final 20 minutes of the movie, I just sat beside you, my mouth wide open. So was I. And it was honestly, the reaction is like, what are they doing? How is he doing that?

And now, you know, I still wish the hair were shorter, but I do understand why his hair is longer now. It's so that when Tom Cruise is literally hanging off a biplane, as the plane is flying, the wind rushing flattens his hair in such a way that you know, oh, he really is actually flying. He's on the plane, yeah. His skin is moving in a way that suggests they timed whatever treatments just so,

so they would be flexible enough to be moved by the wind. He is just on the plane. It's funny, in a movie where we have a hundred nitpicks about our inability to suspend disbelief, during this sequence, I was like, I think he might die. I think he might die. I think maybe they're gonna show us the film. Everything we've been seeing of him in the last two weeks

must be recorded because this seems impossible to me. Pardon the pun. I know that there's that Matt Damon anecdote about having dinner with Tom Cruise, and they talk about, you know, the insurance guys said no, and so Matt Damon said, like, oh, well, like, so what'd you do? And Tom Cruise goes, well, I found other insurance guys.

But like, who is saying, like, is it insured? It can't be. Like, how, like, so what'd you do? And Tom Cruise goes, well, I found other insurance guys. But like, who is saying, like, is it insured? It can't be. Like, how are they guaranteeing his safety? Like, what is... When you get to the end of the movie, when in fact he does survive, when in fact he does defeat Gabriel, he literally punches him out while holding onto the side of the plane

and pulls him out of the plane. And he does a very grisly death. And he successfully lands the plane. No, he doesn't land the plane. He jumps out with the parachute. And then the parachute bursts into flames. And that got a real gasp like, oh my God, in our... So did he just land hard or was there a backup shoot?

Jack? It's kind of a... Backup shoot. There's a backup shoot. They don't really show you much of the backup shoot? They also don't really show you him finding the original shoot. And that's one of the last things Gabriel says to him. It's like, I have the parachute.

Ha ha. And then, you know, he meets his end. And then the next time you see Tom Cruise, he's managed to find the shoot. It's a little rickety in the storytelling. Anyhow, he does land. He does encounter Briggs, the Shea Wiggum character we have not mentioned, who...

Oh, my God, that was the, that's the worst part. Not Shea Wiggum, he's wonderful. The reveal of, of Briggs, which is that in fact, his name is Phelps, Jim Phelps, maybe perhaps Jim Phelps Jr. He is the son... Just like your dad. ...of the John Voight character

from the original Mission Impossible, a man who betrays Ethan in that film. And it feels like a completely unnecessary callback to the first film because... it's not really carried through in any meaningful way. We don't really see Phelps other than in South Africa, but later in the movie, he's not... You know, he's presented as the potential, you know,

the sort of like the... the bad guy's good guy, you know, he's presented as the potential, you know, the sort of like the, the bad guys, good guy, you know, sort of like the, the, the military operation, the FBI, the CIA, the person who is working to bring in Hunt from the American side. But he doesn't play a significant role in the movie until you get to the end where he pulls a gun on Ethan at the very end. Right. And you think, oh my God, are they going to shoot Ethan Hunt in the last two minutes of this movie? And then he extends a handshake. And extends a handshake, yeah.

Could have used more Shay Wickham in the movie, if I'm being honest. He was good in the beginning. I felt bad that he got saddled into that plot stuff. I still don't know what I was supposed to learn from it. Can we talk about Angel Lasset's plan to save most of the world? Sure. And all these people are like, okay, so you just have to bomb everyone else and set off like hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons and also sacrifice one American city? That's the one that is a little curious.

That's our only plan. And then when she finally, you know, bless Angela Bassett, Madam President, she says at the last moment, she covers the button, she's not doing it. And then she makes one phone call. They take all the missiles offline and then everything's okay. I don't know. I just, I don't understand. I would get some new advisors.

They all want her to, well, let's just, let's just talk it out. What city do you think they were going to target there? They never say. Kansas city? No, I think, no, I think it has to be like a major. Like a, like a, like a tier two city in America. Like a Boston? I think so. Yeah, too bad.

Sorry. Yeah. So the Knicks did. Um, well, I mean, what else is on the board here? Seattle? Is that on the board? Dallas? Oh, Dallas, sure. I mean, that's a hugely populous area.

Isn't Dallas the fourth biggest city in America? Like, are we talking that big? But less strategically valuable, that seems to be what's notable about this. I'm sure the people of Dallas right now are like, will you shut the fuck up? It's really fucked up, but they, like, no one even ever explains.

There's no discussion. There's no like, there's like, well, clearly you'll just have to bomb everyone else. You'll have to like, just bomb all the nuclear, all the other nuclear arsenals. Like why? How would the entity not know that was happening? I mean that well, because he hasn't gotten to the end of the third day yet, you know? So they know their timeline. You remember in Dead Reckoning when the entity is at that club and he's just like,

warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, you know, like he's hanging out at that party. Like he's there or she's there, frankly. We don't. Wait, we didn't talk about the entity coffin. OK. You know? Another thing that was clearly written at the last minute, where it was like, don't go inside of this chamber.

Right, which is how he communicates. With the entity, it will change you. By the way, I meant to tell you that I was the voice of the entity. That's what I'm really proud of my work in that film. That sucked. It was really not good. I think what it was meant to do in part was not just to be an exposition delivery system to Ethan in the movie,

but also to explain how Gabriel had gone completely mad, because Esai Morales' character in this movie is not this kind of steely, all-knowing, you know, agent of fortune as he is in the first film. He is a lunatic. Right. It's a completely different character the way that he's playing it, especially in the final sequence. It's like, this guy's nuts. And I guess what Pom Clementi's character tells, what Paris tells Ethan is like, don't go in there,

it will change you. And I guess maybe forced exposure to the entity has made Gabriel go nuts. Well, that seems to be true of all the followers, you know, that there's something. But Gabriel does also think that he's going to control the entity. He does. Because that's the other thing here.

Stupid man. Very stupid man. Okay, here's some things that are missing from this movie that are not really missing from other Mission Impossible movies. This movie's not sexy at all. No. Well, I think they're trying to have like a little like CPR like when it comes back to life. That's romantic. It's like very hazy also and there's like a deep breath that if you would like to, you

know, you know, what do they call an orgasm in French like a little death. So there you go. Sure. That's a rather elegant portrayal. But it's not sexy. I agree. It's not sexy. I agree, it's not sexy. You know, this is a franchise that has hosted, like, Paul Patten exploding into that gala,

or Lea Seydoux in that hotel room. Sure. You know, this is the White Widow and Vanessa Kirby removing the knife from the side of her garter. Like, this is like one of the sexiest franchises. This is Elsa Faust emerging from the pool in the one piece, and you're like, oh my God, Rebecca Ferguson. Tom Cruise is in his boxer briefs for at least 15%.

I, of this movie, I do agree. I thought that Haley Atwell's ski parka was very fetching. And the pre-ski looks were great. But like, she is completely bundled up because they are in the tundra. I don't mind saying Haley Atwell is smoking hot. Why is she in a parka this whole movie? Listen, she is like, my wife, if I had a wife, I'm with you.

It's an unusual choice for a franchise that is sort of, you know, and the original TV series too, that there's something, it's a spy show. It's in a sort of post-Bondian storytelling. So to remove a lot of those factors, obviously the stakes of the story are high, that shouldn't interfere with that. And the other thing, which is just that

the sense of humor is just not there. Even in Dead Reckoning, which is a little bit more serious and has all this AI stuff that you weren't crazy about the first time around, it has the submarine stuff. It has the Rome sequence. It has Rome, it has the car chase. It has that Buster Keaton style slapstick comedy that Cruise really excels at.

We forget that Grace's character is a pickpocket and they have that great handcuff sequence where they're switching arms and switching seats. There's all this kind of the closeup magic and the flirting. There's none of that in this movie. No. And it's a mistake, I think. I think it is actually against the brand of what has made these films so successful. So I find that very disappointing.

Agree. film so successful. So I find that very disappointing. Agree. The other thing that I found was kind of missing ultimately is a very unusual sense of self-awareness. In the last couple of Macquarie films with Cruise, we'd been hearing increasingly about the messianic nature of Ethan Hunt. He used, quote, the living manifestation of destiny. Which felt ridiculous, but very knowing. Right. Sort of, maybe not tongue in cheek, but with a sense of like,

we're doing something with this guy here. You come along on the ride with us because this is going to be a crazy story. And in this movie, it has kind of curdled fully into self-serious Messiah complex. And it's happening at a time when Cruz has fully become the avatar of movie savior. He's the guy who brought the theaters back with Top Gun Maverick. He's the guy who goes to see Sinners and goes to see Ten tenant in the movie theater and takes a selfie afterwards and says, I want everyone to succeed at the movie theater. The entity is clearly in some ways a metaphor for the algorithmic streaming revolution and difference between human experience and communal experience of the movies and sitting at home alone and letting a machine dictate to you what you should enjoy. These two things are mapped

so hard onto each other that it's a little hard to enjoy it now for me. Yeah. And I know I'm like really deep in the tank on the cruise mythology as you are, but the balance was off on this one when it came to all that stuff for me personally. I completely agree. It just, the movie's seriousness in general and self-seriousness and belief that, like, we need to see lots of pictures of all of the different missiles, um, like, a lot of times getting ready to go. And even, like, there are a few kind of premonitions

of disaster to come where McCrory, and I thought they were, like, very upsetting and effective, but they just, they filmed and included random sequences, like, of the world ending, just to kind of bum you out. So it's not light on its feet. It's not like on its feet. It's not like, this is silly. There is no sense of the ridiculousness

about the movie generally. And so then that does mean that it can't like wink to you or it doesn't really give Tom Cruise an opportunity to be funny also, which brings out some of or counterbalances some of the messianic stuff. I think also, again, it just really uniquely doesn't make sense in a way that you start asking questions rather than just being like, yeah, yeah, well, Ethan has to do it.

I mean, this movie, he's just been like hiding out in a hotel room for four months with the key. So it's a great note. Like, okay. Because that's- He's the most wanted man on earth. And it just bit, and, but also like he got the key and then he's just like, well, I'll just chill out.

I'm not really sure what to do about it. You know? Cause like on the one hand, you know, the destruction of the entire world. On the other hand, people say we really need the internet. So I'll just, I'm going to be a neutral party. Like, what are we? It's a devil's bargain. And you know, sometimes I got to look at Instagram.

I don't know what to say. If we need to be annihilated because of that, so be it. So there's just a lot of Blu-ray boutique sellers on Instagram that I need to look at. If it's doing too much and being too earnest, but there isn't If it's doing too much and being too earnest, but there isn't any like escape valve of humor or, you know, absurdity. There's just there's one mask thing in this movie as opposed to like four thousand.

Even the ridiculous gadgets are all about different ways to use AI to end the world or save the world. And really, like, they're not gadgets. They're just like a bunch of like laser bunch of laser, what are the drives? What are they called? The floppy disks? No, no, no, the ones that... Oh, the one where they capture the entity in. Well, sure, but what is the USB sticks?

Oh, yeah. Well, there's one where it's like, it's a hyper terabyte mega drive. I didn't even know this could exist, but Luther created one. I actually love that stuff. That's to me, that's Mission Impossible. I like it.

Exactly. And I like the idea of like Haley Atwell, the world's greatest pickpocket, has 0.0001 seconds to grab it out. That shit is great to me. Yeah, that's great. But even like the Luther making like the special device that will capture that whatever is shrouded in him also, you know, dismantling a nuclear bomb that's going to ruin London, but is going to kill him. It's just like...

Yeah, only the underground tunnels that will be destroyed, not the entirety of London because of his dismantling. Yeah. Yeah, this is a flawed movie with incredible moments. And frustrating lows. It is, it is. There's just a lot to it. And you know, like, first mission impossible is one hour and 50 minutes. Two is two hours and three minutes. Three is two hours and six minutes.

Four is two hours and 13 minutes. Five is two hours and 11 minutes. Six is two hours and 27 minutes. Seven is two hours and 43 minutes. And eight is two hours and 49 minutes. This is something that is happening at movies. That this kind of length bloat is happening. Now, I love a good long movie, a movie that is, I love Killers of the Flower Moon.

I wanted that movie to be as fulsome as possible. I think if you need that much space to tell a grand story, I completely respect that. This is not that. No. Because of the shambolic nature of construction, you can kind of just feel them tacking eight, seven, four minutes into sequences that have no flow and no rhythm. And so that pacing that you were talking about,

just hamstrings this movie. Or are clearly filmed after the fact, you know, in one... Yes, reshoot city. Right, yes, and you can almost pick out like, oh, interesting, okay, this one, this one. Like, I wondered, this scene where early on in the first act, when Erica, Madam President, I'm not on a first name basis with her, Yes.

is like, she ultimately decides in this movie to send Ethan off on its way. But the way that it's shot is like they're in the war room with her defense department of great TV actors. And then- How dare you call Janet McTier a TV actor. I know, I'm sorry. I was just- Shame on you.

It's all the boys. As you know, you got your Nick Offerman, you got your Hold Mac Lainey, you've got your Charles... Holt is, I mean, this is an icon of masculine cinema. They're all... Listen. We've just seen the man in the amateur. They're great. Okay.

But you understand my point. Yes. And so the scene ends with her being like, you know, lock him up or whatever, and so the scene ends with her being like, you know, lock him up or whatever, and then it cuts to two soldiers leading him outside, and it's revealed that she's like, out of the helicopter waiting for him. But I was like, oh, there was definitely a version of this movie

where she puts him in prison. And he like actually is, and because of the way it's shot, and the way that, you know what I mean? And when you can see that level of... It's possible that that was an alternative route for the story. Of PC-ness. Yeah. No, I think that's a good call. Yeah.

I had another issue I wanted to chat with you about, which is Greg Tarzan Davis's character Degas, who was Briggs's partner in the first film. Okay. But joins Ethan's side, throws away his career in the CIA to join the Impossible Mission Force, which I don't know what their benefits are like. Like, I don't know if that was a good call. Does it come with a vehicle? Like, I'm really not sure. But he is now joined up with this ragtag group

of international criminals and fugitives because he believes Ethan is right. Like, I know this keeps happening in these movies where people are like, I'm on your team, but at least they're all IMF, and like, they seemingly went through a training program of some kind. This guy is just like, absolutely, I'm a hired gun for you, Ethan, whatever you need.

I will definitely put my life in danger over and over again. And I'll like, stay back here and help the couple dismantle yet another random bomb that we gotta pull out and cut the right strings on at the right time. He's like, I've befriended Don Lowe, and we will die together if necessary. And then they did. to dismantle yet another random bomb that we gotta pull out and cut the right strings on at the right time. He's like, I befriended Don Lowe and we will die together if necessary.

And then they did. I'm not with you. Very curious movie. What else haven't we covered off on? I mean, I've brought a lot of my takes to you. They don't let Haley Atwell cook enough. Not at all. They don't really use locations that, you know, I mean, I understand that, like, the water tank is a location or whatever, but the first hour, give or take some running through London is just people in rooms or in bunkers, really.

Or in helicopters or in submarines. You're right to know too that this is a lot of TV actors. Which I really have nothing against Tramell Tillman or Henry Cherney or Holt or Hannah Waddingham. I think they're all talented. But they're not... Rebecca Ferguson, you know what I mean? It's true. They're not Vanessa Kirby.

Yeah. The movie's missing some juice. And it is missing all, like, the grand locations and, like, you know, the Burj Khalifa or the Palais Royale, which I never really got confirmation on what happens there. The center of Rome. Yeah. This is like... We're in a cave in South Africa.

We're at the bottom of the Bering Sea. Right. And we're in, you know in an underground bunker in London. Right. And the biplane exterior stuff is all outside. And in Zach's piece, Macquarie says that they had trouble finding governments that would let them do the biplane in their actual country. I think they got turned down a couple of times. So that is beautiful.

But otherwise, it is just... it doesn't have that kind of globetrotting vibe that is a fun part of Mission Impossible. I'm not saying that we should be the czars of Mission Impossible, because we don't really know what we're talking about. But we do know what we're talking about. And there's just a few checkpoints that I feel like you kind of need to hit with these films. And this one very curiously avoids or evades them.

Let me ask you one more question. OK. So the entity, which is AI that, you know, can ruin all of us, just winds up in a little glow box. Yeah, that's right. And they just hang onto it. And then they just like bring it to the center of London. Yeah.

It's like when they caught Jafar in the lamp at the end of Aladdin. And it's just like, somebody's gonna rub that lamp. And then Jafar's gonna come back. And then Jafar returned in Aladdin 2. You know, we have not had enough fishing training as a society to like, someone is gonna put that little drive in their computer, you know, it's, but also-

You're leading me to my next conversation. Okay. Which is, is this the last Mission Impossible movie? I said the minute they actually announced the Stunt Oscar, I was like, they gotta do another one to get Cruz's Oscar. And I know you think he'll be like, no, it's just the guys. But I actually think that he will accept it with his team. Well, there obviously is a remarkable stunt design team

that works on all these movies and Cruz more so than most stars, maybe more so than any star, is at the forefront of participating and helping the design and obviously participating at a high level in the execution of it. The story, you know, he doesn't die, so it is not final in that way, so the way that No Time to Die was. But it does feel like the end. And I'm cynical enough to know that if there's money there, that they'll come back. But the movies that he has been talking about in the press recently that he is looking to explore again, obviously, he's got this new film coming with Ina Ritsu next year.

I think Top Gun 3 is very much on the table. There's another critical sequel that he was talking about. I can't recall what it was. Do you remember this? Tom Cruise sequels. No, I was too focused on him eating two buckets of popcorn at every movie. Now, some people have been mocking his popcorn eating style because he kind of tends to throw it. I support that. Yeah, I support it too.

I think a violent popcorn consumption is fine by me. Days of thunder. Days of thunder, yes. I just, which also is F1, but that's fine. I do feel that Two Buckets is a lot of popcorn. Yes, agreed. And doesn't correspond to the physique that we saw displayed prominently

in Mission Impossible Final Reckoning. Well, popcorn unbuttered and unsalted. Sure, it's not that bad for you. That's true, but like at the, you know, I don't know if you can get the calorie control you're looking for at your local Cineplex. I like to get a little Molly water on mine. Oh, really?

Yeah. And then you and the editor are just like, nnts, nnts, nnts, nnts, nnts, nnts. Such a strange movie. It's such an interesting... But it's fun. I don't get it. It is fun. It is. I just...

You mentioned the high and the low of my experience. Yeah. Coming off that Knicks win of game four, and there was also a Mets walk-off win that night, and it was when the Mets were sort of peaking and they've actually had a bit of a downturn since that moment. Oh. They got swept in the Subway Series against the Yan they've actually had a bit of a downturn since that moment. They got swept in the Subway Series against the Yankees.

They lost two of three. That's not true. They won one game. Sorry. They won one of three. Sorry, Jack. Jack just woke up. Yeah.

And they also just lost two of three in Boston. They're on downslope. Nick's obviously getting crucified publicly, which is painful to watch. Right. It would have been hard for a movie to live up to the high that I felt watching that next game. So I want to see the movie again. I said it to you as soon as we went out, I was like,

I need to see that again. I kind of need to see it in a different headspace. And it does seem like the second time that you saw it, that you enjoyed it more, in part because of the crowd that you saw it with. Definitely. And even... But it still left you scratching your head. Yeah, I mean, I was definitely confused, but like, I think it with. Definitely. And even... But it still left you scratching your head. Yeah. I mean, I was definitely confused, but like, I think it's fun to talk about why the entity

is just like trapped in a little Tamagotchi, you know? And then did you have Tamagotchis growing up? I was getting a little old. Jack Tamagotchi, yes, no? Nope. Okay. Do you know what that is? Nope.

Okay. It was a little creature. So it was like, help me, help me describe it. It was like, it was a little electronic device. It was like, it was like this big, yeah. Sort of like golf ball. Just for those of you that don't have a visual, Jack's just like nodding at us. I can only see his eyes like TJ Echelberg style, like through the window.

Talking about their youth. Okay. So it was a little electronic Tamagotchi thing, right, Jack? No, it's just like toy thing. And I guess it was like a tiny video game where you had to keep the being, the little animal alien robot being not really sure on Tamagotchi lore, alive. And it would poop a lot and you had to clean up its poop,

but you were just like pressing two or three buttons. And it would poop a lot and you had to clean up its poop, but you were just like pressing two or three buttons. And it went with you wherever you were. And so if you were six, uh, you were quite devoted to it and it beeped at annoying times, and then there was a whole thing of, could you take your Tamagotchi to school, but then your Tamagotchi, which no, but then your Tamagotchi was going to die, real phenomenon. Um, so now you guys just have real video games.

Congratulations. This has been Amanda's Toy Corner. So yeah, the entity is in a Tamagotchi. When we saw Dead Reckoning, you were more down on it than I was. I liked it. Yeah. In fact, I gave it four stars out of five.

On letterbox. On letterbox, yeah. I had a lot of fun with it. It is genuinely really fun, but I like AI That's what I was gonna say. That was your issue was ultimately like I don't think the entity is a good Villain for this franchise. We had a discussion about the quality of the villains on the Tom Cruise movie draft There's a lot of Owen Davian I think came out the winner the Phillips Seymour Hoffman character, but, you know, Sean Harris's character, Simon Lane, you know, much admired for his thoughts on anarchy.

And I don't know if the White Widow ultimately nets out as a villain. It kind of seems like she does. Her absence was felt deeply in this film for me, in part because I knew that she filmed stuff for it, and they didn't put it in. Yeah, what? I don't remember what happens to the White Widow at the end of... She's on the train, and she makes the deal with Kittredge, and then she's just gone. Because she makes the deal with Kittredge, and then she's just gone. Because she's been doubled by Haley Atwell.

And she's also a CIA... Agent operative. Yes. So... Now having seen the film, I actually think the entity is still a good idea. I don't actually think that's the problem. I think everything with the entity in this movie is overwrought. But it is like a good way to threaten the world.

Yeah, but again, like the stakes are like, just unplug it, you know? And that's like literally what they do. They just, they unplug it. And unfortunately that's not how AI works. Because I've seen the Terminator. They unplug both the vault that's in under... Where is like the protect, all the servers, you know? Another thing where I'm like, what is this place?

Is this a real place? These servers that can never, never be distracted that are ruining our environment. But then they also just unplug the US's missiles and like, it's fine. It's not ideal. Okay. Well, as we get to the end of this discussion, we need to update our Mission Impossible rankings. Okay.

Okay. Now I've revisited some of these movies in the year and in two years since Dead Reckoning. Not all of them. We, I think quite famously had Mission Impossible 2 as our least favorite. Yeah. Now many of the real heads are putting Final Reckoning near the bottom.

I think that's probably the case. I think so too. So I would keep, I still prefer this movie to 2. I do as well. There is stuff in 2 that I quite enjoy. Obviously, the throwing motorcycles at each other's stuff is pretty extraordinary. John Woo's stuff, there's, you know,

we've got doves flying in the air. Yeah, and there is something... Hanging from the cliff in the opening sequence, which is awesome. Yeah, it's sick. But it's very flawed. Now, is The Final Reckoning the second worst Mission Impossible movie?

It might be. Bob's not here for Mission Impossible 3. Nor Chris. Nor Chris, nor Bill. Yeah, that was, he was just jumping on the bat. He doesn't really believe that. He hasn't seen Mission Impossible 3 in 15 years. He was really funny though. I love Bill.

It was great. Uh, so what, well, three has Philip Seymour Hoffman. And this has a Tamagotchi. So... LAUGHS I think I'm with you. I think Final Reckoning goes to seven. I think you all of the three heads need to look yourself and your visual standards in the mirror, but...

Shame on these people trying to tell me that it doesn't look like TV. Come on, guys, get the fuck out of here. So then Mission Impossible 3 would be six. Now, does that mean that Dead Reckoning goes to five, a film you just drafted in the Tom Cruise movie draft? Yeah, well, that was strategy, my guy. That was desperation also. I'm aware, I'm aware.

Newsflash, I don't think either of us won that draft. So, that's, yeah, that's five. So then, and I would say that three and Dead Reckoning, I prefer Dead Reckoning personally. I think it's superior. I think the scale, the scope, the sense I prefer Dead Reckoning, personally. I think it's superior. I think the scale, the scope, the sense of humor. The Haley Atwell, the Rome, yeah, I do as well.

So then- Vanessa Kirby. Yes, we're down pretty clearly to the top four. Venice, you know, even though what they did to Rebecca Ferguson in Venice is unspeakable. You know, there's something really, really, really great though about that scene. I understand why they did it.

It's really, it's very good. But again, we've really felt her absence in this. I just want to go back to it really quickly though. It's the alleyway fight between Paris and Hunt, where he doesn't kill her and he bangs the lead pipe against the brick wall and lets her live, which then is like, was a good storytelling choice because it lets Paris kind of glide through the story

in a meaningful way. And then that leads to that bridge sequence when they fight and they have that knife battle, which is just incredibly elegant action filmmaking. Now, obviously a lot of people were not happy with Rebecca Ferguson's death. Some deemed it fridging. I'm not sure if it can be fridging when like the character is not even, her name is not uttered in this

film. She's not even, neither she nor the White Widow come up at all in this new movie. Nevertheless, you're right, she was missed. Number four, there's been some discussion about whether Ghost Protocol is underrated in the aftermath of our draft. Because it went so late, Bill got to get it pretty late. Yeah, but that's... We obviously did him a big favor on that one. Yeah, that's people kissing up to Bill, which is fine. Yeah.

Is... So, Rogue Nation... I realize I don't really remember very much about Rogue Nation. Even though I've seen it recently. We made a mistake. Chris kept asking me, is that the one, Rogue Nation, the one where they bomb the Kremlin? It's not. That is actually in Ghost Protocol.

Oh, okay. And then Ghost Protocol, I mean, Rogue Nation, he's hanging on the plane. Is that where there is also, like, an extended underwater sequence? There is. Yeah. Isn't that big circular?

Yeah, see, and I'm like, I don't, I find that boring. So I'm okay with... Oh, you're going to, so you want to put Rogue Nation at four. Well, I'm just saying, like, Birch Khalifa. But Rogue Nation's introduction of Ilsa Faust. Well, oh yeah, when she's like in the desert

and just, I mean, that's good. I was just doing some fake punches. That's how I fight. I don't think I feel very strongly, honestly. I'll let you make the call. You want Rogue Nation to be four? Well, so Ghost Protocol is Burj Khalifa. Jeremy Renner. Bombing the-hmm, Jeremy Renner.

Bombing the Kremlin, Jeremy Renner. Lea Seydoux. Paula Padden and Lea Seydoux. So, that's powerful. It's Brad Bird as the director. I find the plotting of that movie not great, and Burj Khalifa a little overrated. Sure, but like. It is iconic,

but the scene itself is fine. Blue is glue, red is dead is really good. It is good. Okay, I'll let you have that. That means Ghost Protocol goes to three. I believe last time we landed on the original Mission Impossible is two behind Fallout. We did. Is that still true?

I have not rewatched the original in some time. Even though it is a very, it's a big one for me. And you did get it in our draft. I did. I do think it's still true. I mean, we also just kind of have to stand by our own internal logic of like, I mean, Fallout is 25. But knowing what you know now about Donlo.

I thought that the Donlo is the only callback that I actually didn't really mind. I didn't mind it either. I thought it was kind of fun. There was a whole thing where they tried to retrofit three in where apparently what Ethan was stealing, the rabbit's foot was actually this code that created the entity, which like, whatever. You know? That was kind of a low for me.

That plus the, you know, Shay Wiggum stuff, Shay Wiggum innocent, makes me, I don't know, it didn't work. Mission Impossible 1 and all of the Donlo stuff I liked. And they, like, use effectively. But I still just think in terms of, like, pure action. It's Fallout. Yeah. Okay. Well, here are our official rankings before we wrap up this conversation. Number 8 is Mission Impossible 2.

Sorry to John Woo, it's just a fact. Mission Impossible, the final reckoning is 7. Mission Impossible 3 Final Reckoning is seven. Yeah. Mission Impossible Three is six. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, no longer part one, is five. Mission Impossible Rogue Nation is four. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is three. Mission Impossible from 1996 is two.

Mission Impossible Fallout is number one. So this series won't be back. So they say. Paramount is now owned by Sky Dance and David Ellison. That finally went through? No. Because they saved. No, it didn't go through. They caved and everything?

Well, it seems like it's gonna happen. I mean, it definitely seems like they're gonna. It feels like we're recording this on Thursday night before Memorial Day and it seems like we'll find out tomorrow. Certainly feels in play. Now, obviously Sky Dance is a participant in the Mission Impossible movies. In fact, this is among the most successful things that they've ever done is kind of like bringing this series back in a big way and Macquarie being a big part of that.

So I'm not ruling out nine happening. Do you think he would ever pass the baton? There was the aborted baton pass with Renner. Yeah. So... We dodged a bullet in my in my opinion, in that one. I... Listen. I'm glad that we got Fallout.

You know, I'm glad that we have this moment with Tom Cruise. I don't think it was, like, his proudest moment. Uh, in... Snatching it back? Yeah. So, it's like, it was a little, oh, boy, this is desperate. I don't think he will. Interesting.

Maybe he just recruits, you know, in the same way with Maverick, I guess he'll hand it off to, maybe he'll hand it off to like several people all at once, but it doesn't work. It never works. So no, he's not gonna let another guy be the guy. Come on. The extraordinary balance of giving credit to everyone else

and the psychotic, wonderful ego that powers these movies. It's very, very unique. Anything else you want to share? I had fun. Okay. And this was fun. Do you think that the people listening at home enjoyed this? Or do you think they just like didn't like the movie?

New years, I can tell they never do. Okay. And yet the show continues apace. So, I appreciate those, the silent majority of listeners who really love this show and don't share any feedback about that. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. I hope people have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We have not said the words Lilo and Stitch yet on this episode.

That is the other major film that is opening this weekend, and I suspect it will absolutely destroy Mission Impossible at the box office based on the early projections. Next week on the show, on Memorial Day, we will unveil our latest 25 for 25 installment. No clues for that one. Okay. And then on Wednesday, we will have seen Lilo and Stitch.

I'm not sure if I have a whole episode on Lilo and Stitch in me, but I wonder if there is something to be said about the children's entertainment right now. Yes, we can do that. But also, what about friendship? And friendship, of course. So do you think people are gonna see it? This is the new Tim Robinson, Paul White comedy. They have been seeing it in very small doses, but it does go wider.

Did you see it? I did see it. Oh. So I'm ready. OK. Well, then we'll talk about friendship. So if people can see friendship, they should see it. Do you think friendship and Lilo and Stitch

were well matched? Well, I haven't seen Lilo and Stitch yet. But in a way, I guess it is about. Have you not seen the animated film? I have. And I was just about to say it's about unlikely friends who are perhaps struggling to fit in in the world around them and find each other and then get up to stuff. Does that remind you of anyone?

Yeah. I mean, I saw friendship while you were on your golf trip. So that's, I have thought a lot about that. The pinnacle of male loneliness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the pinnacle of male loneliness. Yeah. Thank you for listening to the show.

We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for watching!