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This week, on Pure Summer Fun:
Greg & Joe scrap their episode plans to immediately react to the 8th Mission:Impossible movie. It’s the conversation that needed to happen about a movie 1.5 weeks old… That’s about 30 years newer than the typical Great Bad Movie® 😀
Joe’s Back of the Box
The world has been pushed to its breaking point. The all-powerful entity has taking control of cyber space and is now taking over countries nuclear arsenals. Ethan Hunt and his team are the only people standing between annihilation and survival. From the frozen landscape of the arctic to the streets of Europe to the caves of South Africa this movie will keep you guessing until the last second. Heros will fall, enemies will rise, in the end, will the world be left or will we have faced our final reckoning.
The REAL Back of the Box
MI 8 is the perfect conclusion to the Mission Impossible – averse. It sends off the cast with an epic movie that pushes the bounds in ways we have come to expect. This movie rivals MI Fallout. And while this is being touted as the last one of this era, I could see a MI 9 on the horizon if the chips fell just right.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe. In the movie we watched this week, we learned that a guy had something horrible happened to him 30 years ago, but that ends up putting him on a course that is kind of like a blessing in disguise. Has anything horrible ever happened to you that actually puts you on a better path in life?
Joe: Does grad school count?
Greg: Was that a horrible mistake.
Joe: And felt like a horrible mistake when I was going through it? My wife, Gillian and I were both going through grad school at the same time, and then we decided on purpose to have a child in the middle of that. So just like a trifecta of bad mistakes. I do feel like the child was probably a good idea in the long run.
Joe: So maybe having a child also and going to grad school.
Greg: I find my answers to this sounds like you made a bunch of great decisions at once.
Joe: Exactly. It was just really hard.
Greg: But it’s difficult in the moment anyway.
Joe: You can stay tuned for my full docu series later on about this.
Greg: What’s that called? Com.
Joe: How to ruin your life in three easy steps.
Greg: A basket of bad decisions was exactly.
Joe: What about you? 30. Any mistakes you made 30 years ago that now, in retrospect, really stick the landing?
Greg: It seems like a big mistake that we stopped hanging out with a long time ago. But if we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have reconnected and realized we need to capture this in the podcast as soon as possible. So maybe great bad at least might not be here.
Joe: Although I would, and that makes my answer look real selfish all of the sudden. So.
Greg: Thanks, Greg. I’m not going to include, my education or my spouse or my kids.
Joe: Yeah, it’s all about us.
Greg: All right, let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: This can’t all be true. Every word.
Clip: If we want to bring the world back from the breaking, we have to deal with hell. Should he choose to accept.
Clip: Smart people on every side. How close to panicking.
Greg: The team has been betrayed. Is.
Greg: All your secrets compromised.
Clip: Our lives are the sum of our choices.
Clip: I have no regrets. The decision you.
Clip: I need you to trust me. One last time.
Greg: The year is 2025. And last weekend, a guy named Christopher McQuarrie and Tom cruise teamed up with a million other people to make potentially the most expensive movie ever made, Mission Impossible the Last Reckoning. We are talking about Tom cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff is in this thing. Henry Gurney Holt Mccallany Nick Offerman shows up, Hannah Waddingham shows up.
Greg: Tramell Tillman shows up, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, a baker’s dozen more people that, are incredible in this film. We have just witnessed this movie for the first time in the theater this weekend. So this is a different kind of show for great bad movies. We haven’t had as much time to digest a movie. So this is more of kind of an instant reaction.
Greg: But we have quickly changed our plans for what we were going to record this week, because this felt so important to me anyway. And so I’m so excited to hear Joe Skye Tucker was Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning, a great bad movie.
Joe: I would say. Absolutely. It’s a great bad movie.
Greg: Okay, great. Great.
Joe: It’s long.
Greg: The longest.
Joe: The longest.
Joe: And I walked out of the theater really liking it. Yeah. It’s definitely a movie that is going to take a second and third watching pretty soon.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: Because I feel like I missed a lot.
Greg: This pass.
Joe: Through. I feel like it I and I think I texted this year, I think it sticks the landing on what you’d want from a movie that could. If you’re kind of reading the tea leaves, be the final version or era of the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies. Yeah, I would be totally fine if this is the last one, and I will watch happily if there’s another one that comes along in 2 or 3 years when they’re deciding that they’re bored and want to come back to this, these characters.
Greg: We should say right up front that we’re going to have a spoiler free couple minutes on this podcast to give our instant reactions, and then we don’t know how to have spoiler free conversations about movies because they’re usually like 30 years old. So we’re going to be spoiler free up here, and then we will let you know when we are going to go into spoiler territory for this movie.
Joe: I really would love to know your thoughts on this, as I think you’re probably the biggest super fan of this movie franchise. It’s your favorite movie franchise ever. So how did this land for you after you watched it and you walked out of the theater, the credits roll, right? Breaks my heart. Put me there. What’s happening for you?
Greg: I think I just loved it. We discussed at length we had to split it into two episodes last time because we went so deep on Mission Impossible and the seventh one, Dead Reckoning. I was really nervous about this one. If it was more of seven, I was going to be really bummed, and they made some choices in here that really made me appreciate it.
Greg: And I actually really liked what they were going for. But I did have to actively choose, like, okay, I think I’m on board with what they’re doing here, which is the best sign of a great bad movie. You have to choose to get into it. It’s just like the choice. And, it’s a mission. I choose to accept.
Greg: Yeah. So I loved this movie. I thought it was better than seven for me. This movie. Without going into too much right away, this movie is a little bit more all encompassing. Its view is kind of a global view on the whole series, which I really enjoyed. Having said that, it’s pretty long and, I think because I was so steeped in the seventh one for our last episode, you know, I watched it a few times.
Greg: We talked about it at length. We were, you know, preparing the episode for release. It’s just really been on my mind. So I definitely had, like, red flags in mind that, if this happens, I’m going to be pretty bummed. And honestly, one of them is just a very simple thing of the entity noise. You know, the present day, yeah.
Greg: Wasn’t really in this movie. Yeah. Yet I don’t think it would surprise anyone. And they said this in the advertising that the entity was kind of, you know, still the big bad in this one as well. So I will just say, like, I was totally confused by this movie at times, which is not surprising for a mission impossible movie the first time through.
Greg: Like, wait, what? What are we doing? Yeah, but because I’d been so steeped in it for our last episode, I did kind of track with everything they were doing and saying, and I was glad that they didn’t, at least for me, overexplain it the way they did in seven.
Joe: You don’t think they over explained like, to me, this movie is almost the amount of exposition heavy scenes like we’re going to tell you everything that’s happening. Story is almost farcical and I loved it every single time. So like, I’m with you. I love this movie.
Greg: Yeah, like.
Joe: I’m in the tank for it. Sure. I have been converted over. And as I said there in the last episode, like, your love of this has made me look at them differently. And, and then once I kind of the lens for me shifted a little bit, I was like, oh, okay, I’m in. I get it.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I did like that. They trying to bring in the retrospective. I think the places where it fell flat for me. I’m honestly in the seventh one. The entity is ever present.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Within the story.
Greg: Right.
Joe: And then that kind of is pushed to the background a little bit.
Greg: Thank goodness.
Joe: And so that was kind of surprising. There’s some things that they set up that they don’t really follow through on. Oh yeah. Which is interesting.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And they do a lot of work to get to like the big set piece action scenes.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: They get there. Right.
Greg: As if that was written before the rest of the script.
Joe: Perhaps. Perhaps yes. Which I’m totally fine with. Yeah. And it didn’t feel too shoehorned in. There are some moments, but my one of my favorite things that they do in all these movies is basically they describe why it’s impossible. So it’s like, yeah, the bomb that you have to defuze is covered in acid, and then that’s covered in tinfoil, which is then covered in cement, which then has pressure point thing that only you know, every 30s.
Greg: Right.
Joe: This happens. And then and then it’s just like this long list of things that’s the most ridiculous. I love it every time they have that in this movie.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And so they set up a couple of those that don’t pay off for me, but it’s like just the conversation.
Greg: Is yeah, the.
Joe: Most ridiculous. It’s like and then we all have to do this one thing at the exact same time. And then while we’re doing that, we’ve got to do a cartwheel off of off of the balcony and land on this pressure plate. But we can’t land on it for for too long. We can have we have 0.3 seconds before it explodes.
Greg: We’ve all been there. Yeah.
Joe: And they’re just like, okay, I get it. Mission impossible.
Greg: And yet it always works out.
Joe: It always works out.
Greg: No spoilers, but you know, in the last seven it seems to have worked out most the time. Yeah.
Joe: So those are the places that I really there were a couple places that it started to drag for me a little bit. I missed a couple things in this. I missed Tom cruise on a motorcycle without a helmet.
Greg: Missed opportunity.
Joe: Missed opportunity. So that’s a that’s that’s probably the biggest spoiler I’ll give you in this spoiler free.
Greg: There you.
Joe: Yeah. You know there’s really fun action scenes in this movie. I really like the team.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: That they put together kind of the additions that they brought on. So what’s his name? Tarzan Davis. I think his character is great. Pom Klementieff.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Is wonderful in this. Totally. Hayley Atwell they kind of toned her down a little bit. On the first one, they kind of took the silliness away. I feel like the tone was kind of back to like, Fall Out or that tone is a little less silly, which I appreciated.
Greg: Yeah, tonally, this movie is is better for me than seven, and there were some silly moments in this, but yeah, whatever the tone is here, it was what I would have wanted seven to be as well. Less melodramatic. Yeah. If anyone had any hang ups with seven go, eight.
Joe: But yeah, I think it was for a movie that is the continuation of the story and seven and a little bit and six and bringing the whole world together.
Greg: Which yeah, they.
Joe: Hadn’t really done. You know, I was reading something about it just before this, and they were talking about the fact that Christopher McQuarrie, when he took the reins as a director, really kind of created the saga of it. And so that was before that. Each movie kind of stood on its own. Yeah. Once he kind of took the reins, he was able to build more continuity through all of them.
Joe: And so that kind of pays off. I think if you said to me, would you rather watch this, or would you rather watch this trimmed down to like two hours and 15 minutes.
Joe: I would take this one barely because it’s, it’s a little ambitious. Yeah. Always I always appreciate a big swing. Yeah. And there are there areas you could have easily trimmed 30 minutes out of this. There are some conversations moments, side quests almost if you will. That felt a little just superfluous on it. And you can tell that Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie and everybody in this loves these characters.
Joe: And so they’re trying to give them all their due and their moments.
Greg: Yeah, I completely agree. It does feel a little bloated. But at the same time, I think what they’re trying to achieve with it being the eighth film in a series, which it’s just incredible to me. They’ve done such a good job of renewing this franchise with each new one that during the seventh one I thought, oh no, are are they not going to be able to renew it for this?
Greg: You know, is this starting to kind of lag? And during this one, I was just enjoying myself the entire time, and I was surprised. It was the eighth film in a series and I still felt that way. And it’s been a pretty consistent feeling all the way through. It definitely jumped up when four and five came out for me.
Greg: Three, four and five. What am I saying? You know, I mean, what band can you think of that has an eight album run? That can still play new songs that their stadium show and people are stoked to hear them. That’s a that’s rarefied air and music, and I feel like that’s rarefied air and movies. Something I was thinking about this movie afterwards was I think I just take it for granted.
Greg: It’s so enjoyable. Even the places where it feels a little stitched. It’s stitched with care. It’s stitched because people care and they’re trying to go for something, you know, there’s very little phoning it in. Probably in anything Tom cruise does. But with Christopher McQuarrie and Tom cruise, they’re really trying for something, even if they don’t entirely know what it is that they’re going for until they find it, you know?
Greg: Yeah. So I give them the benefit of the doubt. All right. Well, we are going to get into some spoilers for Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should totally press pause and, go see the movie immediately and then come back. You will not regret it if you love great bad movies.
Greg: Yes. So that is the warning. We are now officially in spoilers for Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning. Joe, did you think that Ethan Hunt was going to die in this movie? Yes, I did too. Absolutely thought he was going to die. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, I was, emotionally prepared for that.
Joe: And his whole team like that was team. Yeah. That’s what I Rogue One situation. Yeah I just thought okay we’re going to watch as they kill off everyone. And when Luther dies they I mean obviously they make reference to these thick.
Greg: Is there a chance he’s sick in real life I don’t know. He’s in his 80s.
Joe: Right I think so he’s been around for a minute. So.
Greg: And the reason he left before the third act in Mission Impossible seven was because he had personal reasons he needed to leave the set. And so they figured out how to make it so that he was leaving for a reason. That was important for number eight. But that was because he, as a person needed to leave.
Joe: Right.
Greg: So like all right we’ll make something up.
Joe: Yeah. But I definitely thought most of the team would die.
Greg: Would it have been a better movie if Ethan Hunt had died.
Joe: I maybe maybe like I’m thinking of like like as he’s falling.
Joe: And the parachute. Yeah. It catches fire. I was like oh that’s it. He’s going to plug it in and hit the ground. And that’s how he dies. Like I wonder if there’s a cut that has that as the end. And that probably played terribly with audiences.
Greg: But yeah we’ve talked about this in the past. But the guy who wrote Die Hard, he got a lot of feedback from friends saying, I really thought John McClane was going to die. And we talked about this when we were talking about the second best Christmas movie of all time. And I heard too. So what we’re talking about right now is kind of a miracle of movie expectations that Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie put on us.
Greg: What if it seems like he’s going to die the whole time? And we thought in the eighth Mission Impossible, me with Tom cruise, who’s going to keep making movies until he’s 100. Yeah, we actually thought he might die. That’s a gift to the audience to add some tension that must have been so hard earned on their part.
Joe: I mean, they they do a really good job of keeping the stakes.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: High for everyone, right? Even though I think that was the my hardest, the hardest part for me with the submarine scene.
Greg: In the middle. Yeah.
Joe: Was I knew he was going to get out.
Joe: There were no stakes in that other than it was like beautifully shot.
Greg: Well done. Very long intense. There’s like a mono note basically the score was very different in this movie. Yeah. Than the last couple. Yeah.
Joe: But I knew he was going to be fine. I knew he was going to meet up with Hayley Atwell and, you know, so like, that was the piece with that scene that as it was happening, you know, I just know where we are in the movie and we haven’t seen the airplanes yet, so. So why am I even worried?
Greg: Yeah. Should we talk about the flow of this movie? There’s there’s the first 45 minutes, and this movie is restating what we need to know from seven. Yeah. If you didn’t see it, it is reminding us who Ethan Hunt has been in all of the previous seven movies. And it is just flashback central. I almost think we should strip the flashbacks away from our drinking games for this movie, because it’s just although there I think there is one moment where it does actually cut back to like two minutes ago, which is amazing.
Greg: But I appreciated what they were doing and I enjoyed myself watching them rope in all of the previous movies into making me feel something. I thought that was so much better than trying to make me feel afraid of the entity in seven. And so how did you feel about, bringing in all kinds of things from the first seven movies and kind of layering them, them on top of each other?
Greg: Like, this really is the eighth movie, and we have had a good run over the last 30 years.
Joe: Yeah, I like that. I didn’t have a problem with it. It was a no.
Greg: Marge just installed.
Joe: Jack to itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think they did for the most part, a really good job on tying it all together.
Greg: Yeah, maybe.
Joe: They could have brought Tandy Newton back or, you know, referenced the best of the of these. The mission impossible to so sure.
Greg: Yeah. Do. Great. Scott shows up. Turns out fine. Yeah.
Joe: You know, just one shot with, like, wind and slow motion hair moving for no reason indoors.
Greg: You know what they did? They added a scene from three that was not from three when he’s grabbing the rabbit’s foot. Yeah, they changed out the cameras for film cameras. They digitally made Tom cruise look like he did in the third one and shot it and lit it like, JJ Abrams and the cinematographer from enemy of the State and Unstoppable, I think, to make it look like it was from three.
Greg: So they they like role played as three for a minute and shot it out of a scene from that. I love it I love that they did that and they probably did that in a million different ways that we don’t know. And we’ll find out for the next 30 years. As I continue thinking about this movie and obsessing over it.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. So I didn’t mind the retrospective pieces of it.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: I feel like this is Christopher McQuarrie as ammo as the writer of these, because they are basically piecing the plot around the action scenes.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: And so sometimes I can’t tell if it’s a homage or bloated when they have really long scenes.
Greg: Just explaining.
Joe: It to death. Yeah. What’s happening? And because I am kind of steeped in like, this is just what they do in every movie, right?
Greg: Right.
Joe: I’m like, okay, I’m here for it. Yeah, I know that. There. Once we get through this, we’re going to get to the end. So it’s almost now are they just like, how much can we do? They think we can get away with.
Greg: Like.
Joe: What if we made this even.
Greg: Longer.
Joe: You know, because like that where it falls apart for me, there are a couple moments. So they had the scene early on where Tom cruise gets in the box and there’s like talking to the entity.
Greg: Right?
Joe: And like you’re thinking they’re setting it up for him to then meet and fight the entity somehow in South Africa or wherever they’re going.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: Yeah. That never happens. That was like, okay. Because I was kind of waiting for that. And then they have this description of the South African safehouse.
Greg: I don’t know, I’ve survived.
Joe: Safe house caves.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And then that that’s where they do this, like protracted. It’s run by solar that can operate at, you know, when it’s this many locks and this like the most secure place in the world. And then they get there and they just, like, drive in. Right. Like I guess someone else has been here and everyone that has left and gone home and are like, okay, it’s the most secure place in the world.
Joe: Why wouldn’t other people be there trying to get in or out or whatever?
Greg: What do they say? Like they all left because they knew it was coming.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah. So we what I was hoping for was, you know, I know, parachuting in to a building when the thing only opens for two seconds, and then the fan stops and whatever, you know.
Greg: That must have been in there at some point. Yeah. Oh, we could do one of those things right here.
Joe: And I know that if they did, it’s three hours and whatever, I get it. But those are like the place where I’m like, okay, yeah, this is what you’re setting up. But if you’re not going to pay it off, don’t have that scene in the beginning and everything is fine, right? You know.
Greg: I was kind of hoping that they would get inside the safe house and it would be Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds as their characters from the movie safe House.
Joe: Perfect. Did that.
Greg: Missed opportunity? Yeah. If they come back with nine, that’s probably how they, Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. But yeah, overall I didn’t have a problem with the retrospective nature of it.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And if you’re going into it as a fan of the series, it was nice to see.
Greg: I enjoyed its it’s novelty like. Well, I really don’t think I’ve seen a movie do this before. I’m not sure it’s a great idea, but you know, you kind of have to just let these movies wash over you. The first time. And at the end I was like, okay. I think it made me nostalgic. It made me appreciate the ride we’ve been on since 1996.
Greg: By the way, the dates that the president writes for Hannah Waddingham. Was the date that Mission Impossible came out in the United States on December 2nd, 1996.
Joe: Those are the Easter eggs for the super fans, right?
Greg: Right.
Joe: If you’re just watching it, oh fine, that’s whatever. But also as you get into it. Yeah. Oh that’s that’s cool.
Greg: So there’s an aspect of this movie where, I mean, God help anyone who hasn’t seen the previous seven movies, right? And so all of the work they’re doing to explain what we’ve been up to, I just thought, someone is walking into this cold, they need to probably know all this stuff. So it was fun for me, who’s seen it all a million times, and it probably would help the uninitiated understand this movie because it does need to work as a one off as well, right?
Greg: Yeah, yeah. So we saw in seven Angela Bassett on the wall behind them at the the national security whatever Kerry always office. Yeah. And I guess I just kind of assumed she had moved on from CIA director to president. And we find out in this movie Angela Bassett is now president. How do you feel about Angela Bassett? Is the president this movie?
Joe: I loved her in this.
Greg: Yeah, it was great.
Joe: Was awesome. Totally. She was super great. She’s always great.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And that whole part of the movie I thought really worked. Still again, a little too much of the what if game of the of the entity, because I can predict everything. There’s a little bit of that that happened the knows what if they expect us to have this conversation or what if they’re already expecting it? You know, there’s a little bit of what what about ism that happens.
Joe: Yeah that’s fine. Yeah. But the the war room scenes and her are she’s she’s awesome in it.
Greg: And we find out she has a son she’s worrying about. Yeah. Yeah I really liked it I loved her and six obviously.
Clip: And his team would be dead. Yes. They would. That’s the job.
Greg: I say that in my head about all different things like yeah that’s the job. That’s what you do for a living. Yeah. One nit that I have about this movie though is so the plan is basically get Ethan Hunt to go do his thing. And there’s no backup plan? Nope. Yeah. We have an entire military. We have an entire intelligence service.
Greg: We have no one is trustworthy. Yeah, I guess they talk about this a little bit. And Tom cruise says, I can’t tell you what I know because I can’t trust anybody. But I do like that she recognizes that he is trustworthy. She kind of gives the mission briefing, on a VHS tape at the beginning of this movie.
Greg: She says stuff like, and though you never followed orders, you never let us down. Or you are always the best of men and the worst of times. I need you to be that man right now. You know, there is an elephant in the room on this movie that I think we need if. Hold on. This movie’s only been out a couple days.
Greg: Are you ready to have the conversation that needed to happen about this movie? That we’ve only seen once?
Joe: Yes. Let’s do it. We need to. So Alice is going to do it?
Greg: Exactly. Nobody else. There is a line of selling the good guy in these movies that is just so over the line for me, where they say that Ethan Hunt is like, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna drop in Alec Baldwin saying something ridiculous right here to explain what I’m talking about.
Clip: Hunt is uniquely trained and highly motivated. A specialist without equal, immune to any countermeasures. There is no secret he cannot extract, no security. He cannot breach no person. He cannot become. He has most likely anticipated this very conversation and is waiting to strike in whatever direction we move. Sir hunt is the living manifestation of destiny and he has made you his mission.
Greg: They do that so much in this movie. And I’ve heard people describe it as like, it’s like a borderline, like, messianic kind of. There’s one man who can really do this, and he was the one who was you know, Ethan Hunt is the only person who can do this. I appreciate that his bosses, who all despise him, recognize that in him.
Greg: But at the same time, it’s like, well, he’s got to be just a guy. If he’s not just a guy, I don’t know if I’m on board. Yeah. So what did you think of the. It’s overselling. They oversell the good guy.
Joe: Yeah, I it’s, it gets a little much that only Ethan Hunt can handle. The, power of controlling the entity because everyone else would try to control it for their own good. Yeah, and use it for their own interests. But only Ethan adds. Yeah, it’s it does get a little much. Maybe it’s cut to Mission Impossible nine, where it’s a do narc, a Tom cruise on a throne, and only Dom try to hook and stop him or something like that, and will just totally ruin both franchises with fast and the Furious Reckoning.
Greg: I still feel like there’s like a brick wall between these two series. There are. I really think that they handle the emotion and are pursuing the emotion more in these movies than they are. And Fast and Furious. Yeah. Christopher Corey says he doesn’t say action unless the frame he’s looking at through the monitor sparks emotion and they move the camera if it doesn’t.
Greg: And so they’re constantly moving it above and below people. If it’s shooting from below, that’s, that’s a thing of power. Yeah. And if they’re shooting from above, that’s a point of pressure. They film the scenes twice and then they cut in those angles, depending on what they need that character to be feeling in that moment. Interesting.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah I agree, there’s no world where these that you would evaluate these franchises together.
Greg: Yeah. No.
Joe: And I love especially 4 or 5 and six as we’ve talked about in the show various.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: But they’re not they’re not at the same caliber necessarily as Mission Impossible especially I think, when Christopher McQuarrie took over the direction. And I think that the partnership with him and Tom cruise.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Can’t be understated.
Greg: No.
Joe: Yeah. It’s importance within this franchise.
Greg: Right.
Joe: I can’t overstate this enough. Real action. Yeah. Real right stuff.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Nothing else feels like that. It feels different.
Greg: Totally. Yeah I the action is such a given in these movies. I feel like we just culturally know that the action is amazing in these movies, but any time he’s fighting, anytime he’s running, anytime he’s, you know, on a biplane or jumping to another body flame, even when he’s underwater, you can tell he’s underwater in the submarine, you know?
Greg: Yeah. I mean, all of it is just there is no comparison.
Joe: Yeah. So I think that that also helps with the grounding of it where it is fantastical and what is happening. Yeah. But also he is actually doing it. So it is right. There’s this like that juxtaposition of it’s ridiculous. But also he’s doing it and that that means something. Instead of having someone launch a rocket into space with people on it.
Joe: Right. And, you know, Fast nine, which just that’s where the series lost me. Wasn’t the submarine that was that moment.
Greg: Okay, okay. But but we all have limits.
Joe: Yeah, we all have limits. The one bone to pick I have with his running and this movie.
Joe: So he’s running to save Luther as Tom cruise as incredibly fast. He is not faster than a car and he is running from somewhere to where Luther is down an abandoned street.
Greg: Why didn’t he just drive.
Joe: Yes. Why didn’t he just drive?
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So there’s a lot a lot of Hobbs and Shaw travel logic in this movie. Yep. That was the moment where I was like, oh, and I don’t remember this 100%, so I’ll need maybe your memory on this, but I think the streets were inexplicably wet as he’s running.
Greg: Yeah. I mean, London is foggy. London town.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Running incredibly fast.
Greg: Seem like he was running pretty fast. Yeah.
Joe: Still not faster than a car. Sorry, Tom.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Or a motorcycle that you could have driven without a helmet on.
Greg: You could have taken off in a plane and then jumped out of the plane and parachuted down to where Luther was. Yes. I will say that once he got there and Luther was defuzing a bomb. And we realize Esai Morales has, has locked him into this place with this bomb. And stolen the poison pill. Luther has created this poison pill that will destroy the entity if combined with the source code is what it is.
Greg: Yeah. So Esai Morales steals the poison pill, locks Lutheran around with a bomb and he’s defuzing it in a way that makes it so the whole city won’t blow up. But the tunnel system that this room is in Will. And so he will die. But everybody else will be fine. Yeah. When Tom cruise arrives there, they have the greatest borderline funny conversation.
Greg: Like they’re super calm. About what they’re doing. But Tom cruise is just he’s in like flight mode where he you know, is just out of his mind trying to get there to save him. I really love that scene. It is our final scene with Luther. Yeah.
Joe: They let it breathe.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: In the back of my head I’m like he’s defuzing a bomb right.
Greg: Like right.
Joe: Chop chop here everyone but Luther’s got it. He knows that he’s going to cut the wire on one no matter what. So yeah, again, small bone to pick with the IMF here.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Or the impossible mission for us.
Greg: Okay. I’m gearing up for some harsh words.
Joe: Yeah, Luther has created the poison pill.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: Sure. The only thing that could defeat the penultimate evil on the planet right now. Yeah. Couldn’t get him a guard or a 100 people guarding the door and protecting him.
Greg: It’s a really good point.
Joe: He’s got a nurse who’s helping him. We assume with his cancer treatments or whatever it is. And then he’s.
Greg: Just.
Joe: Under London somewhere. Couldn’t spring for some hired help to protect the most important person on the planet at the moment is trying to stop the entity. Right.
Greg: So yeah, I feel like that’s some pretty good pushback. I wish you’d brought that up in the meetings. Yeah, I know.
Joe: If I ever see Christopher McQuarrie and Tom cruise, I’d be like, listen, I have a bone to pick the about this.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, it is a really good scene where Ethan is realizing the way it’s playing out is the way it needs to play out. They’re realizing that the entity knows that, Luther is the only one that can defuze that bomb, and Ethan is the only one they can go get Eastside Morales and get the poison pill. But that scene where they’re talking and they kind of reset the oath, they restate for the ones we don’t know.
Greg: That circle back from seven did get to me. That did hit me, you know. Yeah. And I was looking for times in this movie where the set up would be paid off. And was seven worth it. That was, that was my question going into this movie. And there were moments like that where I just like I really appreciate seven right now for setting up this moment with Luther and Ethan.
Greg: And they’re joking in the same way that like Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez joked in the first Mission Impossible.
Clip: Stick of Gum, right? No, no red light, green light coming up against a lock you can’t pick. You mash them together.
Clip: Ask the lasagna. Don’t get any on you. You’ll have about five seconds. Just don’t shoot.
Greg: You know, we’re doing ridiculous stuff and we’re joking about it because this is real life, you know? Yeah, but when Luther said we’re both on the right side of that gate and you know it, I thought that was pretty amazing. You know.
Joe: For those we never meet.
Greg: Yeah, for those we never meet. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Those we love and those we never meet or something like that. Like a bat. Because that’s repeated.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Multiple times throughout. You have the tear jerker moment at the end when he’s sitting there and like Luther’s voice, you get the voice over, right? If you’re if you’re reading, if you’re hearing this.
Greg: What was that recording coming out of the drive? The pod cover?
Joe: Yeah, the pod cover. Also, if you don’t have pod cover.
Greg: Right. It must have been coming out of the poison pill. Once it’s activated, play this this audio file.
Joe: I didn’t I wasn’t I was like, not quest single tier.
Greg: Seriously. Yeah yeah yeah I was.
Joe: But good question on on future watches. I also feel like this is a movie that on multiple watching will get better.
Greg: Oh, 100%. Same with seven for me. Yeah, I need to keep watching all of them.
Joe: Yeah, because I think I walked out of seven kind of let down. I was like, it was great.
Greg: It was. Yeah. We were happy. Yeah. Yeah, we saw it in an Imax. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: But there were parts that bothered me that on subsequent rewatching now I’m still like, oh yeah, that’s kind of annoying.
Greg: Yeah, you can kind of gauge your expectations.
Joe: Yeah. But also the more I watch it, the more I appreciate it. It’s fun. It’s a fun movie though. I am totally fine with seven now in a way that I wasn’t when I walked out of it. And I like this one way more than I walked out of seven, so I just walked out. Oh, that was great.
Joe: Appreciated all of what they did for it.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So I fully expect to watch this, you know, maybe one more time in the theater.
Greg: Yeah, but.
Joe: When it hit streaming, you know, easily 2 or 3 more times. Pretty close succession. And I feel like I appreciate it more. It’s it’s the same way like I say this about, you know, for playing along the John Wick drinking game, every one of those movies I appreciate more the second time. So like even the fourth one that I just watched, I didn’t like it as much, but I like the second viewing more because I kind of knew the story.
Joe: So I wasn’t kind of following along with the story. I was now like watching it differently, you know, for sure. And they do things in that movie that I hadn’t ever seen done or, you know, elevated some of the, the work and, and yeah, action. And I was like that I can see the care that went into it.
Joe: And it’s the same with these movies where you start noticing the details and the care that goes into putting on a spectacle, which is what these movies are.
Greg: Yeah. David Leach often talks about some stunts that we’ve seen a million times. Are some of the hardest things to do. And despite it being a complete feat that somebody has done this when you see it in the movie for the 20th time you’re like all right, he jumped out of a plane whatever you know. Yeah. And so he really talks about the novelty.
Greg: Is it something I’ve seen in a movie before. And I feel like John Wick and Mission Impossible, they’re doing that pretty well, where they are finding things that you haven’t seen before, even if it’s just a, you know, a slight tweak of something you’ve seen before or whatever, that’s a really important piece to these movies. Yeah. But speaking of walking out of it, when I was walking out, I felt much like I did when I walked out of five and six, and those are my two favorites.
Greg: Where I wasn’t entirely sure what I had just seen, but I loved it. Yeah. And I also could not tell you why it made me feel this way. You know, I couldn’t tell you the parts right now that made me feel this way. But whatever they just did made me feel this way. And that’s a feat you know.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: 100%. Yeah. I think you kind of know deep down that he’s gonna he’s going to stop the entity. And I just sat back and I was like, I’m going to appreciate all of what’s happening here.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: You have the defuzing yet another bomb.
Joe: You have Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff and Simon Pegg trying to hack into the servers and him on the plane all happening simultaneously. All the one Defuzing the bomb is probably the the shortest scene of that. But all three of those things happening at the same time. And you know they’re going to pull it off somehow. And yet you’re still like, Is Simon Pegg going to live right?
Greg: Right.
Joe: Yeah. You know, he has the classic shot in the stomach and reveals it. That’s a total trope.
Greg: Total trope.
Joe: That’s a guy for a moment with, Judi Dench. Yeah, you have probably my favorite line in the whole movie where he’s like, does that do anything for either of you have any medical experience? And I’m convinced because I’m a killer.
Greg: Yeah. It’s like.
Joe: That was the biggest laugh in the.
Greg: Theater. Yeah. I really love how she is mostly concerned with hurting people and killing people. And and she talks about that quite a bit. I love that she, by the way, her secret weapon in the last movie, and this one is the perfectly placed sniff. And then the first one, it was it was not in the script for her to sniff in a certain spot when she did.
Greg: And in this one, I think they were like, you got to do the sniff, probably, oh my gosh, there is so much you can say with a sniff and finally, someone in the movie. Yeah. Does it in his poem. Clements. Yeah. Unbelievable. Sniff talent. Sniff acting. Yeah. The bastard Lily. Yeah, well, if we’re talking about actors in the movie, we had some harsh words for Hayley Atwell.
Greg: In our last episodes, how did you feel about Hayley Atwell in this movie?
Joe: They turned her down a little bit. Yeah. The character.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And I don’t know that it was Hayley Atwell or what she was given.
Greg: Sure. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. And there was still a little bit of a little bit flirtatious relationship.
Greg: But you’re out on.
Joe: I’m kind of out on no.
Greg: Romance.
Joe: No romance. And also I know that Tom Cruise and Ethan Hunt.
Greg: Trusts Hayley.
Joe: Atwell character implicitly. I don’t know that she’s quite earned that trust.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So there was a point early in the film when she shows up where.
Greg: I was like.
Joe: Do we think that she’s good. I know that she will eventually turn good in this movie. But you know I wasn’t quite sure who she was working with. It was just like they’re well they’re totally fine and all in on this.
Greg: Kittridge. There’s so many hard cuts to some other scene that was probably made for the movie and then taken out. They show Kittredge saying one line to her in a dark room, and then they cut back to Tom cruise, and he says, Kittridge? Yeah, like says you’ve gotten in league with bad people. Which doesn’t make any sense, because a two months ago, in this movie’s universe, he was saying, Go to Kittridge and start working with him.
Greg: Tell him you want to accept the choice or be given the choice. Yeah. And accept it. So I wasn’t quite sure what they’re trying to does.
Joe: They’re same here. But then they know they got captured and then they have like him escaping again. I think the funniest moment outside of the Clementi of saying I’m a killer when trying to explain. Yeah. Why she can’t help him and then you’re helping them. Yeah. As you get Hayley Atwell reaction to Tom cruise killing the bad guy is yeah, yeah.
Greg: And like the temperature room. Yeah. Scenario.
Joe: It’s kind of shades of dirty work. I don’t know if you ever saw that movie with.
Greg: What’s with Norm McDonald? Yeah. Are you serious? Yeah.
Joe: There’s that scene where they’re. And I’m.
Greg: No, I’m saying, are you serious? Are you even questioning if I’ve seen that movie? All right.
Joe: For those of you who haven’t seen it, who aren’t Greg and I.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Biggest super fans of Norm MacDonald ever to percent. There’s a scene where they’re gonna put, like, fish and somebodys house.
Joe: And the whole scene is Norm MacDonald and I’m trying remember who the other person is holding fish in a closet while you hear this horrible murder scene of gangsters. And it just goes on for what felt feels like an ungodly amount of time.
Greg: Totally. Yeah.
Joe: I feel like there’s a chainsaw at one point and my right.
Greg: Right. Oh my gosh, I am. Probably because of that movie. I immediately started laughing when they kept the camera on her and you couldn’t see what was happening. I was the first person in the theater to start laughing out loud. Yeah, it’s so awesome. And it’s just him taking care of business and we just see her reactions for like, 20s.
Joe: It’s a little long and uncomfortable and it’s perfect.
Greg: Yeah. So great. And then, you know, what does he say? I would never let anything happen to you. I mean, nothing serious.
Greg: And then I think they go back to the well, one too many times when he’s like, we really got to go. But that’s their lift into the opening credits of the movie. And I loved it. Yeah, I thought it was great. Great comedy moment, great lift into the into the opening credits. And I do want to point out that there’s less cast in this movie than in seven.
Greg: There’s less of a gang for them to hold together. There’s no Black Widow. There’s no, Rebecca Ferguson, which is to the movie’s detriment, but whatever. And the fact that they didn’t have to hold that many storylines together, I think is definitely to this movie’s credit. Yeah. And you could definitely when I, when I watched the opening credits, I thought, oh my goodness.
Greg: Okay, I love the cast that’s in this. I love what we’re going to be doing with them. And I feel like I’m going to be able to track with this movie and enjoy the ride. Right from those opening credits, they went a little bit faster than the last one as well. Like okay I think we’re in good hands here.
Greg: I think that’s the right amount of people. Yeah I think I have a feeling for what they’re all going to be doing. This is all a good sign to me.
Joe: I agree, and I think the article I was reading was like, I was a little frustrated that they pull Ethan away from the team for so long, kind of through the middle, as they go off to the base.
Greg: Yeah, to.
Joe: Wait for him and all of that. Yeah. And but I didn’t mind that. I know he’s meeting with the president and he’s, you know, on the aircraft carrier.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then the submarine. And so I kind of just was like, I was in like, I’m just going to roll with it mode.
Greg: Yeah. Just enjoy it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I should say that I really liked Hayley Atwell in this movie, and I liked her in a way that I didn’t like in the last one, and I think it was because we weren’t going too far into her backstory. We were just enjoying the chemistry with Tom cruise. I also like that it was a couple months later, we kind of jumped two months later in this movie, and and she now is like an amazing fist fighter.
Greg: She’s learned like judo or something, which was great. I was like, okay, great. They taught her some stuff. She’s in the IMF now, and she’s not constantly startled like she was in the seventh one. You know, she’s part of the team and and she’s got some awesome pickpocketing skills that, you know, we get to talk about. It’s all about timing.
Greg: Yeah. I realized that she was not overused in this movie and I really enjoyed it when she was around. So that’s that’s big. That’s a big change for me from seven. Agreed.
Joe: Yeah I’ll speak for myself and that I really struggled with her through seven and her kind of will she or won’t she join and kind of running away and.
Greg: Right.
Joe: And that got it got tiresome.
Greg: Yeah. I just resented that she wasn’t Rebecca Ferguson, you know. Yeah. That was a character I was much more excited about. But in this one I was like, okay, I understand Rebecca Ferguson has passed away. Yeah, in the movies. And now it’s Grace. And I thought she was great. So Rebecca Ferguson, you know Elsa died in the last one Luther dies in this one.
Greg: So there’s like real stakes to these movies. I appreciate that. Yeah. But we also have room for some new people. And so when Ethan and Benji put on some masks and go to break pom Clements out of prison because she’s the only one who knows where Isa morales is, Greg Tarzan Davis from the seventh movie, who is Shea Whigham partner?
Greg: Yeah, kind of questioning. Maybe. Tom cruise is one of the good guys and he knows what he’s doing. Shea Whigham was just kind of a hater. He’s kind of one of the guards. That’s like taking her from one place to another. Yeah, and just in an instant, Tom cruise is able to basically say, Greg, Tarzan Davis, don’t think about it.
Greg: Just join our gang. Yeah, and he does. I didn’t even question it until the credits roll. And I was like, wait a minute, how did he get there? Yeah. Was it really just that one conversation? And then for the next couple of weeks, he’s not working for whoever he was working for anymore.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Now working with the IMF.
Joe: Yeah. He’s just in and I was I was here for it.
Greg: Were their paychecks I mean, how much how much does he get paid. What are the logistics to Greg Tarzan Davis just suddenly joining the gang?
Joe: Yeah I don’t know. But it’s it’s got to be lucrative because he’s in.
Greg: And he was great. I loved having him around and I didn’t resent, you know, like there weren’t too many people around, you know. So having him there was great.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: I appreciated him, even though it only sort of made sense. Yeah, yeah. But that’s our only mask moment, I think, in the movie.
Joe: I kind of appreciated that as a comment.
Greg: Yeah, I.
Joe: Know that that’s a really a tie to the old the series, the TV series and you know, yeah, you got to have that moment. But I feel like in some of them they have taken it a little too far.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And they didn’t need it. I didn’t miss it. I would have been fine if they had thrown in another one because you’re kind of expecting it. So I’m not like I’m not mad about it, but yeah.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I don’t need it either.
Greg: I would like to see one with all masks. Okay, okay. I go the other way with it. All right. What if it was just way, way, way too many.
Joe: Masks of everyone just pulling.
Greg: Off. Just ghastly mask on. A mask.
Greg: Can we talk about Gabriel? Gabriel has been ousted. That’s easy. Morales, you were the chosen one. Now Gabriel is outcast is what Luther says. And so Gabriel is now trying to get the entity so he can control the entity and use it for his power. Yeah. Kind of like the Lord of the rings. You know we talked about that with the key.
Greg: They show the key all the time in the seventh one. That, by the way, also happens a lot in this one where Tom cruise is just staring at the key and he’s just a moment. But there’s a second where Grace is maybe a little bit interested in getting the power of the entity and using it for good.
Greg: What did you think of that dynamic? Gabriel is sort of just kind of in the periphery of this movie. And he’s not the entity anymore.
Joe: It didn’t really make sense to me.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I wasn’t needing it to because it didn’t detract from the movie. But we have this all powerful entity yet Gabriel was still able to get everywhere he needed to get any time he needed to. Yeah, all throughout the movie.
Greg: So totally. Yeah.
Joe: He’s still got it. I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. Yeah, I guess I would say it felt weird when they did that and then didn’t follow through with more of what that meant for Tom cruise being the chosen one. Like, you have that moment, okay? He’s out. Tom cruises in. He’s the new chosen one.
Joe: He’s gonna commune with the entity in South Africa. That doesn’t happen. So, like, I feel like maybe there’s like a three hour cut of this movie where they do more of a deep dive into that piece of it. I don’t know, it just.
Greg: You could.
Joe: Have cut out any of that. And like, even like the the.
Greg: Cult where they.
Joe: Talk about although that’s just like kind of flashbacks on the news. So it’s like.
Greg: Yeah, but then there are people in a lot of scenes that, oh, it’s another person who’s pro entity and trying to ruin whatever. Yeah, our gang is doing.
Joe: Yeah. So I think that they’re, you know, it’s probably a movie that’s suffered from a couple too many ideas.
Greg: Yeah. This is my biggest question. What were the ideas that this movie, what was this movie supposed to be? Yeah. And how is that different than what we got?
Joe: Again, they’re not like, I don’t have major bones to pick about it.
Greg: No. Yeah, but.
Joe: I do feel like they kind of, like, didn’t quite know what to do with Gabriel all the time or the.
Greg: Entity or.
Joe: People that have fallen in love with the entity. And I think it’s the, you know, then the cult.
Greg: Right.
Joe: And it was never quite explained in a way that made sense to me why the entity wanted to kill everyone on the planet.
Greg: Well, it was going to kill everyone except the true believers, and then they were going to be the ones who started something new.
Joe: I missed that because there was another point in the movie where they say there’s he’s trying to eradicate all life on Earth.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Again, those are the moments where I just said, I’m not going to like, worry about this. I’m just going to enjoy what’s happening now. And yeah, but those are like the ideas and the themes and the movie or the side plots or whatever that, yeah, probably should have been cut in some way or enhanced. And I know that there already at almost three hours.
Greg: Yeah, it’s the longest one.
Joe: So they probably were feeling a lot of pressure to keep it under whatever it was.
Greg: We should talk about the pressure. Yeah. When things were going wrong in these movies, something that Tom Cruise and Chris Macquarie say to each other is the pressure as a gift. But these movies did not go the way they thought they were going to because they were made through, pandemic. You know, we said in the last episode, part seven was supposed to begin filming in February or March of 2020, and it was delayed until September and became much more expensive as a result.
Greg: This movie is potentially one of the most expensive movies ever made. Is like $400 million. There’s no official number out there, but it’s around Hollywood. They’re saying it’s probably around $400 million, and part of that is because the sub broke and they had to fix that for 25 million. But also, you know, they they were doing it through the pandemic.
Greg: And then there were two strikes that happened while they were making this that made them delay it. This movie was supposed to come out in 2024. Crazy. A year after the seventh one. And I don’t think seven was as universally loved as maybe they anticipated. And so there was time, because of all those different circumstances, for them to react to the feedback they were getting about seven.
Greg: So I really wonder what changed about this movie from that time. It was supposed to be a two and a half year process, filming these two movies back to back, and it became a seven year process that had a pandemic and two strikes. So if you’re looking for like what the entity was, the entity was thought of in like 2019, they were trying to figure out who the bad guy which should be after six, while they were making Top Gun Maverick.
Greg: And so their idea was not I although it is I right? I mean, think when did I become the thing that it is now? A couple years ago. Two years ago. Yeah.
Joe: About that.
Greg: So in like 2019, their motivation was algorithms like social media and YouTube algorithms. So the entity was people being manipulated and going down rabbit holes because of the internet and social media and companies running these algorithms. It wasn’t AI is going to whatever. And so they thought, well, people instinctively will know to be anxious about that because we they felt a little uneasy about it.
Greg: And then as the pandemic was going through, it was kind of elevating that anxiety and that that fear of what these algorithms might be doing to us. So I think that is what they’re talking about in this movie. When they talk about the entity, I think they’re talking about like algorithms from six years ago, I thought, oh, well.
Joe: I what I mean, as a faceless bad guy, it’s as good as any.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Out there. So I didn’t yeah, I think the choices in this one and again I’m going to I definitely need to watch it again because there are even parts now as we’re talking about it that are.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: The timeline on things are a little out of whack in my head of where, you know, kind of where things fall. Yeah, that’s more just a function of the fact that I saw this two days ago.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. This is instant reaction. We’re doing the best we can.
Joe: Yeah. That’s interesting. With the entity. And, and I like that that angle with it and it kind of makes sense. I do wonder, you know, the director’s cuts of seven and eight could easily be over 3 or 4 hours long.
Greg: It’s probably insufferable. Yeah. Would you watch it? Of course I would. Watch it. Yeah. You kidding me? Christopher McQuarrie said that they put together an edit of eight. They did, like a non-linear cut of it. We kind of bounced around to tell the story, he said it didn’t work, and so Tom cruise said, I think we should try a linear cut of it.
Greg: And so they did a linear cut of it also didn’t work. And then they started trying to fix it. And so they came up with the opening. He said recently that, no matter what order they put the scenes, then you still just needed to know a bunch of stuff before they happened. And no matter what order they were in, you had to know a bunch.
Greg: So they were like, what if we just set it at the very beginning? What if the president sends a VHS tape to Ethan and just declares everything the audience is going to need to know? And even before that, the entity kind of speaks a little bit. They do. They do all these, you know, voiceover things from previous movies talking about what the entity is.
Greg: So that was a big fix for them, that opening with the VHS tape, let’s just say it. And then everything that comes afterwards is people will understand what’s going on. And then another thing they did two days before they wrapped the movie, they filmed the Ethan having the conversation with the entity and got everything they needed to explain the movie in there as well.
Greg: Those were like their two main fixes of the movie to make it make sense.
Joe: They definitely lean on those moments. Yeah, the massive exposition scenes where you should have a pad and pencil and be taking notes as you’re watching this, that’s kind of what it felt like.
Greg: So what do you think of in this movie? They kind of followed suit with what they did in seven, but I thought they did it better where everybody in the room seems to be finishing each other’s sentences. In this movie, they’re moving a little bit faster and they’re not whispering in there, but they’re still finishing each other’s sentences.
Greg: I was like, this kind of works. It’s a good way to have a bunch of people in a room and get some exposition out.
Joe: I liked it, it reminded me of kind of what they did in sex with the action scenes of, oh, Tom cruise runs in every movie.
Greg: Okay. Yep.
Joe: Here he is running so much so, just like taking what has been kind of a criticism of, you know, these movies or these actors or the, you know, and just saying, okay, you think it’s a bad thing or you’re annoyed with it, we’re going to do that so much.
Joe: And it works and I and I yeah. And I get it also, as you understand how they make their films, they’re kind of building them.
Greg: Up, right, right.
Joe: As they go. And so they need those scenes to push it forward. And so again, I was totally fine with that.
Greg: But a nice counter to that is there are a few scenes where a lot is explained and discussed without any words, like when they’re getting Pom Clements and they’re all pointing guns at each other and they’re breaking out of prison. There’s a moment where she gets a gun and Greg, Tarzan Davis has a gun, and Ethan Hunt is in the middle, and they start having this, like, conversation with their eyes of what needs to happen next.
Greg: And they’re like, you know, one of them needs to drop their gun first. They’re trying to figure out who it’s going to be. There’s like disappointment, there’s anger. Yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff. Zero words. And it’s just like, oh, this is real filmmaking right here. This is so awesome.
Joe: I feel like it was Palm Clements ability to do that that they were banking on.
Greg: Oh yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Because she has as you say, like those like.
Greg: Smarts.
Joe: That she has.
Joe: But even throughout the entire movie, there are moments like when the Russians come and they’re kind of captured up in the at that.
Greg: Saint Matthew’s station.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. And she gives like some looks throughout. That’s like, why aren’t we just killing them? All right. Totally. And everyone else is like, calm down. And she’s like annoyed that she’s got a sit there and the greatest.
Greg: Yeah. The wild card. Yeah. She gets to be the wild card.
Joe: Yeah. I think her addition to this series is as incredibly and kind of you needed it as like that’s a, it’s a weird thing to say with like violent comic relief.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk about some of the ways that this ties into previous Mission Impossible movies. And with our opening cold open question, we talked about how somebody in this movie had something go bad 30 years ago. And that thing was William Dunn. Load, who worked at the CIA, was going into his super secure room, and Ethan Hunt had dropped in there and stolen a drive.
Joe: The necklace, the necklace.
Greg: Oh my gosh. And how many times do they say novelist in that movie?
Joe: Oh, many.
Greg: Yeah. We’ll get to we’ll get to Mission Impossible one. And some dude who had like a laxative in his coffee and just kept going to the bathroom. It was like some comedy relief. That dude, his name is Ralph Saxon is just suddenly manning a station. Saint Matthews station, looking for seismic activity. Where was he? He was like.
Joe: In the, Bering Sea. They use the same technology that they used in, a movie. We will for sure got to battleship.
Greg: Yes. Oh my gosh, we will totally get to battleship. I love that movie.
Joe: So when they were explaining what they were like, the technology was like, oh my God, that’s a battleship.
Greg: That’s so awesome. When he walked on the screen, did you recognize him?
Joe: I didn’t, I needed the flashback, but as soon as I did, I was like, oh, it’s on the same actor. Yeah, everything.
Greg: I laughed the second he walked in. It’s like, look at you guys. Yeah. Tying it to the best scene potentially in the whole series. For some people, it was definitely the most iconic for the longest time. And it was just like, oh my gosh, William Dean Lois just walking right in. Yeah. Incredible. So he and Ethan need to have a moment.
Greg: Ethan apologizes to him for what he did. We find out that right after this theft happened in 1996, he was immediately shipped out to the Bering Sea. And he’s been there ever since. Just the greatest I loved it.
Joe: Yeah, it was good. They needed to give Ethan Hunt his absolution and that character gives it to him. Because there’s a lot of Ethan you have done this and you are you know.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: This is your past coming back to haunt you or, you know, you’ve, you know, your fatal flaws. You can’t let anybody, a member of your team get hurt or all of those things.
Greg: Yeah, you’ll, like risk all of humanity for one person. You’re close to. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And I was. Yeah, there’s a part of me that wanted to be mad about it because I’m a cynical jerk. Sometimes I was like, nope. I mean, absolve him. I’m. I’m with you on this.
Greg: Incredible. Yeah. He was like, you gave me the gift. Like, I moved up here and I met the woman that I’ve spent my life with. And it’s been the greatest life. Okay, so that’s that’s the tie back to one. It turns out that the rabbit’s foot, which has always been, J.J. Abrams. What’s in the box scenario that we never knew what it was.
Greg: It turns out it was, I think what they call it, like the primordial ooze of what became the entity from Mission Impossible three. Yeah. And I think they brought that up not just for fan service. But because Ethan Hunt stole that so that he could save his wife. Right. So he created he created this whole problem because he was trying to save one person.
Greg: I think that’s the theme they were going for. Yeah. But what do you think of the fact that the rabbit’s foot is what led us to this moment?
Joe: I felt like it was a little bit shoehorned in.
Greg: Sure, sure. I was surprised that they kept it in.
Joe: I was a surprise, too. That’s probably the one that I’ve seen the least.
Greg: Three times.
Joe: And I was totally fine with it. Like, this is what this movie is. I was trying to.
Greg: I don’t.
Joe: Think it tied anything up with two, which is probably a mistake.
Greg: They’re saving that for nine.
Joe: They better be, because in the series it’s probably the one that’s like one of these things is not like the other.
Greg: Yep, yep.
Joe: For a lot of good reasons. And yet I love that movie more than I should for all the reasons we discussed in our MIT podcast.
Greg: Yeah, and we’ve gotten to Mission Impossible two.
Joe: Yeah, we’ve done that one.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So but yeah, I mean, if anyone is going to quibble about bringing the rabbit’s foot back in. Yeah, I get it. Be that person. But yeah. So what they were trying to do is tie the universe together. And I think they did an admirable job considering really these are standalone movies and a lot of ways. And so there isn’t a lot of continuity one to the next besides Ethan Hunt and Benji and Luther, and even Benji is from the third one.
Joe: He is not even.
Greg: I will say, though, that this is given to us about, I don’t know, 45 minutes into the movie and there has been so much cutting with previous things that have happened in the movie, and we’re not like in a linear order. As we’re going through those 45 minutes. It is so choppy. That as it was happening, I was just like, okay, okay, okay.
Greg: Like that was my that was the state I was in for like the first 50 minutes of this film. Yeah. Like, okay, okay, okay. Now wait, what? Okay. Sure. So it was not giving me a second to be like, is that something that we should have done? It was like we were moving so fast. Who cares? So that tempo that they set up kind of served them with some of the stuff.
Greg: Like if it was a bad idea, you’d never know, because if we’re onto the next one already.
Joe: Yeah. I felt like even though the tempo, as you say, is, is pretty choppy and fast, I feel like they had moments to let it breathe.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Which I feel like Avengers Endgame and whatever the the last Star Wars one of the trilogy, the newer one.
Greg: Rise of Skywalker.
Joe: Something like that. Yeah. Could have learned a lesson from this movie.
Greg: Yeah. Okay. I like where you’re going with.
Joe: This because it just felt like, get to this place. Get to this place, get to this place, get to this place. Right. It felt completely disjointed from a story that they were telling. It was just like, how do we get from this scene to this scene to this scene, to this scene? Yep. And by the end, I just felt exhausted.
Joe: And I was like, these are characters that I spent years with.
Greg: Yeah, sure.
Joe: And you’re just kind of dismissing them. And I feel like this movie said, this is the last one, potentially, let’s give it its due and have, you know, even though he is defuzing a nuclear bomb, let’s give Luther and Ethan a moment.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: To just, like, have a really tender.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Moment. Like Stranger Things I think does a really good job of this as well. There are moments in there between all the craziness that’s happening of the characters connecting that other TV shows would have cut, like they may have written it or shot it.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And said, oh, it’s not moving things forward. It’s really not driving anything. But those are the ones that people remember. Yeah. Sure. I remember the crazy action scene in that the planes. But honestly that Luther Ethan scene.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Is the thing that I come back to for this movie.
Greg: At least in the last 24 hours. Yeah.
Joe: And you know, even with like Benji and like, these are people we’ve known for a really long time. You gotta give them their moment.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: You know, and I think this does that even though it doesn’t always work perfectly. It does better than most.
Greg: Completely agree. And if this is the last movie it is trying to do what The Rise of Skywalker did. In fact, you know, that movie was like, okay, Palpatine’s back guys, it’s it’s the bad guy from way back. Remember that? Let’s try that on. Yeah. And that fell flat for me. But in this movie, all the things that they were trying to do, it did add up to something emotionally.
Greg: That’s really fascinating.
Joe: Yeah. Because I could have easily fallen into like, yeah, let’s get to this game, let’s get to this scene, let’s get to this scene.
Greg: And just.
Joe: Yeah, with no kind of connection or heart. I guess that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the heart of the movie. And those movies just kind of went all plot.
Joe: And we’re watching characters that we’ve known for 30 years.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: In some cases.
Greg: 100%. Yeah.
Joe: And that’s where I was like sure as a two hour and 20 minute cut of this probably is a little tighter. Cut out some of the side. But you lose those probably those moments. Or if you’re feeling the time pressure you’re going to cut that Luther and Ethan scene in half.
Greg: Yeah. When, when Luther says there’s nothing that you need to tell me right now I know, I know. He says I know twice. And it’s just like, oh that is incredible. Like we all feel it. Yeah. You don’t have to write a speech on this one. He gets it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty pretty amazing. And yet I feel like there’s still something to learn from this movie to make it even better on the next one.
Greg: Not on the next Mission Impossible but the next long series that needs a solid wrap up. I think there’s a way to do it better that we haven’t thought of yet, you know? Yeah, but when I realized, oh, we’re we’re spending a lot of time looping this back to previous ones, that’s an interesting choice. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.
Greg: By the end I was like, yeah, no, that was a good call. So let’s talk about one more thing, all right? With tying it back, Shay Wiggins character in this movie. It turns out his last name is not Briggs. This was a bit kind of J.J. Abrams Z, to be honest.
Joe: I know where you’re going and I have thoughts, feelings.
Greg: It was not Briggs. His name was Jim Phelps, just like Jon Voight in the first one. What was your take on that reveal and that kind of as the thing that was paying off what we were sort of seeing in seven, but didn’t know what the deal was. What was their history. Yeah.
Joe: That was the one, that if I like, could wave a magic wand and remove from this movie. Yeah I would, yeah, in a heartbeat. And it’s not that much in the movie, so it doesn’t to me take away. Yeah. Much from it. It would take out three minutes of dialog or something like that. Sure. But you know, if if I feel like the Rabbit’s Foot was shoehorned into this movie, I don’t know when this is.
Joe: This was just like.
Greg: Just a different word.
Joe: For that. Yeah. It was like a cork shoved into the bottle or I don’t know, it was. Yeah, it was a little too much for me and was not needed. But again, I was forgiving because I was, you know, it was nostalgic. So how did you feel about it?
Greg: I thought they would do more with it, and I bet they thought they would do more with it as well. It didn’t need to be there. I didn’t quite understand why it was there. I was disappointed in the Shea Whigham Greg Tarzan Davis arc from 7 to 8. Yeah, and I think we probably could have cut them a bit out in seven to make seven a bit more streamlined.
Greg: But there was one aspect to it that I really liked and it had to do with talking about dad’s. And I wonder if this is why this was in the movie. Shea Whigham just immediately like says the elephant in the room, he says, you said my dad did some illegal stuff and I don’t believe that. And I will always resent you for that.
Greg: And, you know, Tom cruise says it’s all true and I’m so sorry it is. And he said, is that why you’re after me or something like that? And he goes, you think I’m carrying that? You think I’m I’m here for revenge or to clear my father’s name? Like all the trophy reasons you think that they would be introducing this.
Greg: And he says it’s my name now. No. And I was like, that is a really powerful notion. To introduce in a big dumb movie. Yeah that you’re not your dad even if you share the name. And just for him to say it’s my name now I was like that is a, a position of power that I feel like a lot of people don’t take in their lives.
Greg: You know, the very powerful thing to think about. And so I really liked it for that reason and that reason only. And I wonder if that’s that was the motivation, you know, because that’s a that’s a great line. I’m going to dispel every trope you think we’re going for here. And I’m just going to tell you it’s my name now.
Greg: And but then he says when this is over you and I will have our reckoning. How many times do they say reckoning in this movie Joe.
Joe: Enough to remind you that it’s in the title. So like at least 4 or 5 times.
Greg: Right. So I feel like this is the weakest part of the movie.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: But you know what I love Shea Whigham. Yeah. So you can’t win them all is how I felt about this part of the movie.
Joe: It gives us a trope. And I and I feel like we’ve talked about it before and I’ll have to add it to the trope list. Yeah. The like rival who comes.
Greg: To.
Joe: Have respect for the hero at the end.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So you have they have like a handshake at the end of the movie and you’re like, all is forgiven. And whatever, you know, water under the bridge kind of moment. And I feel like yeah, I agree that this is probably the weakest side plot in the movie. Easily could have been cut out.
Greg: Yeah. I wanted to say when we mentioned the pressure before this movie became a $400 million movie, this movie probably has to make $1 billion to break even. I don’t think it’s going to do that. Maybe it will.
Joe: It might. I don’t know how streaming works and all of that.
Greg: Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah.
Joe: But yeah, it’s it’s got to me. It’s got to be humongous if it’s going to do anything.
Greg: So and so in the making of this movie, they had to try to make it work for the largest amount of audience possible. Try to kind of recreate what they did with Top Gun Maverick. Really? Yeah. And I’m sure it will appeal to more people than it would have before. I’m sure they made some tweaks to make it more appealing, but that does feel a little bit baked in when you’re watching the movie.
Greg: Like they are trying to make this appeal to a lot of people, potentially because of the budget. Yeah, you know, Tom cruise, they’re both producers on this movie. So that’s the pressure. We’ll see how it does. I do like the Luther’s last line was no one is safe from Phineas Freak though. That was pretty sweet.
Greg: Can I go through just a couple random notes?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: The pot cover, I’m sure you know, you remember this. It was a counter acoustic algorithmic drive. Do you have one of those the way.
Joe: I probably I should somewhere, probably floating around in my my house, in a drawer somewhere.
Greg: The place that they put it on the submarine, the Sebastopol is in the sonar sphere. Is that where you would keep it? Probably for the galley.
Joe: Or like in a safe somewhere.
Greg: And the.
Joe: Captain’s quarters?
Greg: Maybe captain’s quarters? Yep. Give it to the chef Steven Seagal. Okay, great.
Joe: I didn’t even have to make a under siege reference or say the name. You knew exactly what I was talking about in that moment.
Greg: So we might get under siege. Yeah. If we can hold our noses and talk about Steven Seagal.
Joe: I’m just saying thank you for forgetting where I was going with that.
Greg: I’m here for you. I always am. Angela Bassett, was the CIA director, and now she’s the president. And Ethan Hunt needs to get to an aircraft carrier called the George H.W. Bush. George H.W. Bush was president, and before that, he was vice president, I guess. But before that, CIA director.
Joe: I got that.
Greg: Interesting. Yeah, yeah. But we have to talk about this for a second. Ethan Hunt jumps into the ocean, is about to die, gets pulled into this. Wait. No he’s on a submarine.
Joe: I think so yeah.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: They’re on their low flying helicopters out to meet. Right. And they don’t know of the hell or of the submarine receive their message or not. Right on the coordinate and all of that.
Greg: Oh, very. The plan is very. Harry.
Joe: And then they have to go back because they’re running out of fuel and. Right. They got a flyby from the Russian, probably fifth gen maybe sixth gem.
Greg: Yeah. Who knows that. When, when even when you say that it’s like that seems like a very high gen. Yeah. To me.
Joe: And then he just jumps into the ocean and is about to die. And then three people just, like, appear around him.
Greg: Very cool shot. Yeah that’s movies. Before he jumps off though he does talk to Hannah Waddingham. What did you think of her.
Joe: I mean she’s a national treasure I like her.
Greg: Yeah. She can be in everything. Yeah. Yeah okay. She’s the next Stanley Tucci. Absolutely needs to be in every movie. I’ve heard some pushback of what is she doing in this movie where she miscast. And I would just say put her in everything.
Joe: Yeah. Butter and everything. I mean, did we need her in this movie? Could we have cut out the entire scene where they’re on the on the aircraft carrier? 100%. You could have. There’s nothing that pushes the path forward on that.
Greg: And, yeah, we added some stakes.
Joe: And just that Ethan Hunt has the ear of the president, and the president gave him an aircraft carrier to do with what he.
Greg: Wants, right, though. So then he goes to the sub and, tramell Tillman is the captain.
Joe: Awesome. Again, basically the same character as Hannah Waddington. But that’s okay. They won’t go there. Don’t worry about it.
Greg: Have you watched severance? Okay. He’s in severance and he is the next global superstar as far as I’m concerned. He got the biggest laugh in the theater I was in when he says like if you want to go poke the bear man you’ve come to the right place, mister. You’ve come to the right place or something like that.
Greg: Biggest laugh in the whole theater. He was incredible. Every time he was on screen. Agreed something special was happening. Yeah, yeah. And not much. Kittridge.
Joe: Miss Kittridge, a little bit.
Greg: A little annoying, a little annoying. I could have used more of a better part for Kittridge in this movie.
Joe: I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about Kittridge, because I know Ethan Hunt trusts him. But he’s often seemed like he’s maybe working for himself. Like he goes off to South Africa. Well, yeah.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: They.
Greg: Whigham yeah.
Joe: On his.
Greg: Own. Yeah.
Joe: And kind of messes things up. So I’m not quite sure if he is good or bad. Or maybe they’re just that’s what they’re trying to say is like you know in the intelligence world everyone is kind of gray. And so was he. He’s not.
Greg: We all win some and we all lose some. But yeah, he’s a middle man.
Joe: I would have like more of I think he’s an interesting character.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Ethan Hunt in these.
Greg: Movies needs.
Joe: A good foil for him. And I think he kind of played that at times.
Greg: Yeah, totally. And I guess we do need to speak to, kind of the crew around the president, Nick Offerman. Also should be in everything. Holt Mccallany also should be in everything. Yeah. Janet McTeer I never seen Janet McTeer before.
Joe: Yeah. Me either.
Greg: But I thought she was good. Everybody just killed it as far as I can tell. And where they fell short. I say we immediately make this movie and let them do what they wanted with it. Yeah. And see if they can do a better job. But I’m fine with this movie and how it turned out.
Greg: I will be seeing it again and again. Again. I’ll be purchasing this movie. Yeah. All right, Joe, it occurs to me that, well, maybe some people have been listening to this, but they haven’t actually seen the movie. Let’s say you are walking down the aisles of Blockbuster Video trying to figure out which Mission Impossible movie you should rent.
Greg: You’re picking up boxes. You’re reading the back of the boxes to read the description. It’s time to find out what the back of that box would say. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. The world has been pushed to its breaking point. The all powerful entity has taken control of cyberspace and is now taking over a country’s nuclear arsenals. Ethan Hunt, Tom cruise and his team are the only people standing between annihilation and survival from the frozen landscape of the Arctic to the streets of Europe to the caves of South Africa, this movie will keep you guessing until the last second.
Joe: Heroes will fall, enemies will rise. In the end. Will the world be left standing? Or will we have faced our final reckoning?
Greg: Incredible. Yeah, I guess we didn’t even talk about how the city is trying to take control of all the nuclear bombs on the planet. And, everybody attacks everybody. Yeah, that is going to happen in exactly 72 hours.
Joe: Yes, exactly.
Greg: As if there’s one thing we know. It’s exactly how many hours it takes an all powerful AI to do that.
Joe: Yes, exactly. And how long it takes to travel from the Arctic Circle to South Africa?
Greg: Yes.
Joe: Don’t worry about it. It takes about 20 minutes. Apparently.
Greg: Deckard Shaw shows up. Yeah, my hands are ready for airplane tickets. Yeah. Winks. Disappears. Perfect. Okay, well, that is the back of the box. But this isn’t marketing. This is Josh guy Tucker, we’re talking to you here. And so we need Joe’s guy. Tucker’s real back of the box.
Joe: Mission impossible eight.
Greg: Is.
Joe: The perfect conclusion to the Mission Impossible reverse. It sends off the cast with an epic movie that pushes the bounds in ways we have come to expect. This movie rivals Mission Impossible Fallout, and while it is touted as the last of its era, I could see Mission Impossible nine on the horizon if the chips fall just right.
Greg: Sure, yeah, I agree. Are you feeling like this is the second best Mission Impossible movie?
Joe: Six is my favorite. I think it’s in the running with five.
Greg: Wow.
Joe: To be my.
Greg: Favorite. Oh that’s great.
Joe: Our second in the in like.
Greg: Yeah. So it’s like top tier.
Joe: It’s top tier I think five, six, seven and eight are top tier action movies.
Greg: Yeah yeah.
Joe: And again with six being obviously the best action movie. But I mean the faults that I can find with seven and eight are just kind of they did it doesn’t quite hit up. So they ambition. But yeah because they’re taking such a big swing with, with these last two movies, I’m willing to forgive things that I NASA, I wouldn’t necessarily have, but I appreciate the ambition.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And what they’re trying to accomplish.
Greg: Let’s talk about some of the action scenes real quick. It’s so funny. I feel like it’s just understood that the action scenes are unbelievable, but we should really talk about them from. I felt like the submarine scene got a little long. Yeah. But I was also tense the whole time. So the length actually brought tension for me.
Greg: And I thought, well I’m not going to hate it for bringing tension, but I was kind of holding my breath while he was doing it. So but it was a bit similar to five when he was, getting that underwater drive. Slightly different. Then we have to talk about the biplanes.
Joe: They’re amazing.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: What he’s doing. Yeah. We just have not really ever seen an actor do maybe since, like.
Greg: Silent film.
Joe: Jackie Chan and maybe Buster Keaton. Type of, like, 100%.
Greg: Yeah. Totally.
Joe: Totally credible. Yeah. Action. Yeah. Stunts. It’s a little self-referential to mission possible fallout with the two helicopters.
Greg: Very similar.
Joe: Yeah. So you kind of have that also ending the movie. And this is kind of my bone to pick with also the motorcycle stunt. Seven and this one.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: Yeah. They kind of save the big action scene for the end. And so you’re kind of waiting for it. And because of that, it reduces some of the stakes for me, even like if you put that scene earlier in the film. Yeah, the stakes on the submarine scene, which I knew would probably be there in some regard, just because we know that he’s trying to get to the Sebastopol and yeah, the source code, yeah, would have raised the stakes.
Joe: But because we knew.
Greg: Like.
Joe: And I have the same thought of like, well, nothing’s going to happen to Ethan in this scene because we haven’t had the scene and the biplanes or.
Greg: In the case of seven. Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Joe: And so that is how I thought of them, the actual stunts and the scene and the building, the tension.
Greg: And.
Joe: Totally what is going to happen top notch. Like, yeah, I know notes for me.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: But that’s kind of where I landed. What about you? How do they fall for you?
Greg: I really liked in how in five they promoted the he’s on the outside of a plane as it takes off. And then it was the first scene. Yeah. And then you really don’t know where you’re going from there, but, I’m on board. Yeah, I think that was the best case of the marketing. And then actually walking into the movie and and this one, I really loved it.
Greg: I didn’t love it more than six. More than the helicopters. Christopher McQuarrie said these planes actually don’t move that fast. They move as fast as basically a car. And so they had to keep them very low to the ground or close to the mountains. And the film, what was going on kind of close to things so that it felt like it was moving fast.
Greg: But I mean, he was there must have been a pilot in there flying it as he was like, standing on it. Yeah. And they just took them out. That must have been what was happening. But there were a lot of, stories while they were filming this movie of, like, he was just landing in people’s yards for a while, and I think that was probably while they were filming this part.
Greg: There was a weird moment where Esai Morales says, I’ve got the parachute, and then he jumps off the plane. And then Tom cruise finds another parachute.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Just kind of quickly, you know, so I, you know, the seams kind of showed a little bit, but at the same time, man, my arms were folded so tight.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And I was just like, this is almost unbearable watching this. Yeah. This is as good as it gets. So it didn’t quite have the wonder. The almost like Spielberg, like wonder that the train car sequence did. I was going to say there are moments of this movie that were felt like an Indiana Jones kind of Spielberg. People kind of looked a little Indiana Jones.
Greg: Benji looked a little Indiana Jones ish. Yeah. In Africa. And when they got to the mine, the South Africa place, it was very Indiana Jones for a second, which is, the Christopher McCoy, his favorite kind of movie. So I just kind of thought, this is awesome. This is just absolutely signaling adventure in lots of different ways right now.
Joe: I can totally see that it was. Maybe I’d have to watch it again and see how I feel about it when I have like a better have like more emotional distance from it, if that makes sense. So, yeah. But usually what happens with these movies is I come to appreciate them more.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And especially the stunts and the action that happens.
Greg: Yeah. Okay. I brought up that the entity was kind of algorithms from 2019, and I really love how many times Ethan Hunt says the entity wants us to not get along. That’s what is planning on. So we should work together because that’s not what it will expect. And when you think about, you know, like enrichment is, engagement on social media platforms are just kind of like, you know, the the general algorithm, you know.
Greg: Yeah, that’s worked really well for businesses in the last handful of years. I feel like that’s what they were getting at. If they weren’t getting it that that’s that was my read of it and I loved it. I loved my read of it. Yeah.
Joe: You know, I agree.
Greg: Like, we should be hanging out. We should be talking. These companies profit if they manufacture us disliking each other. So why don’t we just get to know each other? Yeah, that’s a really cool message to have in a $400 million movie, I thought. Yeah.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: Second thing is, when they were watching the board that had all the different countries on it and they would like signal when the entity had overtaken one of the nuclear capabilities of a country. And then there were like those, what do you call those flippy boards that are like train station schedules that they also had, like the old school.
Greg: Yeah, technology whatever that’s called I love that. I need that in my house. I need my house to be made of those. Those are the coolest things I’ve ever seen and we need to bring those back. And then just countdown clock is incredible. Unbelievable.
Joe: Yeah I will say that for a movie that where the, the, the entity is getting into everything and then they’re trying to do a lot of stuff analog.
Greg: Yeah. Which yeah.
Joe: Spoiler alert on what am I drinking games. Any time they have an analog technology in there. Yeah. You’re drinking or they mentioned in it. And then they have the those big tables where they’re physically moving with like long sticks.
Greg: Yeah. Like, the.
Joe: Carrier groups and stuff like that. Yeah. I’m a sucker for those and movies, too.
Greg: Totally. Oh, that’s like old submarine movie stuff. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. So again, that was just a little nod, even though it was clearly that the table was being a projection of like, a digital projection. Yeah. Of the I was like, I love this sort of stuff.
Greg: So they must be referencing so many movies from like World War Two era. Yeah. All right, Joe, should we talk about the box office and the critical reception of this movie?
Joe: Yeah, let’s do it.
Greg: This movie has been out for four days, so we don’t have a lot of numbers here. I can say that it was made for about 400 million, and right now it’s made 79 million domestic, 127 international from its first weekend. So we’re at $206 million worldwide, which is, I think, the best the series has ever had. So I guess if people keep talking about it, it’ll be all right.
Greg: I’m bizarrely, emotionally into how much these movies make for some reason, because I want people doing creative stuff to succeed. Let’s talk about the tomato rating of this movie. Joe, what do you think the critics score of Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning is?
Joe: I mean, it feels like a 71 of our movie.
Greg: You know what it does? I think you’re right.
Joe: In reality, I feel like because it’s going to have a little nostalgia tinge, I feel like this is like an 88.
Greg: This is an 80.
Joe: Really. All right.
Greg: Now with 333 reviews.
Joe: Okay. That’s pretty good.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Where does it rank with the other movies?
Greg: The last few have been in the 90s. Even seven seven was a 96, six was 98, five was 94.
Joe: I mean, obviously six, but seven. That’s surprising to me.
Greg: Yeah. I think, there was some Top Gun Maverick shine on that one.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: There was a aspect of Top Gun Maverick where I think people wished it was more Mission Impossible, even though it was kind of Mission Impossible. Yeah. Ghost protocol, 94%. Haley. Yeah. Mission impossible 373%.
Joe: I have like three more than most. And I hate four more than most.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: But I it’s also been a while since I’ve seen it.
Greg: Well, number one has 65%. And, you know, people have been adding reviews since in the last 30 years. So who knows what it was back then in relation to 65% today. Number two is, 57% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. Okay. We only have 5000 of these. So this is a bizarre number to talk about right now.
Greg: It’s only been a couple of days, but what do you think the audience scores on this movie? Popcorn meter.
Joe: I’ll go 90.
Greg: Wow. 89. You’re really good at this. Yeah. It’s amazing.
Joe: I know the will of the people.
Greg: And.
Greg: All right. Let’s talk about some of the reviews of this movie. David Sims from The Atlantic, who had the the quintessential sentence for us on seven, says, even when the plot kicks into a higher gear, the final reckoning never quite settles into the cheerfully goofy groove that propelled the franchise towards its peaks. It’s not as I on this one, yeah.
Greg: Dana Stevens from slate says, Final Reckoning is a noble exemplar of a dying breed. The big, dumb, fun action blockbuster with a bona fide movie star at its center, putting it all on the line and hanging on for dear life just to keep us at the edge of our theater seats. I think that’s right. Oh, I own yeah.
Greg: Detroit News says Final Reckoning produces some of that razzle dazzle you’re used to, but it’s drawn out with nonsense that feels like the filmmakers struggling with what to make of what they’ve created and how to neatly wrap everything up.
Joe: Kind of allow it. But also, I feel like they missed the point.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, come on. Detroit News Washington Post says an entire generation has grown up learning what a movie is from Mission Impossible. Cruise has taught them that it isn’t a conglomeration of CGI pixels or green screen fakery, but something of genuine, and at its best, sublime artistry.
Joe: I agree with that.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. The Associated Press says it’s hard to shake that feeling that in attempting to tie everything together, Mission Impossible lost the plot. I can see I can read that.
Joe: Yeah, it’s I love them, I can, I can see that. But it’s a little that’s a little.
Greg: Harsh, a little harsh. Newsday says a thrilling jolt of pure summer fun, pure summer fun. We kind of need to show that. Yeah. You know what I forgot to do was start with the Seattle Times. Moira macdonald says. A competent, smart, expensive and sometimes thrilling action movie.
Joe: I love it. Yeah.
Greg: I don’t know if you remember I talked about the times UK in our last episode. Really not liking Stephen, really kind of trashing it. Same guy Kevin Mars says Tom cruise, we salute you. Mission accomplished. Wow. I want him back with a yeah, my very favorite thing that I read about this movie was Manohla Dargis in The New York Times.
Greg: Let me read you a couple sentences from her review. One of the dividends of the better big studio productions is that they tend to be crowded with talented performers who can keep a straight face when delivering nonsense, and sometimes bring feeling to the proceedings. Final reckoning is flat out ridiculous. This is the greatest this sentence taught me. I could, at the beginning of this, means I might be able to write for the New York Times.
Greg: Yeah, I think you just say that. I love that she says it. Final reckoning is flat out ridiculous, but it’s a model example of blockbuster entertainment at its most highly polished, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite its cliches, its extravagant violence, and gung ho militarism, among other things. There is something reassuring in the sight of a diverse group of male and female employees, from both the government and military, ready to sacrifice all for the greater good.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: Yeah. It just makes me feel good. Anyways, thanks Manila Darcus good job! This is my very favorite review, actually, after the New York Times, the A.V. club. Somewhere in the nearly three hour runtime, the movie passes that crucial point where a critic stops taking notes and decides to simply enjoy themselves. The end is nigh, and it’s mostly a good time.
Joe: I’ll allow it.
Greg: Great. Perfect. What a good review of this movie.
Joe: Do you want to do drinking games?
Greg: Oh, let’s absolutely get to drinking games.
Joe: So we have, low flying and silent helicopters. Sure. So conversations around helicopters that would be near impossible to have.
Greg: Were there helicopters out of nowhere at the end?
Joe: Yes, yes there were.
Greg: He’s standing there crying. And then suddenly they’re helicopters.
Joe: Yeah. And not just like one helicopter, a Tony Scott. I’m on a helicopter.
Greg: Triple helicopter. Absolutely.
Joe: I think what we need to call it, you know, there’s like a murder of crows.
Greg: I was just going to say a murder of crows or a tiny squad of helicopters.
Joe: Air high five.
Greg: All right, so Tony Scott of Helicopter shows up out of nowhere.
Joe: It’s awesome. I’ve pushed it in. Enhance that. We have not as much as they used in the in the seventh one, but I gave us that one. Sure. This is where I might need some help.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: I don’t know if there are two people sharing a slow motion look in the middle of chaos.
Greg: There is when he gets out of the chamber. The chamber where he’s talking to the entity. When he jumps out, it’s silent for a minute. Okay? Like he’s like, are you real? He’s like, turning to everybody and saying, are you real? But they were silent there for a minute after he jumps out.
Joe: Okay, so you can drink on that one. Yeah. I don’t have an explosion or silent suffering ringing in the ears, although that could have been I missed it if there was.
Greg: Yeah, I don’t think so.
Joe: We have the opening credits scene obviously, as it locks in with the song. So theme.
Greg: Song.
Joe: Yeah, obviously it flashes back not just a dialog, but it flashes back to like almost every movie. So you’re drinking a lot.
Greg: There is whenever Esai Morales says, Tell Ethan I’ll be waiting for him. Take a drink. Because it cuts back to that with, I think within two minutes of him actually delivering line. Perfect. Yeah.
Joe: I have bad CGI only for the last scene.
Joe: When they’re all like.
Greg: In Trafalgar Square.
Joe: Yeah. And smiling at each other clearly none of them are there on the same day at all. It’s clearly in front of a green screen other than that, and I’m sure there are. There’s definitely a lot of CGI in this film.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, I.
Joe: Didn’t notice it, but that was the most what I’m noticing now about myself is I can tell when people are standing in front of a green screen. There’s just something about like their profile and their outline that looks different.
Joe: And it just bothers me.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So yeah. But I 100% get why they did that. Like as the shoot a shot in Trafalgar Square. Yeah. It’s probably $1 million. Or they can just shoot it in a green screen and they can put whatever the hell they want behind them.
Greg: So but we should say that the whole scene doesn’t have one line. Yeah, it’s another dialog free scene. And they’re all just looking at each other.
Joe: Yeah. Knowing looks of. Yes appreciation.
Greg: Yeah. And nice haircut. Yeah. No. Yeah.
Joe: Incorrect.
Greg: Nope. Okay. I misread the one.
Joe: Great. Bad shots everywhere.
Greg: Great. Bad shots were like someone’s shooting at them with a gun or a machine gun, and somehow they miss. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Amazing. Okay. Yeah.
Joe: Are the streets inexplicably wet? I don’t remember this, but I think when he’s running to save Luther, they are? Yeah. Any time at night when you see the streets and even in, like, John Wick for no reason, for the streets to be wet when they’re having a car chase. Right there they are. No Interpol. And I don’t have a give us the room.
Joe: But the president may have asked for the room, and I don’t remember.
Greg: I don’t think so, but but yeah. Yeah, we’ve seen this once. Yeah. The theater. We can’t know all these things.
Joe: And I wasn’t, I didn’t have my my cheat sheet for that.
Greg: So yeah.
Joe: Anyway, if I missed it and you see it, you can tag us. I’m gonna run. All right, I’ll toss it to you. Greg, what is your first drinking game? That you noticed.
Greg: Any time Angela Bassett enters the scene. Oh that’s awesome.
Joe: They do a lot. And I feel like this was referential of the first one. I use a lot of shadow for characters, especially in the exposition scenes. Kind of tell you who’s good and who’s bad. And I feel like the first one, Brian De Palma kind of doing an homage to older spy movies.
Greg: Yeah, sure.
Joe: There are moments I feel like there’s a lot of that in there, so take a drink. If you’re kind of either feeling an homage to the first one, or just the use of shadows in the scenes.
Greg: Yeah, anytime Tom cruise is holding up the key and staring at it.
Joe: I have. I have the key as well.
Greg: So yeah.
Joe: You’re drinking a lot with that. Sure I have. Any time they use or mention analog technology.
Greg: Take a drink. I really like that about this movie that because it’s, you know, the the entity is digital. They have to go old school. Yeah. Love it. And you know these guys are watching like silent films. These guys are watching Howard Lloyd silent films in between shots. Anytime somebody in the movie is following the entity and working to its end.
Greg: So there’s like, you know, guards in the back that we realize, oh my gosh, no, they’re they’re working for the entity. Anytime that reveal happens. But I’m also thinking of anytime they show the news footage and there’s kind of the cold people saying Let the entity be the entity. It’ll be better.
Joe: Yeah I have that one too.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: I have, give, I call, I’m calling them give the plot moments. So anytime there’s just someone’s giving a really long speech.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: That’s catching you up on. Okay. Yeah. You want use the bathroom where you may have been zoning out on your phone for a second. This is what you need to worry about, right? Take a drink.
Greg: Basil. Exposition. Yep.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: Up to the screen. Any time they say entity. Oh, I. Yeah. What do. It’s so much in this movie. Oh my God.
Joe: I have, I got a classic Tom cruise running. Yeah. Drink.
Greg: Of course. And he looks awesome running in this way. I know he like it. There’s stuff like blocking it. There’s weird lights, lens flares happening. Looks good. Anytime they say mission.
Joe: Oh, I love that one. That’s great. I have another one. I have the classic Tom cruise tears. Multiple people have this in this movie. It’s so.
Greg: Good. Oh, interesting.
Joe: So I definitely noticed Benji has it. Hayley Atwell has it at one point for sure.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Right. Yeah. The Tom cruise.
Greg: Tears. Yep.
Joe: Welling in the eyes. Oh, maybe a single tear. That’s it. So good.
Greg: Any time they say final reckoning.
Joe: Oh so good.
Joe: I have this is really specific to the the submarine scene.
Joe: But he shoots off these flares.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Help him see. But they just magically just kind of keep happening around the submarine at all times when they show an exterior shot of the submarine. They’re beautiful. Yeah, yeah. But also how do, where do they come from constantly.
Greg: Yeah. It’s from the set of cliffhanger on the map where it’s like the most lit snow in history. Right.
Joe: Exactly. Or platoon or something like that.
Greg: Totally, totally. Did you. I was getting real, the abyss vibes. During the.
Joe: 100%. Yeah, I can totally see that.
Greg: I think there was there was something about the way they were shooting it. There was something maybe about the music or something about the the sound design of it.
Joe: It was it was a bit like.
Greg: Yeah, it.
Joe: Wasn’t a score related to it. It was really. But it yeah, really felt like this. Almost like they really did play with the sound and like.
Greg: Yeah, I.
Joe: Like those like this, like pressure.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah.
Joe: And oh and then they, they do a, you know, sell the bad guy. They sell the, they sell how deep you are in the ocean and like what’s going to happen to your body if you’re right ascending too fast or you know, all of that, there’s.
Greg: So much of that they sell the deep water. You know.
Joe: Sell the deep water. That’s perfect.
Greg: Any time they sell the deep water, take a drink.
Joe: Take a drink.
Greg: That’s my next one.
Joe: Perfect. I have poison pill. Every time, anytime they say poison pill, take a drink.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, that’s so good. Any time Palme talks about hurting or killing, someone actually tries to hurt or kill someone. Oh,
Joe: Packs of water with.
Greg: That one, because you’re gonna need it.
Joe: I have, anytime they have the, impossible task or the the list is gets so long that it’s nearly farcical.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Of, like, how tough the security is to get through, you know, it’s like at the biometric scan, and then you have to put your fingerprint, and then you go through this and then they weigh you, and then they’re going to take your DNA. And then also you’re going to have to do a drug test at the end.
Greg: Right. You know.
Joe: And that’s just the first airlock, right. That, that sort of thing.
Greg: It’s so fast. Five. Yeah. So that fast five was so Mission Impossible and Ocean’s 11. All right. Any time they show that board of countries, that wall of countries, and if they’re red or yellow.
Joe: Yeah, it’s all flashing.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: I have any time. There’s Hobbs and Shaw travel logic at play. Take it.
Greg: Unless it. That’s incredible. Any time they show the flippy info board thingy. Whatever you call that the train station. Yeah.
Joe: I have anytime there’s a war room scene with everyone and the president. Take a drink.
Greg: Oh, that’s really good. Yeah. Okay. Is that kind of like, anytime Angela Bassett does a scene?
Joe: Basically.
Greg: I guess mine has one more because she is just sitting there looking at her picture with her son that one time. Yeah. So if you want a more forgiving drinking game with Angela Bassett, go with. Yes. That’s right. By the way, if anyone knows what the flippy info board thing is called, put it in the comments. Yeah.
Greg: Comment on, Instagram at Great bad Movies. Show em all right. Any time they say plan. Oh, take a drink. There’s a lot of talk about the plan in this one. It’s very plane ish. Yes.
Joe: Have any time. They have a tilted camera as we kind of talked about.
Greg: Not as much, though, in this one.
Joe: Not as much, but noticeable in moments.
Greg: So I’m out.
Joe: Okay. I have three more. I have pod cover. Anytime I say pod clover.
Greg: Great. Yeah.
Joe: And then these are the saddest ones. Oh no, I have one. I have three more. Anytime I say for those we never meet. Take a drink. Yep. Anytime. This is I think Palm Clements says a blink of an eye.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: Are they talk about that? Yeah. And then the husband and wife and the Bering Sea. Any time they say, I will see you.
Greg: Again, take a drink.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So that’s. They were so sweet. Yeah.
Joe: And I think I will see you again. I think Tom cruise even says it at one.
Greg: Oh, interesting. Okay.
Joe: But those are like a little tear jerker moments.
Greg: Yeah. You know. Yeah.
Joe: Diffusing the bomb. And she says I’ll see you again.
Greg: Like,
Joe: Okay, you’re gonna die. And then they. And she lives. So they both live to that. So.
Greg: But a good movie. Yeah. Got to see it again. Yeah.
Joe: 100%.
Greg: Just one line that I would like to say. I feel like Christopher McQuarrie is speaking to his kids in this movie. I feel like he speaks through Luther to kind of give like Proverbs to his kids. And Luther says, never forget, our lives are not defined by any one action. Our lives are the sum of our choices.
Greg: Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What kind of movie is it that that’s just in there? We’re just putting that line in. Yeah. Anyways, it’s time for Joe’s Trope Lightning Round, aka signs. You might be watching a great bad movie, and we’ve seen this movie once, so there’s a chance this might not be the most comprehensive list.
Joe: Yeah. So real quick, jumping into water and all sound disappears.
Joe: There’s when he jumps off the helicopter into the water, and then when he goes into the water from the from the submarine magically finds keys to a car that he drives at the end. Or he’s chasing the bad guy or chasing Gabriel.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: There’s a, moment where the person is about to shoot a good guy and then get shot, so you’re ready for them. And then I think that happens kind of a midpoint in the movie. He’s your best at something. You have revenge as the driver of the protagonist. Also redemption. One last job. They don’t say it, but it’s kind of implied in this movie.
Greg: One last time.
Joe: Yeah, one last time.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: We have a friend, colleague, family, usually a person of color who dies early in this film. So Luther takes that finally, after saying to Tom cruise in the first one that it’s always a black guy that dies midpoint in the movie. Coming back around, he does. You have conversations in the middle of kind of chaos or a car chase.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Amazing recovery time on everyone. Medical care from a partner or care from a loved one. So you have Benji both being directing the action and also Tom cruise who is suffering from the bends down, letting a file under pressure or trying to like, stop the entity under pressure.
Greg: Blink of an eye.
Joe: Checking if a gun is loaded. There’s probably a million others, but those are the ones that I notice.
Greg: Wow, that’s not bad. Yeah, it’s the first time we’ve done this with just a theater movie. That’s where. All right Joe, are you ready to answer some important questions about this movie.
Joe: I am going to do my best okay.
Greg: When did you see this movie?
Joe: Yesterday.
Greg: Okay. Joe, did this movie hold up yesterday? Yes. Do you think it holds up today?
Joe: It sure.
Greg: Does. Okay. Okay, great. I feel exactly the same about this movie as I do about seven. I think my estimation of this movie will go up and improve as time.
Joe: You saw this, what.
Greg: Three days ago? I saw this on Friday. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It’s we it’s Tuesday right now. Yeah. How hard do they sell the good guy. The messianic stuff. Yeah. Really got a little strong.
Joe: Yeah. Pretty hard.
Greg: Yeah. Pretty hard. Oh there was a whole intro thing when Angela Bassett was saying you know even on your worst day you did the right thing or whatever. How hard did this other bad guy.
Joe: Not as hard as they do in the seventh one.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. Which I appreciate it. Yeah. They didn’t need to. Yeah. They didn’t need to win the seventh one. I don’t think. Joe, why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: Beautiful thing about this movie. There isn’t really romance. There’s some tension between Hayley Atwell and Tom cruise, and.
Greg: There’s a spark there.
Joe: Yeah, but that thing that’s actualized on screen, right?
Greg: She compliments his hair. Yeah. She likes it a little longer. Yeah. All right Joe are we bad people for loving this movie I mean probably yeah. Yeah. Does it deserve a sequel.
Joe: This is probably the toughest question of our important questions. Deserve I’ll say yes. It doesn’t need one. No, I will be totally happy if this is the last one. Yeah, yeah, it wraps everything up, and I will 100% watch a sequel.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: What I would love to see is the next Christopher McQuarrie Tom cruise movie, whatever that’s going to be. Yeah. I’m curious where they go from here. You know, Tom cruise is kind of ageless in a way, but also in his 60s.
Greg: 62, I think.
Joe: It looks amazing. Yep. Runs faster than I can.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: As that’s the barometer of fast running, by the way, for everyone.
Greg: Yeah. Is it faster or slower than just Guy Tucker? Yeah, that’s what we were all wondering. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So here we are, knowing I have heard rumors that there’s kind of like a James Bond kind of like potential of, like, Tom cruise steps aside and either Ethan Hunt lives on with a new actor or the, you know, the IMF lives on with John Smith spinoffs.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Joe: I’d be fine with either. It’s tough shoes to fill.
Greg: I don’t think they can do it.
Joe: I think it’s you need like a break. You need a few years if they’re going to do that and then figure out the direction of it. But I feel like they it’s it would be a tough act to follow right now.
Greg: I mean I trust that if they did it, it would it would make sense. But it right now it feels like a pretty big lift. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. I’d rather see a nine with Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie coming back and saying, hey, these are some stuff we wanted to do.
Greg: Yeah. Bring back Renner Jeremy Renner. Does it deserve a prequel now that’s not a prequel okay I completely disagree because there’s a two month lapse between 7 and 8. What happened in those two months okay. Make it a seven season Netflix show okay.
Joe: I mean, I’m gonna watch the hell out of that.
Greg: It’s called two months and it has seven seasons on Netflix. It begins at the end of seven and it ends at the beginning of eight.
Joe: Okay. I’m on the end of Vin Diesel is directing.
Greg: Okay. Greenlight okay. Let me just think about it. All right Joe, very important question for you. Should Mission Impossible the final reckoning be nominated for best picture at the Oscars? No.
Joe: Yeah. Absolutely not I agree. However, I would be more in favor of it than stupid Top Gun Maverick.
Greg: Wow. Interesting. Really? Yeah.
Joe: Okay. I feel like this takes a bigger swing at.
Greg: Yeah it does.
Joe: Trying to do something. I know Top Gun Maverick is leaning heavily into nostalgia.
Joe: But this is a better like this is a significantly better movie than Top Gun Maverick. To me.
Greg: Big words.
Joe: And I love I’ve seen Top Gun Maverick twice I love it it’s amazing.
Greg: It’s. Yeah. It’s so good.
Joe: It’s so good. And if I wasn’t nominated I would love it even more like this. I’m like holding it against. I shouldn’t hold it against the movie.
Greg: Yeah, it’s not their fault.
Joe: It’s not their fault, but.
Greg: It’s not their fault. They saved Hollywood.
Joe: It just as annoying.
Greg: Yeah. All right, next question. Joe, how can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake? Do you have an answer to this?
Joe: I have no answer for this. Do you have the answer for this?
Greg: I do, and it’s just where is camera? If we’re bringing back everything.
Joe: Absolutely good question. Good. Thank you.
Greg: It was sorely missing. Awesome. And also, not only should there have been more masks, I don’t think it can be the last Mission Impossible movie unless it has more masks than all the previous movies combined. Okay, that’s when we know we’re going out. It needs to win the mask off, and at least once it needs to be John Travolta or Nicolas Cage.
Joe: Okay. I’m in.
Greg: Okay, I agree.
Joe: Great that it’s fixed.
Greg: Our next important question. Do you have an answer to this? What album is this?
Joe: I don’t have an answer to this. I think what I have and maybe we can workshop this together. Sure. This is a reunion tour.
Joe: That works like this is like a, more of, like a live music experience of going to see a band that is still making great music. Maybe people think it’s a little past his prime, but does it tour? And it’s just.
Greg: It’s.
Joe: Perfect. And it may, you know, maybe it’s like Rolling Stones and like the 80s, like now they’re just kind of.
Greg: Yeah this is steel wheels.
Joe: Like that. That’s kind of where I’m feeling this is.
Greg: That’s really good I think. What is that like 1986 something. The wheels. Yeah. It’s like 18 years into. Them being a thing that’s really good. That’s probably better than mine. Although I’m not doing like reunion tour I’m doing. If this really is the last Mission Impossible, I don’t know if it is, but if it is I’m going to say this movie is REM’s last album collapse into now.
Greg: Do you know this album collapse something now? My theory is that with this album, the band knew it was their last album, going in, and writing the songs and recording them. They knew that this was the end. There’s actually, a song on there called It Happened Today, and I think it’s a song about them deciding to break up.
Greg: And so this is all just my personal theory. I don’t I not googled this once, but it just feels when you listen to this album, it’s so clear. This band seems to have known this was their last album because they are touching on what they sounded like throughout their whole career. To the extent that this could be just a bizarro world greatest hits of a different R.E.M., they’re directly calling on different eras with the songs on this album as if to say, wasn’t this all great?
Greg: Let’s go through as if to say, remember Mission Impossible one? You know, three, four remember, Philip Seymour Hoffman was in it. You know, it’s it’s as if they’re trying to spark that nostalgia sonically throughout, but it’s a band that also is fatigued. You know, this definitely is their last album. And so, but it was a band going out on its own terms.
Greg: And if you like that band, it serves up something that reminds you why you loved it all along. And so that’s what I feel like this movie is. I listen to the last two R.E.M. records. I’m somebody who, like, was all all in on R.E.M. and then really fell off. And even though I fell off with them, I would still listen to these last two albums.
Greg: It’s such an interesting look at a band finishing, which isn’t a look. We get very much a band finishing on purpose. Right. We don’t get that very much in life. No. So I listen to those last two albums Accelerate and Collapse into now, I don’t know, once a year.
Joe: Yeah, there I definitely because I was with you all in. Yeah. And my pinnacle with them was after I came out, I saw them at Bumper Shoot.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It was great. And like that was it. That was the Mick. That was the moment. And then I haven’t really listened to anything else they’ve done. I’ll use some of their songs on, on playlists that I make sure from way back when.
Greg: But yeah.
Joe: I feel like I need to get back into some of their stuff that they went through. I bet I would love it now it’s one of those I just need. Oh, I got a three hour drive to Portland tomorrow, so.
Greg: Oh yeah, they worked with this Irish producer named Jack nicely, who has worked with, I don’t know, a ton of people, U2. He’s in kind of the U2 camp, but he’s produced a ton of bands. Snow patrol was him read by Taylor Swift that a lot of interesting albums, but he basically told R.E.M., like, unless you can figure out who you were at the beginning, I’m almost not interested.
Greg: And so they learned a bunch the songs on their first couple of albums, and they put it out as a live record, actually, and they’re scared to death because they don’t remember how to play these songs. But what they did was they remembered who they were, and then they recorded an album called accelerate. That kind of taps into that energy and, I love it.
Greg: It’s great. Anyways, Jack knife Lee really interesting producer kind of track with and, I love it when you hear a producer just kind of saying, no, not interested. Unless you’re the band that I fell in love with, right? Still, you know, it’s interesting to me. Yeah. All right, Joe, it’s time for us to rate this movie. Great bad movie.
Greg: Good bad movie. Okay. Bad, awful bad movie. Where do you rank this?
Joe: This is a great bad movie. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah. Best case scenario, a great bad movie. Yeah.
Joe: I can’t even really make the case for any other rating on this.
Greg: Yeah, totally. It’s it’s not a great, great movie. No, it’s not Edge of Tomorrow.
Joe: No definitely not. But it’s everything you want. Yeah. And like a summer blockbuster movie.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. It’s big, a little bloated.
Joe: And it kind of takes you places. You weren’t expecting.
Greg: This is a movie where if I lived in Dallas and it was July, and I would just need to go someplace that has professional air conditioning. I want to watch the longest Mission Impossible I can you know that air conditioning. And this is the big dumb movie with like real life themes behind it as well. And real beating heart human beings making it you know best case scenario great bad movie.
Greg: Yeah. All right Joe we did it.
Joe: Oh we did it. Nailed it. In fact, this was the conversation that needed to be had about Mission Impossible eight.
Greg: Everybody had four days to say what they needed to say. And here we are.
Joe: Here we are. We nailed it. This is this is the conversation. Nobody else needs to really talk about this movie.
Greg: So just a quick instant reaction from us. Yeah. It’s not like.
Joe: A quick.
Greg: A proper episode. I got a as always, we should say spoilers for Mission Impossible eight.
Joe: Unless you only listen to the first 20 minutes of this and only moderate.
Greg: Spoilers, maybe. Listen, if you have liked what you’ve heard, follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Tell a friend that would be another great way for you to, to help out the podcast. The best thing you could do is like and subscribe.
Joe: That’s the best thing.
Greg: Yeah, just smash that like, button. And, we’d love to hear from you. You can email us a great Bad Movies show@gmail.com. You can find us on Instagram. Great Bad Movies show. You can find us on YouTube and hit us in the comments. There lots of different ways you can get Ahold of us. You can go to our website Great Bad movies.com.
Greg: We’d love to hear from you. So you know what, Joe? We did it. It. We’ve crossed the finish line. Oh my gosh, I just know that. I don’t know if you can see it. Behind me, there’s a huge countdown clock that has been put in my house, and apparently I have 72 hours until something horrible is about to happen, so I should probably figure out what that is.
Greg: Yeah, but actually, no, I think of it, 72 hours is actually quite a while, so I think I’ve got some more time. Do you wanna hang out?
Joe: Yeah, let’s do it. I think I’ll grab a beer. Okay. While we’re doing that, though, I just have to warn you, I’ve been gifted an aircraft carrier, so I’m going to go check that out. Sorry. We’ll see you see what happens, okay?
Greg: Okay. That sounds pretty fun, honestly. Yeah. Sounds pretty good. Okay, well, I’m actually starting to think that this entity is on to something, and I kind of want to help it out. So I’m going to go become a guard at a nuclear facility just in case someone tries to power it down. Okay.
Joe: Yeah. That’s good, that’s good. I’ve got to go defuze a bomb. So I’ll be I’ll be back in, like, two minutes. 2.5 minutes to.
Greg: Two and a half, whatever it takes. Okay, well, that works for me. Actually, I need to go because I think I’m going to start a new cruciform key business.
Joe: That’s good, that’s good. That’s interesting. I think that’s a super, super big market for that. And I’m going to go do my polar bear plunge.
Greg: So sure. It’s so good. Yeah that’s.
Joe: Good. Hope there’s a decompression mobile decompression tank there in case I want to dive real deep and come up too quickly.
Greg: But no. But I feel like we talked about this film for a while and the decompression chamber did not come up. Yeah, that was just ordered through some website probably. Yeah.
Joe: Sheen or something like that.
Greg: Yeah. Totally. Totally. Okay. Well, that works for me. I probably should go. I think I’m going to go try to find a reckoning that kind of feels final.
Joe: Oh, that’s good, that’s good. I’m. I’m late for a meeting with someone named Kittridge. About a choice. Sure. I hope that goes well. So.
Greg: Yeah. Okay, great. Well, tell him hi for me. I’m going to go through, a submarine and listen to droning music underwater.
Joe: That’s good, that’s good. This is weird, but I’ve got to go diffuse another bomb. So can.
Greg: You just.
Joe: Hold on for a second?
Greg: Yeah, that works for me. I am going to go simply because I’m assuming the entity wants me to stay. And why would I do what it wants me to do? So I’m going to do the opposite.
Joe: That’s awesome. The streets are inexplicably wet, so I’m going to go for a run. I’ll be right. I’ll be right back. I’m going to sprint, though. But it’s going to be for a really long time.
Greg: Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. All right. Well, that works for me. So I will see you, sir.
Joe: Right. See you soon.