Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning Reactions

We need to talk about Ethan Hunt, one last time. Jason and Rosie are suiting up in their high tech dive suits and diving so deep (like Sevastopol levels of deep) with their reactions to Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. Were the set pieces enough? Do we care about Gabriel as a villain? Was it worth it for Jason to see this movie in 4DX?

Plus, we have a DOUBLE omnibus! Jason and Rosie merge their two halves of the cruciform key to explore the stunt work in the movies as well as the history of the television show that started it all.

Follow Jason: IG & Bluesky

Follow Rosie: IG & Letterboxd 

Follow X-Ray Vision on Instagram

Join the X-Ray Vision Discord

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What today's today's episode getting spoilers for Mission Impossible? The
final recording? Can this movie be spoiled?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
How could you spoil? I don't know. I guess we'll
find out. I guess we'll find out.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
What it is, Jasconcepcio And on Wesday Night and welcome
back to text. Our vision of the podcast. Will we
go to the bottom of a trench in the Northern
Pacific to talk about your favorite shows, movies, colleagues of
pop culture coming from our podcast, where we'll bring you
three episodes a week every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Plus in the allo we are reckoning with Mission Impossible.
Then mabe, wait a minute, We've got double omnibus.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
How did this happen?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
I will be talking about Final Reckoning one and Final Day.
I will be reckoning with the action set pieces of
the franchise and the history of how Mission Impossible went
from a saucy, edgy political thriller by Brian de Palmer
to an insane action set piece franchise.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
And Jason will be omnibusing about.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
How the television show evolved over the course of several decades,
with an original run through the seventies, A reboot in
the eighties to its final form as a film franchise.
Let's get into it all, right, Rosie. First of all,
let me say this, I saw an a possible final

(01:43):
reckoning last night. I thought I was seeing it imax.
I accidentally bought a ticket for four DX the Regal
Live Downtown, La Live, Baby, where it's all happening, and
let me tell you, Rosie, barely fucking survive. How's how's

(02:03):
your back doing well? First of all, F one. The
trailer for F one legitimately almost bucked me out of
my seat into the front row, and I was hanging
on for dear life for much of this movie. Forty
X is in like you are a psychotic human being

(02:25):
if you're like, get me into forty X now, dude.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
So that is basically how most kids like to watch movies.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
I am the way.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think it's the only way that we can like
trap them into watching like a full length feature and
needs a seatbelt.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
It needs a seat belt. I the only screening I
could get into for Gladiator two, which we discussed.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
On a previous episode, was also forty X. Bro without
like stabbing people in the back. I'm getting punched in
the back.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
The sharks are spraying water on me.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
It was awful, the water, the vapor, the sickening vapor of.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
You can turn it off, so it's just like an
er jet, but it's still troubling.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I gotta ask you before we get into our full reactions,
like this movie.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Is edited so tropily. How was that?

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Like?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
What did you how did you survive.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
The several cuts there are, so I don't know, Like
my the version that I got in this in the
version was like ja haja chu chu chut cha, Like
how scary was that?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
In the forty X was it?

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Like it was saying for the action, what was the
worst part when it was reaction the super when you
were in the submarine, because that was stressful.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Nuts, So in the submarine it was mostly I'll say
this the film and whoever sinks the acts of forty
X actions, they do a good job of, like of
leveling you up. They don't just you know, it's not
just like dropping you into the most insane like forty

(03:59):
X movements, which is the problem with the f one trailer,
the one trailer immediately and yeah, you're just like blown
back in your seat. You can feel the tires of
the car and it's just too much for final reckoning.
It was kind of like a a staggered build, and
you could so For the submarine section, it was a

(04:24):
lot of spray. Every time Ethan is opening another hatch
to go to another section of the sub, you're getting sprayed.
And as the sub begins to roll into the trench,
now you're getting this kind of slow, kind of sickening
movement of the chairs back and forth combined with the spraying.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
And then for the plane, it's just like hold on
for dear life. Like I was bracing my legs against
the against the foot pad, like really like holding on.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Tip me out.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Also, by this point it was like one in the morning,
because the movie is like three hours long.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I mean, it keeps you awake, like I was going
to world, in which I would have I might have
fallen asleep, but this absolutely keeps you on your p's
and q's. To your point about the edding, this movie
is I'm gonna start with the positives, Rosie.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yes, yes, Okay, let's go to reactions and start.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
With let's start the positive set pieces I think are
legitimately some of them, like the sub is I thought

(05:51):
a beautiful, very suspenseful, and weird in a way that's
hard to put your finger on. Like, this movie is weird,
and I kind of like it. There are portions of
it where if this had been a quote unquote normal movie,

(06:13):
normal action film, as done by Brad Bird or one
of the previous people to helm a mission impossible franchise
JJ Abrams, then there would be long sections of very
very boring like dialogue about bullshit and Ethan's past and
the people he is connected within his past and all

(06:34):
these I mean, the flashbacks in this movie are probably
an hour and a half of them at least at least,
But there's a weirdness throughout that makes it those kind
of dead moments strangely compelling, you know, in a this
movie is bad but interesting kind of way. My personal
theory is that five years since you know, top Gun,

(07:00):
Maverick and Covid era of the industry basically saying Tom Cruise,
save us, save the industry, save Hollywood, Tom Cruise, only
you can save it, Only you can do it. Tom
has like has like completely by osmosis filled his being,

(07:20):
so that this movie is very strangely messianic.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Oh, it's very much like he is Jesus the franchise
or Hollywood unclear, but either and both.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
The whole movie is like, uh, we have you know,
like no one has the strength or the courage to
destroy the AI because everybody thinks they can control it,
and Ethan Ethan's the only one who wants to destroy it,
and everybody is trying to talk him out of destroying
Grace is like, are you shouldn't really want to destroy it?
You know that? The president is like we need it.
Everybody is telling him, don't destroy it. And then you

(07:54):
get to the end place where he's like, you know what,
I think I can actually control it.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, He's like, I.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Got ye me, I'm the one person they can control it.
It's obviously to me.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Uh yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Obviously if you're listening to this, you're probably like, Wow,
can't believe you guys are not doing a recap.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Impossible movie to recap guys, I just don't say.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
There's barely any place.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
There's literally there's literally no way you could recap it
because too much happens and nothing happens, and most of
that happens nothing in too much at the same time, Yeah,
and most of what happens is just flashbacks to other movies. Now,
I have to say I was I was on an
emotional rollercoaster during this movie because it started and I was.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Like, what is going on. Then by the time it
got to.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
The credits, like twenty minutes in, and it was like
an insane hundred people plus credits with like tiny little
chopped and changed parts of the movie, I was like, oh, wait,
maybe this is like a camp masterpiece. And then I
was like nope, I don't know what's going on. And
then I was like camp masterpiece. And then I was
like insane stunts? Is this movie bad?

Speaker 2 (08:58):
It is true a unique experience.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it's unbelievable that this movie got released in
the way that it did because there is no other
movie like this where you have like forty five and
this fluss of recapping.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
This feels kind of like a TV show.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
They've had a lot of success in the last few
years with these like religious TV series called The Chosen
and every few months whenever there's like a religious holiday,
they'll release a few episodes as a movie, and that's
been very popular. I felt like that was what I
was watching, like I was watching a TV series that
they had, like were trying to plunge into a movie

(09:41):
to try and kind of finish it off. It was
absolutely insane. I was also very confused because I just
do feel like the last movie, the first half of
this movie was at least like a normal three act structure, yeah,
compared to this this Like I kept being like, oh man,

(10:02):
I've got to I've got to go home and just
immediately watch seven and see what it feels like.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
And it did feel a lot more traditional than this film.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
And the thing is, I do like I agree with you.
I like the ambitious swing of just being like, hey,
here is a completely almost abstract movie like The Villain.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
But it's almost like two thousand and one Space on
the same time. So that's really what I was reminded of.
There's long stretches where no one speaks and you're just
seeing like weird vistas and underwater stuff.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
I was It's like, when I was watching the movie,
I do, I was thinking about this conversation, and I was.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Like, Okay, what is your I need to go.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
I want to go back with the little like timer
in my pocket, But like, what was your estimation for.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
How much of the movie has no dialogue, because I
think it's pretty high.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
I think I think it's probably at least forty to
forty five percent of the movie. I agree no dialogue.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
It's at these long shots where everyone is like looking
at each other, very art house inspired. But then the
other fifty five percent is just people explaining stuff. That's
the thing I think is strangest about this movie is
everything is over explained to a point where by the
end it feels like you're going slightly like into a spiral.

(11:24):
It seems like hypnotized by being hypnotized by the a exposition,
Like everyone has to explain at every point everything that's happening.
I don't know if that was an exact choice. I
don't know if that was I don't feel like that's
ever a writer's choice.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
But there was a lot of tell do not show.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
They would be like, Okay, then you gotta put this
suit on, then you gotta go all the way down,
then you gotta do this, then you're gotta do that,
and they bring in, you know, incredibly talented and beautiful
actress Katie O'Brien to explain to him how to use
a diving suit.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
By the way, Okay, and I want to talking about
two minutes.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
I need to talk about Katie O'Brien, whose character has
no name, no US diver.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
How crazy is so.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
To kind of give you an idea about how strange,
I mean, you talked about it. There's all these scenes
where everybody's just like looking at each other with these
kind of inscrutable looks on their face, and I'm trying
to like connect on an emotional level and figure out
what's going on. So Ethan dives into the Northern Pacific.
This is off of helicopter and these divers e merged

(12:34):
from the sub, including Katie O'Brien, and they bring him
down to the sub which is captained by Trammel Tillman
Captain Jack Bloodson and who does get a name? Cool, right?
He is wonderful. And so there's this one part where
like there they've got Ethan in this hot shower to
like raise his body temperature. He's sitting there with his

(12:55):
shirt off in this hot shower and Kay o brian
is like sitting behind him as if she's a about
to soap his back and.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Shies. He tries to get day.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
And this we in this very like motherly thing which
is like we've talked about this weird theme of like
all these women in these movies who just like want
to take the everyone wants to take care of Ethan
like a child, and they were just and she, yeah,
she does this stick where she's like, no, stick.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
You like you have to get you an inscrutable chemistry.
So when he leaves, she.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Almost kids him, and then she's like and then she's like,
you know, take care of my suit, which, by the way,
he like chops the pieces that does not just cuts
it off because he's like a superhero. But like, yeah,
there's so many moments. I will say the one thing
I did really like because like when they were doing
a flashback at the beginning of all the different women
that Ethan Hunt like has loved and has fucked, then

(13:52):
who want to fuck Ethan Hunt? They didn't leave out Jack,
the old lady from Mission Impossible.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
He has some of the best chemistry with him. So
I apprecia Max. Yeah, Max, Yeah, that was great.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
I mean where that's really where it all began for
this particular thing. Yeah, but there's all these weird things
like that, and so many scenes of just people like
around a table, jaw clenched, like scaring at each other
so intensely, and they hold on these shots where you're
like what is this?

Speaker 3 (14:24):
You're like okay, And I mean obviously like to me,
every time Angela Bassetts in the movie is like more enjoyable.
So I like that she was the one that they
had president President. Now she was the one who they
had to do the first recap And may I say,
there are multiple recaps of other Mission Impo movies in
this movie, which.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
I think is absolutely deranged. Were you do I kind
of love it? Maybe I can't really. I mean that
where I stand on this film, I think, like I
wrote my.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Letter boxed review, was like I felt like Zoe Kravitz
in the finale of this Studio. No, it truly is
what that is like the moment when she's like she
like is like, oh my god, Matt, You're back, thank God,
and then she turns just like the Seth Bergen character
and she's like, I was like trapped in a forest
and then I realized I was the forest and then
I'm out of it and I'm so glad you're back.

(15:15):
Let's do the presentation and he's like, it's been thirty seconds.
That was me. The whole way through this movie, I
felt like it was seven hours long, Like she was enjoyable.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't know, I didn't leave.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
I mean it was memorable. Let me ask you this,
what was your reaction when the credit stinger finally comes
across the screen thirty minutes into the film. I was like,
wait a second, what. I know, we were just getting
into it.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Suddenly hears like the thewse longer than and the vision
impossible like.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Las God bless Lalla Schiffrin.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I know we've talked about this a lot, but like this,
I do truly believe this franchise would not exist if
it didn't have such a bang of soundtrack, a bang
of score by Lollo Shiffrin.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
But like that was the moment where I was like, minute,
I was like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Because also, like the credits have so many main like
title actors in them, and it's orange, and then they're
like blowing through all these crazy images of everything that's
happened in Mission Impossible before, and I was like, I
feel like you could just trust the audience a little
bit more. I will say, I think I think that's
the biggest problem is I don't know obviously people like me.

(16:27):
They treat them all and we know what's happening. And
I'm not saying everyone's going into it with that level,
but like movies have traditionally done this, like Karate Kid,
the sequels to Karate Kid, they usually begin with like
a five minute recap, but our twenty five minute recap,
and not multiple recaps, because throughout the movie they're consistently

(16:49):
saying stuff like, oh, Ethan Hunt, he did that Langley
break in?

Speaker 2 (16:53):
And then they go back and they show you the
break in from Langley.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Though, I will say William donnaghue coming back, who was
the don Low thank you?

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Who was the.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Guy that they you know, gave diarrhea to break into Langley?
Him coming back as like a major force in this movie.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Wasn't expecting that. Love that part.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
I loved it. He was like, Ethan, thank you for
ruining my life.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
He was like, I loved living in this cabin.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I loved that you ruined my life and got me
sent to Alaska or wherever the fuck this is because
now I've I've found my my wife and life partner
to Pisa, and I've found the meaning of life in
this like desolate cabin.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Oh yeah, and then by the way, thanks for fucking
burning it down before you go, because that was.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Actually going well.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
I will say, Aaron makes a great point. They recapped
many things in this movie didn't make it in. They
didn't recap the diarrhea. They recapped them giving him food poisoning.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
They were like, enough, I have a There's so many also,
like weird threads that I'm like, did that happen? I
have Okay, I'm gonna lay out the weird threads. Let's
discuss them. And then I have a theory to drop
on you, like like Luthor having terminal illness and then dying.

(18:14):
That felt like that came out of what the sky?
Where did that come from? Like players, First of all,
they like you know, Ethan strolls out of like the
subway through like this massive protest, and then like meets
up with Benji and they go to like some safety.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Can I just say something, it's a problem that they
have a spot that they always return to. To me,
if I was if I was, you know, a nemesis
of some kind, that would be where I would kill them.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
So they go there and Luther's there working on stuff,
and you get no hint that he's ill, and then
the next time you see him in the Seine, he's
like on his deathbed, like in a hospital bed. I'm like,
did I like blackout and not something?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Why is he dying?

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Is actually very true that nobody understand this. It is
unclear that this was not something that was brought up
in a previous movie.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Everyone is like, why did this happen?

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I was I was literally went on Reddit straight away
and was like, wait, how does this?

Speaker 2 (19:16):
How does this happen? I'm guessing that like they didn't
want to.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Have like I guess the poison pill, maybe making it.
I have no idea this was like ranged like making
the ive D drive. Sometimes nobody seems to know. They
don't specify at any point, and I guess maybe because

(19:44):
he was sick, they maybe.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
It makes it less bad that he doesn't well.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Also as well, let's speak about this moment, because so
that he gets trapped in the weird underground like lair
where Gabriel's made this mini verse of the bomb that
he's gonna use later and he's like, it's gonna bomb us.
But I need to understand. You guys have like broken
into the FBI had where were you guys tunnels on

(20:15):
the London.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
They just decided to exists. But they also like you
can't suddenly you just can't get him out of like
a metal cage. I don't believe it. Tom, somebody get
a blowtor. All he did was just broke it with
a rock.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
He just broke the look off, like I have seen
Tom Cruise do crazy things in this movie, and now
you're telling me he's just not gonna says.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Like he's a movie in this very movie. He He's like,
I have uh oh, I have lock picks in my
watch and my and my cufflings, Like where's that stuff?

Speaker 2 (20:52):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Another weird moment, Hunt and Grace are capture. They go
to like some party. The world is falling apart, but
all the spies are having this massive like opera party,
like that's that like the top spies in Cut and
Gabriel are just gonna go to has to go to this.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
They say it in like the un or something, but
the British Embassy, but it's actually the Natural History Museum.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Where are you used to up right?

Speaker 1 (21:24):
And so even though like the AI is threatening the world,
the world is falling apart, there's like a nuclear crisis.
The entity has a cult like everything's going sideways, all
like the top spies and diplomats are like, let's have
a party. They have a party and even goes to
this surely one of the most recognizable spies like ever

(21:46):
And is.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Any one of those mosques. I have to say, not
enough mission impossible mosques in.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
This movie, whereas I come on, Ethan, you couldn't wear
a most like moments, I was like, he's somebody's gonna
pull off a masque, and they say so.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Grace shows up and they both get captured you know
by who, like I guess by the Entity, by Gabriel's people,
and Gabriel by this point is like kind of not
working with the entity or whatever. So they're about to
get tortured. Ethan wakes up. He's chained to a chair.
He says like, I don't have my watch and on
my cufflings on my lock picks. He says to Grace,

(22:27):
Remember Grace, it's only pain. Just tell yourself it's only
it's pain.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
You could get through it.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
What okay? This is psychic.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
This actually leads into one of the best weirdest moments
of the movie.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
It's so weird.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
So they escape, but what they decide to do is,
rather than showing us like a sick action sequence, we
get about thirty seconds of that. And I have to say,
for a mission a possible movie, there is not a
lot of action in this film. And there is not
a lot of set pieces. There's only like two major
set pieces, which is big though, and the longest one

(23:07):
is like twenty five minutes long, and it's very impressive.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
But they basically they break out. Good for them.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
But then they do an incredibly strange choice that I
still can't quite work out, where they have the camera
framed on Captain Carter aka Grace his face and they
have it there for like twenty seconds as even.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
The hills every it's like.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Tunes and also very like it's her face is so
horrified by what she's seeing and you're hearing all this choice.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
And when he cuts back, he's been killing these people
with a meat cleaver.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, it's like a meat clean sticking out of the guy.
The two guys are piled on top of.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
It, okay, and he's like, they were gonna kill you.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
But that felt like to me that would be something
that they would play into late or she wouldn't trust
him or she thought he was too violent, but no,
it was just a random bit that they did.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
So weird, very strange choices. Okay, final, final, super weird
thing hunt And what I think is maybe my favorite
segment of the of the movie is the sub infiltration
and escape and so Ethan is escaping.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Which is really weird. But really again.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
This is this is the most two thousand and one
like final thirty minutes of two thousand and one part
of a summer blockbuster, like ever, maybe no words at all,
all action, very weird visuals like they they mentioned, you know,
Katie O'Brien's unnamed us divers tells him, listen, you're gonna

(24:59):
experience like mental like psychosis and weird things and pain,
and so they there is a brief there's these brief
moments where he like sees one of the dead sailors
like pointing to him, but that and it's like.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
And also it looks like they've got some kind of
growth on them, so it looks almost like fungal and
they kind of play into that kind of weird.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
The weirdest they came out doesn't do anything.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Doesn't that do like a fifteen minute explanation of how
dangerous it is for him to do this dive in
this suit and all the reasons he has to follow
the rules and wear the suit.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
But then he like immediately just cuts the suit off.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, and just like like six hundred feet underwater. Okay,
So this brings me to my final very very strange.
So Ethan cuts the suit off, exits the sub which
is rolling down a trench through the torpedo tube, and
with difficulty, swims hundreds of feet five hundred plus feet

(26:04):
six hundred and seven hundred feet to the surface, experiencing
the bends the whole time is like the gas you know,
the gas bubbles expanded in his body and he he
comes up like fifty feet short and drowns.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
But then they predicted what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
But then like because he's got that like little tracker
on him, they don't show it. But he wakes up
in the pressurization and the mobile pressurization chamber that Grace
and Tapisa had like rode out on the sled out there,
and he wakes up there and there, and she's in it,

(26:42):
and she's in it. She's in it. I guess you
could just be in it if you didn't go underwater.
She's in it with him, and she wakes up. He
wakes up in her arms, and they're like the light
of love is shining on them and to pieces like
looking in through the glass smiling this tific smile. So
here is my theory. This entire movie is the death

(27:09):
throws of Ethan Hunt as he drowns. He all of
these flashbacks, all of this exposition is his life flashing
before his eyes as he fails to make the surface
and dies, and then it's unclear to me if he
if he actually lives. I think he dies right there.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
I like that a lot.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
I think that makes a lot of sense, especially because
from hairing out, everything gets like very super heroic, like
he finishes everything, everyone survives.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Everyone is saying, Benji makes it. You know, he makes it.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
The new kid makes makes and it seems like they're
setting up like a pum clementy Benji relationship.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Maybe. Also, that's another thing that I will say about
this movie.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
It establishes multiple things where I feel like there could
have been a way to explain it, but they do
so much explanation, but then they don't. So for example,
early on in this movie. Something we have not mentioned
yet is that so that he can be in control
or at least in conversation with the AI, which the
early half of the movie like constantly just shows like

(28:23):
a computer music visualizer type version of this AI for
like ten to fifteen.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Minutes on the screen talking to Ethan. It's surreal. It's
incredibly surreal.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
But like during that moment, Ethan puts on this like
scary AI helmet and goes in a scary AI box
costant kind of like a coffin that kind of show,
and Pom says, it will change you.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
It's gonna change you.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
So he gets in that AI shows him the truth
of the world kind of like he's Ultron, and I
was like, oh, okay, well then they can use that
to just explain why he can do anything for the
rest of the movie, because he's basically like right, and
he's like half AI half human, and they don't do it.
They don't do it, just they just get him out
and then they're.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Like, Okay, he's out, like you seem AI, And I'm like,
what is going on?

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like I feel like my original letterbox review was gonna
be like I need the tofa Grace cut, and I
do stand by that because I want to see there
is a ninety.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Agree to two hours of this movie.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Movie way more like the original Mission Impossibles we've seen.
It doesn't have all the insane flashbacks, it doesn't have
the constant reuse of old footage, It probably doesn't have
as much of the AI visualizer, And I think there's
something that would be really interesting in that.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Movie that feels a lot more akin to.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
An like a traditional maybe early Mission Impossible movie. But
in its current status it is one of the stranger
films of the year.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
And in that way, I kind of like, good, good on.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Sorry, Yeah, I'd rather see a very weird bad movie
than a flat out bad movie. One more thing, and
then we'll move on to the Omnibus. I to the Omnibi,
the entity terrible villain what even it doesn't make any
sense because, first of all, Carbons omnibussy. First of all,

(30:25):
because the AI is like never even involved enough to
be a be an effective foil for Ethan and then Gabriel,
same thing is just not around until the very end
of I feel really.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Really weird that they the AI is so omnipo omnipotent
and they have it like take over the nuclear arsenal
or whatever, which actually honestly feels like a very overdone
trope for this movie where they're doing so much weird stuff,
But like, why isn't the AI just like we see
at the beginning that there's this AI doomstay call never

(30:59):
mentioned again, by the way, which I thought was interesting
part of the movie. And they also mentioned like the
AI is changing stuff, so people are.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Can I ask you? Did you so when when Hunt
gets attacked by the other unnamed US diver, I perceived
that as this is one of the entities.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, yeah, me too.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
It was just like he must love the cult, he
must he must love the entity or whatever.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
But they never really explain.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Aaron said, the BB Report is sharing all the videos
of the cult. Come on, Aaron, But like it's one
of those things where I was just there was a
lot of threads that they introduced that I felt like
could have helped push the narrative along, Like if the
AI is so powerful, we could have seen it kind
of play around with the public perception of IMF or

(31:54):
Hunt or anything. But instead it just doesn't just talk
about the AI, just like take over the nuclear weapons
and then just waits behind to basically disarm it. It's
it's truly very strange.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
And our film.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
And I was in the movie feeling like it was
much longer than it was, which is I mean, I
love I love.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
The movies, movies, movies, movies. Me and Jason paid to go.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
And see this movie.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
We love you and I we love we love cinema,
we love porn. We apparently love forty X now, so
I guess see to the movies.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
I watch six K.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
I would watch that in forty X definitely that would
be terrifying. And I just I this was such an
unexpectedly strange experience.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I can't imagine.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
I went to see it, uh at the local AMC
and in me it was Bargain Tuesday of Love that day.
But like there's there's the del Ammo Maull which was full,
like every single one was full. And and usually it
goes between our there or the other theater, which one's
going to be full.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
And our one was not full.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
And I honestly just can't imagine what it would have
been like to see that in a full theater, Like
were people stoked about it?

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Like when don Low appeared where they like, no.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
One seemed to like no one seemed to clock that
no one got the reference, and they don't tell you
until they're on the plane leaving the island, like they've
got through all this stuff before he's it's like, oh
you're that, yeah, remember me?

Speaker 2 (33:27):
They have other people say it.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
But the other thing that I find really funny is
I'm not gonna lie. Part of this Watching this movie
did feel like to me that some execs somewhere had
like watched a lot of MCU movies, didn't understand the
Easter eggs and was felt like annoyed.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
That they didn't understand them. So they were like, you
know what people.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Really want, They want to every reference explained. When somebody
shows up, you better reference how they were in the
other movies and why this is a reference, and like
what they been up to it.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
I think I'm.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Interested to see if there's obviously Chris mcquarie and Tom
Cruise I think have final cut on these things.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
I don't think that I like, I think Tom has
the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
I don't think that there's a world where there's like
a different cut they wish was released, but it was
giving a blade Runner with the narration to me, like
I would love to see a non exposition, non flashback
version that just allowed it to be abstract and weird
and all about these crazy set pieces. Like I will say,

(34:33):
for whatever my feelings are about the quality of the movie.
The end like forty five minutes of this movie with
the sub escape and then the crazy plane biplane drama
that was kind of like the end of Porco Rosso,
but like live action. It was I was at the
edge of my seat, stoice thrilling, Like it was really thrilling.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
It made me feel.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Like how everyone else says they feel when they watch
Uncle John's.

Speaker 5 (34:59):
Like when I hunka Charms, I was just like vibe in.
I was like, this is a great movie, Like I
love this, Like fuck, this guy is like so bad
at doing everything.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
This is so much fun to watch. But everyone else
was like, oh, it gave me an anxiety attack. By
the end of that movie, I was sitting in my
chair forwards with my hands on my head, like what
are you doing, Tom Cruise, Like I.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Was stressed watching him biplanes.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I know he didn't do it, and then you know what,
at the end he was like boom, I'm still alive.
I'm back with all my pals in Trafalgar Square, London,
which if anybody watched the security cameras here would know this.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Is where we would meet. And then we're all just
gonna walk off.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
And also, okay, let me ask you this before we
go to the Omnibus City. The last like hour of
this movie is definitely just well, honestly most of the movie,
because Katie O'Brien falls into this too, is just them
like being like, who's gonna be the next mission impossible?

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Who's on eight fifty different teams?

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Who who's your most likely to take over from Tom
Cruise character in a Mission impossible, requel, reboot, whatever they
decide next, because it feels like that's what they're trying
to sell.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
I agree. I don't know who's going to take over.
I don't think anybody currently in the franchise is going
to be the takeover person. I think they'll probably bring
in somebody new to truly take me Ethan hunt Roll,
but I believe the team will include Benji Grace Dega, Yeah,
he definitely.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
I think Tom Cruise met the act while they were
doing Top Gun.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, and I was like, I was very confused as
why Dega was like at the prisoner move of Para anyway,
like why was why was he used?

Speaker 3 (36:42):
He used to be Sia Wighams like right bod, but
then he turned onto the the no rules part of IMF.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Which is the party most of it.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
So I think Paris Clementief will be part of it,
and then and then maybe came.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I think I feel like they set up Katie O'Brien
as a potential, like she's an incredible stump person. We've
seen her an incredible kind of rolls everything.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
From at Man Quantumania to Love Life's Bleeding.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
I love that movie so much, like it's such a
weird movie, just like this.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, another deeply weird movie. And this.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
I just think it's like an intriguing space to leave
the franchise because they acted like it was going to
be a goodbye to Ethan Hunt, but it doesn't seem
like it was unless your theory is true, and I
love your theory, where this is basically just him imagining
what happens after he dies, and the best case scenario,
like the world doesn't all shoot its nukes to each us,

(37:42):
like I.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Said, I did it.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
I see the world I did kind of think it
was funny that and this is I think a problem,
a mission impossible problem here is that.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Angela Bassett, who I love.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
She did as they say, do the thing, as always,
she did the thing, but like they have her make
a decision that was like, it feels like you've seen
it before where it's like she's not gonna shoot the nukes.
It's like, Okay, I've seen that in the Dark Night.
I've seen that in like a million other movies where
you're gonna trust humanity for everything else about this movie

(38:14):
that was so weird.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
I just wasn't buying.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
That as like an incredible emotional moment, like and also
I was very confounded by everything else going on in
the movie.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
But yes, insane movie.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Not surprised that it was beaten by Leelo and Stitch,
though I am interested to see another discourse starting movie.
I mean, we are really in the summer blockbuster times now, guys.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, Mission of Possible Final Reckoning.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Let's see what it's final box office was for this weekend.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I mean Lelo and Stitch made like a head of
five stars.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
What do you give it?

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Okay, well it made seven.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
It opened to seventy nine million, which is a series best,
so good for them, good Leelo's Stitch open to one
one hundred and eighty two point seven million.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
I don't think.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Giving they Lovely low Stings out of five.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Oh man, I was really struggling with this.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
I actually didn't give it a letterbox number because I
was like kind of struggling. I feel like there are
moments of the movie where it's a four out of
five movie, but I also feel like there's moments a
movie where it's a one out of five movie. I think,
if I was being really honest, i'd probably give it
two and a half.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
But I think I could push it to a three
because I.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Do love stump work and I love crazy out there movies,
and I love hard sci fi, and I love so
many of the people involved, and I love the concepts
that they were going for. I love Tremmel's performance. I
thought he was like a highlight. I would love to
see him kind of built into the franchise in a

(39:45):
kind of bigger way going forward. But yeah, it is
a it's also like a hot mess. That's the craziest
thing about this movie.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
And I think, what about you?

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I think for me, it's like a one and a
half two, but an interesting one and a half two. Hm,
you know, like technically not a good movie, but with
some things about it that are very compelling, some action
set pieces that are genuinely thrilling, and a general weirdness

(40:19):
that makes it kind of can't look away. So in
that sense, it's like a two but a really fascinating thing.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
It's a really fascinating too. Yeah, I will also say
I want to I really do want to go back.
I have so many questions, like how many eye raises,
like meaningful eye raises, this.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Tom Cruise doing this movie?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I counted like twenty before the credits started, and then
I was like, I can't do this. I will miss
the entire movie if I'm just doing this. How much
time is non spoken? How much time is b roll?
I saw the Guardian guessing the b roll and flashbacks
are around seventy minutes of the movie will be hilarious
if it was true.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
I'm guessing my estimation is more like forty minutes.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
I need to know how much of the movie has
no dialogue, because I think that's again really strange for
a massive popcorn So will I be going back? Into
count all of these moments with a.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Secret digital timer in my pocket.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Perhaps I will, because I truly came out of it
with so many data questions.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
All Right, that's been our reactions to Mission Impossible, a
final Reckoning. Now let's get into the omnibi. Okay, Rosie,

(41:40):
I'm very excited about this. This is a franchise that
since its inception, has always been a vehicle for incredible
set pieces, and the set pieces, as you mentioned up top,
have only come more and more insane.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Some of the wildest stunts that we've ever seen put
the screen.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
And I think the thing I was most.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Excited about when we talked about doing this episode was
just like me and you were big fans of the
first movie, and I think like that is such like
an understated, atmospheric Brian de Palmer political thriller.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
And it is even though from the very beginning we.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Do get these kind of moments of action, and obviously
there are some really memorable set pieces like the break
in to Quantico and all that kind of stuff the
train tunnel, it is very interesting to see how different
that movie is from what we get with like A
Dead reckoning. And also, yeah, it's very interesting because we

(42:45):
sort of as I was rewatching the movies and then
reading a lot of behind the scenes stuff to put
this together, just kind of realizing like that evolution and.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
It's you know, he's Tom Cruise. He's like an unknowable man.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
So there's no not really a lot of conversations about why.
It was just something that started happening. So yeah, I
mean it all all begins with the first Mission Impossible,
which was this, as I mentioned, like this dynamic, atmospheric
spy thriller by our one of our favorite great weirdos, Brian.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Aupart Still yees still.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
I think it's a really fantastic movie.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
I have it on multiple different I have it on VHS,
I have it on DVD.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
It's just something I want to own. I want to
watch again. It's intimate and kind of filled with betrayal.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
I think it establishes a lot of the twists, and
it's far like the franchise is filled with outrageous twists
and this definitely kind of establishes that with all of
the mask reveals. But it's more of like a classical
political thriller than it is a wild stump movie. But
it does set up the framework for the franchise having
some really incredible step pieces. In this case, the most

(43:52):
dangerous stump was actually the exploding fish tank, the chewing
gum exploding fish tank, because Cruise has talked about how
basically it was sixteen tons of water and glass that
had to explode on set and for some reason him
and the stunt coordinator just couldn't kind of communicate properly
about timing. So he has a lot of like feelings

(44:12):
about how that was surprisingly kind of dangerous and he
did it himself, it wasn't a stunt actor. And obviously
I think the most memorable moment for me in this film,
and I think about it a lot because I watch
this film on VHS when I was a kid, and
there were two moments that really scared me. The beginning
when the guy.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Is on the roof of the elevator.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
And also the end when Tom Cruise ends up hanging
on the train and then the helicopter is like Blaied
is like one meter from him.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Now Emilio, Yeah, right, coach of the Mighty Ducks hockey
team who.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Doesn't go well for him. I had many nightmares about
the elevator.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
But yeah, the train sequence is actually interesting because it
was still like surrounded by one hundred and forty maper
our winds to make it look like it he's laying
on top of the train, but it's all green screened, right,
which is funny because now we know that he would
kind of do that in real life if he had

(45:10):
the option now. But it was definitely a kind of
classic Hollywood slighterpand that established him as an action star.
But in the much maligned Mission Impossible To by John Wu,
which I still enjoy, as you guys all know, it
was interesting because that actually still stands the opening of
that film as one of the most dangerous stunts he's
ever done, which was he free climbed these immense kind

(45:35):
of they were created rock faces and the famous Oakley's
opening where he throws the Oakley's ass. And John Wu
did speak quite extensively to entertain Weekly in two thousand
about how he did not want Tom Cruise to do
that stunt. He said, I was like, really mad he

(45:55):
wanted to do it. I tried to stop him.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I couldn't.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I was so scared. I was sweating. I couldn't even
watch the monitor when we shock. I'm like Tom Crase,
what are you doing to John Wu? Like let this
man live?

Speaker 1 (46:07):
I also, could you imagine like coming over from from
Hong Kong and being like, oh my god, I has
a Sum Cruise movie and he might die, see imagining
being like the director who killed Tom Curls.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Honestly, I think that for whatever reason, that must be
part of what inspires Tom Cruise, because like, he is
not the last director that is going to feel that
way about Tom Cruise being stunt. But even though the
movie is not necessarily beloved, that opening sequence is super iconic.
And the fact that they had like a Metallica tie

(46:40):
in video to that, I think also kind of helped
cement it, and it kind of expanded his mission to
become like the A list stunt director. Interestingly, Mission Impossible three,
directed by jj Abrams might have heard of him. That
is like a stunt heavy movie, but a lot more
kind of He's flinging himself from one skyscraper to another

(47:02):
in Shanghai. There's an explosion as he tries to run
away from Davian and it's a car explosion, and Tom
Cruise actually did end up breaking two ribs during that,
but it's not necessarily the most remembered of his you
know stunts. Really that becomes mission impossible for ghost Protocol,

(47:24):
where under the keen eye of director Brad Bird, who
I'm sure also did not want him to do this,
Tom Cruise decided that he was going to climb the
tallest building in the world, the bers Khalifa, and he
was actually gonna do it, no stunt people. And that
was also the first one. I think you'll remember this.
This is like twenty eleven. That was the one where

(47:44):
they were like advertising the movie on the stunt. That's
where that part of the franchise begins, which now is
a huge part of.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
The movies, huge marketing push around that stunt pictures of
Tom Cruise with the thumbs up on top of the
Bruskale for emerging and this is months before the film.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, it was just completely wild.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
They would contest with like real life sandstorms, multiple technical
difficulties to bring it to life. They actually had to
get permission from the bersh Khalifa to break multiple windows
on the building so they could basically attach Cruise on
different points of the building with the safety line. But
he still could have died. And I would say that

(48:26):
even though I don't know many people who would say
Mission Impossible for is necessarily their favorite. It is the
kind of the fast and furious of this franchise where
this is when they've reinvigorated the franchise. Everyone's talking about
the death defying stunts. Everyone's talking about Tom Cruise.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
The image of him on the.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Bersh Khalifer with the glasses is very iconic and hilariously.
When I rewatched this movie, it's quite funny because actually
all the scenes around the Bersh Khalifa stuff and in
the bers Khalifer are so funny and like well done
that the stunt is almost secondary to the actual narrative
of the movie. But when it came to how we
were looking at Tom Cruise and how we were looking

(49:06):
at these stunts, it became, you know, a kind of
a game changer for the franchise and for his career.
And if we just take the way and our mission,
if we choose to accept it, is to listen to
some messages from our sponsors, We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
And we're back. We're back.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
So this is where I would say that Mission Impossible
becomes the franchise that it is now, and that is
because in Mission Impossible five Rogue Nation.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I do think maybe the best.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
This is our joint best of the later the later franchises.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
This is the one that I rewatched the most. I
saw this in the movie theater.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
I thought it was a villain, great villain, so engaging, great.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Stunts, marvelified in the best kind of way.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yes, kind of snap.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Up and it's we were kind of talking about this
off camera where it was like, actually, this Ethan Hunt
has always been kind of written sassily, and so by
the time you get here, when the mcu is having
that huge impact, this becomes, oh, we can streamline this
into like a bantery team, kind of like mcuh meets

(50:19):
the A team and that's kind of what they go
for for the rest of it. And I love that.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
So this is his first.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Collaboration with Christoph mcquarie, who's still making the movies now,
who is the director of The Final Reckoning, and the
opening of the movie is Tom Cruise clinging to the
side of a real life plane. Still one of the
most kind of this is like up there with your
your classic stunt people, best ever stunts.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
That have been put to screen.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
It was also the first stunt that made Cruise basically
like question himself, as he revealed in a chat with
Jimmy Fallon, he was like, they strap me on the
plane beforehand, and then they start the engines. Then we
taxi down the runway, and he the pilot was basically like,
you gotta be you know, doing it in the right

(51:07):
direction and making sure that it's hitting the future, don't
hit the fuselage, and da da da da. And basically
as it was going on, Tom Cruise admitted that he
was like, oh, like, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Like,
as that plane is going up into the sky, He's like,
I don't think this is a good idea, but I
can't tell anyone because the whole crew is on the plane,

(51:29):
which I think is actually incredible, incredibly relatable. You get
to the event, you don't want to do the work,
and you're like, well, everyone's here, I gotta do it anyway.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
But that plane would be a huge kind of game
changer for the franchise.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Again, you start promoting the movies on Cruise doing these events,
and this is where he starts to establish himself to
the point where like at Cinema Con a couple of
years ago, he filmed a special video of himself on
an old timey plan and being like welcome back to.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
The movies, like get your popcorn.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
And he becomes this kind of advocate for cinema the
way that we've seen him promoting Sinners Barbenheimer, and.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
He often will do it with like a crazy stunt.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Recently, for the premiere of the Dead of a Final
Final Reckoning, he was just standing on top of the
Imax Theater in the UK, which is like a three
hundred foot tall, like circular building.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
No one knows why he was there, No one knows
he just he just did it. And so then that's
when we enter this.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Era of stunts in mission impossible movies. Like in Fallout,
which is another great movie. I loved the addition of
Henry Carville. I thought the plot and that was really fun.
He did a twenty five thousand foot halo jump out.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Of altitude low opening.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yes, like he is jumping out of that plane, causing
everyone on that set to have like deep deep anxiety issues.
And then like for you know, so Dead Reckoning, I
would say probably the most famous stunt of all of these,
and the one you know they were doing ten minute

(53:09):
previews of this stunt before the movie came out in Imax,
and this is the stunt where Tom Cruise drives his
motorbike up a mountain and then just drives over the
mountain parachutes out to get onto the Orient Express, the
legendary trade.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
He said, he said, Michelle Yo and Super Cup forget you,
I'm about to I'm about to triple up you, quadruple
up you.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Why isn't Michelle Yobin in one of these movies? By
the way, that's the reboot. That's the reboot, and that
all leads us to Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning, which
promises to have multiple insane set pieces. As director Christopher
macquarie te's that can, he said, He's in a biplane,
completely alone at the controls, and the biplane stuffers some damage.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Spoiler, there's tension.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
In this scene, Cruise was essentially acting as the higher
crew from the plane. Mcquarie explained that because at ten
thousand feet above the African landscape, he was completely alone.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Up there.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Tom is lighting the shot by how he's positioning the
plane and its relationship to the sun, and he's operating
the focus just off camera. He is the crew in
every single shot you're seeing and nobody tells you to stop.
I feel like we should probably have told him to
stop at some point before this.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I know he's gotta stop. I think he got stop.
The thing is like, does he want to die on screen?

Speaker 3 (54:29):
That's like I feel like they were still released the movie,
but for now he's still alive.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
This reminds me of a Dustin Hoffman quote. Dustin Hoffman,
I believe this was from Dustin Hoffman's in the Actress Studio.
He's talking about doing Marathon Man with Why am I?
He talked about doing Marathon Man with Sir Laurence Olivier,
who at that time was very.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Ill mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
And he asked, Sir Lawrence, like, why do we do this?
You know? Why? Why do we? Why are we compelled
to be actors? What is it about this life? You know?
And Olivier leaned towards him and he would he you know,
very ill, but his you know, his voice kind of
changes says, you want to know why, my dear boy.

(55:21):
He goes and he leans in close to Dustin Hoffman
and he goes, look at me, look at me, look
at me. Look And I really think that's it, Like
you know if you're an actor. Some of this is
you're a fucking ham. You're a ham since kid, you
love everybody looking at you.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
You're doing a performance with your cousin's at the Christmas Pie,
Like you're a performer.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
You need that. And I think Tom Cruise is like
maybe the most yeah, you know, pure example of that,
because yeah, man, it's like you're killing us here. You're
gonna don't please don't die on a biplane like over Kenya,
Like what are we doing?

Speaker 2 (55:59):
We don't, we gonna do that. We'll be right back
after a message from us onces We're back.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
Okay, Jason, what is your favorite almost memorable stunt from
this series?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Memorable? I mean, there's too many to mention. I'll just
say my favorites. My favorite the Knocklists stealing at Cia
is I think still my favorite. But having rewatched all
these movies recently, the car chases, we kind of just
forget about how amazing the car chases are because.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
I think it's so much else going on.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yeah, but the car chase in Man, the car chase
in Wait, which is is it?

Speaker 2 (56:46):
The dead reckoning one with him and Grace whether and
the tiny car.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
No it's okay. That's the car chase in in Rogue
Nation when he's in the car with Benji and you know, Ilsa,
I believe just like stolen the disc and they're kind
of chasing her, but they're also running from other people
in the cops. And Ethan drives backwards like down a

(57:11):
set of flying like across like this raised position, jumping
like over this set of steps, and then the car
rolls and you see it. There's a camera in the car,
so you see the airbags go up and the car
is rolling and you see Benji and Ethan like getting
like like socks in a dryer. I watched that. I

(57:35):
was like, Jesus Christ, that is cool. And it's definitely
not one of those things where you're gonna kind of
picking wild.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Tom cruise stump. That'sive.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
It's watching really really impressive. What about you, No, I
agree with you.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
I do actually think Regnation there is that scene at
the beginning of our infornation where that oil in the
van and then the band like falls into the river
and it's kind of like they're trying to get escape,
and like that was really good. I think another moment
and this is definitely just great stunt choreography I get
and kind of you know, fun fighting.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
But the Walker fight.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
In Fallout where yeah, you know, he really famously kind
of like he kind of like cocks his fists and
therein I love a good classic bathroom fight, and I
think that's one of the great bathroom fights. I think
I actually got to write a bathroom fight's list based
on that, which I feel very blessed about.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
I would also just.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Say I think memorably like and I again me and
you definitely have a nostalgia connection to the first movie.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
But I really remember and just that feeling of like.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
How cool the explosive gum was when he blew up
the fish tank and then that wall of war. Yeah,
red Light, green Light. So I just think there's so
many and I honestly think it's it's very interesting to
see a movie like this in the current comp and
the franchise like this, in the current conversation around stunt work,

(59:02):
because this will be a movie that is eligible for
that but first stunt movie or maybe that's twenty seven.
Cruise is gonna try and get it, basically, like get
it what this is everything he's been working for. He
is essentially like an advocate in this space. But I
think it's very interesting to see this when we're finally

(59:22):
having these conversations about the stunt workers, about the choreographers,
about directors like David Leach who are trying to put
movies out there, about films like The Fall Guy or
John Wick. You know. So Mission Impossible is very different,
but I think it fits into the conversation. And I'm
very excited to see stunt work become something that is
more recognized, more talked about. And yeah, it's gonna be

(59:45):
interesting to see how that translates. Also, just ballpark guests,
what do you think that insurance premiums are like on
these movies?

Speaker 1 (59:53):
I can't even I truly think that's most of the budget,
because I've got to be a part of the imagine
what because surely you're ensuring mister Cruise for hundreds of
millions of dollars, like tens of millions, like this is
the this is a franchise that is around a billion

(01:00:15):
for each movie in the Ballpark. So and then you're
talking about like future earnings, I don't eat. I could
not even imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I would love to know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I'm very excited for the next iteration of this franchise's story,
which I think has got to be some kind of
incredible behind the scenes book about the making of the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
The making of the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
I'm back, Yeah, I think this has got to be
some kind of incredible book in the works of the
making of this movie. With these movies, I can't wait
to read that nonfiction behind the scenes book about this franchise,
about the way the studios must have been so scared,
and about the way that Cruz has actually kind of
essentially managed to make this his I can do whatever

(01:01:03):
I want franchise, which I don't think we've seen the
likes of that with any even like you know, Robert
Danny Junr as iron Man arguably like the biggest box
office draw for the last kind of fifteen years. Even
he was still working within the framework of those stories
and what he could do and what he couldn't do,
and I'm sure there was a lot of collaboration there.

(01:01:23):
He brought Tony to life in a way that launched
the you know, one of the biggest franchises on Earth.
But Tom Cruise can literally just be like, hey, guys,
I want to drive off a cliff, and they have
to be like, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Sure, let's let's figure it out.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
And I want to say, like, this article is not
the kind of like the essay that I wrote as
this omnibus is not even like covering every single stunt,
Like there are so many stunts.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
You can't even kind of comprehend.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Even in Dead Reckoning the stuff with the Orient Express
where they're kind of jumping through the can marriages as
they fall out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Now obviously they're not on a real train over.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
A you know, a cliff, but they're still having to
do incredible choreography and stump work and to make those
scenes work. And I think that these are some of
the most still some of the most engaging and kind
of dynamic action movies that we have in the cinema.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And that's without even mentioning the fight choreography, which has
exactly really evolved over the years to I agree with you.
I think the bathroom point is a high point, yes,
for the fight choreography and the Mission Impossible franchise.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Such a cool looking fight with people flying through tile pipes,
getting pulled out of the wall. You know, there's that
wonderful moment where the guy they think is Lark who
we actually, I don't think ever find out who the
guy is. No, has Walker like on his knees by

(01:02:59):
the hair and like stares down Cruise and then like
kicks Walk like punches Walker in the head and then
kicks him away, and Hunt has it to be like,
oh my god, I don't know if I can take
this guy. It's a wonderful fight.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, it's really really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
And to have that high point like happened this late
in the franchise, I think is really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
I totally agree, really really great enough.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
And now part two of the Mission Impossible Final Reckoning Omnabai,
this time about the Mission Impossible television series done done
in nineteen sixty six. Mission Impossible burst onto CBS's airwaves
with a brassy, lallow shifting theme in five four time

(01:04:02):
and the simple premise about a team of covert agents
taking on impossible missions every single week. Creator Bruce Geller
fused this action television show with Hollywood heist thrills and
lots of Cold War cloak and dagger themes and drama,
reportedly inspired by the Intricate Caper film, which we've talked

(01:04:23):
about on some previous episode's top copy. The Impossible Mission
Force IMF was like a ragtag collection of specialists. You
had the muscle man Willie, the Master of the Sky's rollin,
the fashion model turn agent Cinnamon, and the electronic was Barney.
And each episode, of course, opened with the iconic taped

(01:04:44):
briefing your mission. If you choose to accept it, that's
self destructed in five seconds, a gimmick that became an
instant pop cultural staple. TV producers during this period were
under pressure to diversify their casts and to include black
characters in roles that were not like negative enter Barney Collier,

(01:05:09):
played by Greg Morris, one of the first black actors
in a primetime ensemble. TV Guide nineteen sixty six hailed
Barney as one of television's quote new Negro figures. To
show you how unused to talking about black people on
television the press was at this time. He was the
team's indispensable tech expert, consistently saving the day with gadgets

(01:05:30):
and know how, and it's notable looking back how Barney
was very stoic, completely one dimensional in his dedication to
his job, with a portrayal that avoided any hint of
racial conflict, personal conflict, and This was part of Bruce
Geller creator Bruce Geller's general aversion to character backstory. He

(01:05:54):
believed that the Secret Agents should be blank slates, as
featureless as the masks they were, and that we shouldn't
know really anything about any of the backstories of any
of these characters, and he would veto attempts by writers
to give the IMF operatives personal lives. This, of course,
was an era of civil rights struggle, and so you

(01:06:17):
could kind of frame simply not making an issue of
Barney's personal feelings, his personal feelings, but the work he
does as itself kind of a statement. You know, this
integrated team that was functioning as equals, quietly embodying this
American ideal of equality and cooperation in a way that

(01:06:38):
the general American television audience could find palatable, not disruptive. Safe.
The IMF's missions often dropped them into global hot zones,
which were thinly disguised fictional countries. This is the Vietnam
War era, of course. Each week, Phelps's team might be
outfoxing some iron curtainspiring or our top lane to some

(01:07:01):
despots somewhere in Latin America, or thwarting a shadowy terrorist
plot they took on quote hostile Iron Curtain, government's Third
World dictators, corrupt industrials, and crime laers, basically every boogeyman
in the Western Cold War playbook. American audiences sureley got
a vicarious thrill about watching these the good guys right

(01:07:23):
do do stuff to outwit the evil communists and the
various crooked regimes, reinforcing this idea that US spies, unofficial
US spies, were the good guys who were who are
the heroes and keeping the world safe for democracy and capitalism, etc.
In fact, the show's villains were explicitly written to be
like almost cartoonishly villainous, so that the team's elaborate heist

(01:07:50):
type hijinks against them would seem justified, breaking and entering deception,
fake executions in the form of fiction firing squads. Don't worry.
That's all fine, because these are the good guys. As
one critic later observed, Mission Impossible reflected a very nineteen
sixties faith, mid nineteen sixties faith that we are good,

(01:08:13):
therefore the ends justify the means. In foreign policy, the
IMF routinely interfered in other nations affairs, set up coups
set up enemy officials to look like traders and criminals,
even if they were just doing their job. It was
essentially espionage as American wish fulfillment, and it's no coincidence
that abroad the show gave viewers an exaggerated impression of

(01:08:36):
the CIA's abilities. Breaking the law in this case wasn't
just acceptable, it was like a heroic way of doing
business for the US regime. To keep things politically palatable,
the series was deliberately vague about a lot of stuff.
Real countries were not named. The missions took place in
like Balok or Sentales or some other weirdly named Eastern

(01:08:58):
European or Latin American republic, but everyone knew who these
bad guys were supposed to be. You've got like the
tyrannical general with a fake goatee in an Eastern European accent,
some power hungry Caribbean strongman stealing for an aid. The
IMF's exploits made covert American intervinsion look cool. That was

(01:09:20):
the goal, to make it look cool. The team to
just foil villains, they also spread the gospel of American
style freedom and capitalism, often by tricking oppressed peoples into
revolting against their oppressors. In one episode, for instance, the
team rigs a prison camps communications to spark an inmate uprising,
manipulating the politics of a fictional dictatorship in a way

(01:09:43):
that would benefit US politics. By the early seventies, the
world had changed. Of course, America is by now trying
to extricate itself from Vietnam. You've got the Watergate scandal
kind of brewing and the ensuing revelations around that, all
of which which unmasked the ethical and the ethical kind

(01:10:04):
of lows that the US government was willing to go to,
and certainly the FBI was willing to go to in
spying on its own people, civil rights organizations, etc. So
the show wisely pivoted to safer ground. Now it was
mob bosses, crime syndicates here in the US. This made

(01:10:27):
production cheaper, no uniforms, but it's clear the whole kind
of format was running its course, and after seven seasons,
Mission Impossible was done in nineteen seventy three. Two years
later nineteen seventy five, you get the Church Commission Congressional Commission,
which looked into the acts of various US intelligence outfits

(01:10:51):
here in the US and abroad, and that shattered the
myth of any kind of ethical US intelligence apparatus, with
revelations about domestic mind control projects, spying on civil rights
organizations overseas, coup's assassination plots successful and unsuccessful, etc. In
the late eighties, Cold Wars winding down, but on TV
the Fight returns. ABC resurrect's Mission Impossible in nineteen eighty eight,

(01:11:14):
dropping Jim Phelps still Peter Graves into a new series
of missions, and this revival was born out of the
Hollywood writer strike of the time and a dose of nostalgia.
Because they couldn't write new scripts, the show producers literally
just filmed the nineteen sixty six the nineteen seventy three

(01:11:35):
scripts on several occasions. The new Mission Impossible is filmed
in Australia on a very tight budget, with an eager cast,
including Phil Morris, son of Barney Morris, who was the
original gadget guy in the first Mission Impossible series. Not
much had changed in terms of the show's mission, but

(01:11:59):
now they were using you know, computers and and and
digital mini tapes instead of actual audio tapes. What had changed, though,
was a political climate. This Reagan era things had gone right.
Word towards the end of the Cold War seems like
America's winning, and there was this resurgence of gung ho
like patriotism. Black and white depictions of good and evil

(01:12:20):
action heroes are back, you know. Rambo, Top Gun and
Mission Impossible dutifully followed suit. The show's tone nudged to
the right and embraced even less subtlety. One episode, The
Wall finds Phelps and team in East Berlin orchestrating the
escape of a bunch of dissidents and uh and one
part this like East German criminal colonel literally as he's

(01:12:45):
turning away, steps on this little girl's like doll and
smushes it into the into the mud while arresting her family,
just to show you like how evil the communists were. Uh,
the IMF team during the period, we'd even hand out
US citizenships to grateful defectors, you know, as they're fleeing
their home countries. A private spy team acting as basically

(01:13:08):
like the one stop shop for getting into America and
becoming part of the free world. It played and was
like a Reagan era fantasy confident simplified heroes, the US first,
everybody else, The nineteen eighty eight revival also reflected the
action kind of language of the time, more explosions, more action,

(01:13:31):
more gunfights, etc. But for all the tweaks, the new
Mission Impossible could not recapture the magic and it only
lasted two seasons and then it was gone by the nineties.
With Mission Impossible off TV for several years, its legacy
was looking towards a renewal once more, with Tom Cruise
getting involved in acquiring the IP nineteen ninety six You've

(01:13:54):
Got the new Mission Impossible movie backed by Tom Cruise's
new production company, Cruise Wagner. Interesting note about the first film,
there was some controversy about the way that Jim Phelps
was depicted. So in the original show, Jim Phelps's hero, right,

(01:14:14):
he is the leader of this Mission Impossible team of
heroic spies that goes around the world promoting American freedom.
In the new movie in nineteen ninety six is Mission Impossible,
Jim Phelps is the bad guy, the guy who turns
on the IMF, betrays his team and his agents and

(01:14:35):
has them all killed, and this actually enraged some of
the cast. Actor Greg Morris, who played Barney, was disgusted
by the film's handling of Phelps. He walked out of
the theater and called it an abomination. Peter Graves himself
declined a cameo in the film because he'd learned that
his character returned it to the bad guy and very interesting,

(01:14:56):
like footnote to all of this, and all of that
really tracks with the way the culture shifted over these decades.
The Mission Impossible films reflect a culture that had fully
internalized and digested the revelations of the previous decades. Now

(01:15:16):
the enemy is not the USSR, it's not Eastern European generals.
It's not Latin American dictators or fictional you know, war lords,
or even organized crime figures. Now it's the Spies themselves,
cut loose from the Cold War and its larger ideological
struggle out looking to make a buck on the side.

(01:15:39):
All right, well that was Mission Impossible to fight, a
reckoning and absolutely insane film.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
Absolutely go see the movie there, because you're not going
to see another movie like that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
Have really not, don't know, maybe in Bodiacs Jason Stibbe, Hey, listen,
maybe that lady. If you're feeling brave, go seeing forty X.
In the next few episodes of excervation, we're diving into news.
Monday is sendoff for the Nintendo Switch. On Tuesday, John
Wick her Speed Recap, and on Wednesday a new episode

(01:16:11):
of Your Wrong Friend.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
It's a BlimE versus Skyrim. And finally Friday, we're doing
another special on some movies with another popcorn pop out.
That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening, Bye bye.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepcion and Rosie
Night and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Kolefman.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
Our supervising producer is Abusafar.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bai Wag.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Special thanks to Saul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
Our disc called moderate, though