Excuse the Intermission
Alex, Erica and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
The Final Reckoning: Mission Impossible's Last Chapter
In a world teetering on the brink of nuclear annihilation, Ethan Hunt faces his most formidable adversary yet—not a terrorist mastermind or rogue agent, but an all-seeing artificial intelligence known simply as "the Entity." Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning delivers the breathtaking stunts and globe-trotting adventure fans have come to expect, while simultaneously offering a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on humanity's place in an increasingly technological world.
The stakes have never been higher as Hunt reunites with his loyal team—the tech wizard Benji (Simon Pegg) and the steadfast Luther (Ving Rhames)—for what may be their final mission together. From the depths of the Arctic's Bering Sea to a doomsday vault in South Africa, each spectacular set piece pushes the boundaries of practical filmmaking. Tom Cruise, at 62, performs death-defying stunts that would intimidate performers half his age, including an extraordinary biplane sequence that must be seen to be believed. When Gabriel says he has the only parachute before his demise, you'll grip your seat wondering how Hunt possibly survives.
What elevates this final chapter above mere spectacle is its willingness to engage with contemporary anxieties about artificial intelligence. As the Entity analyzes every possible outcome before making its move, Hunt's human unpredictability becomes his greatest weapon. The film suggests that our capacity for self-sacrifice, loyalty, and split-second emotional decisions might be what ultimately saves us from cold, calculating perfection.
Legacy fans will appreciate the surprise return of characters from earlier films, creating a satisfying sense of narrative closure while honoring the franchise's 28-year history. The emotional farewell between Hunt and Luther delivers one of the series' most poignant moments, acknowledging the brotherhood formed through impossible missions shared.
Whether you've followed Ethan Hunt since 1996 or are new to the IMF, The Final Reckoning delivers summer blockbuster thrills with unexpected emotional resonance. As the mission appears to conclude, one thing remains certain—Tom Cruise has cemented his legacy as one of cinema's greatest action stars. Don't miss what might be the last impossible mission on the biggest screen possible.
How's it? I'm Alex McCauley.
Speaker 1:I'm Max Vosberg and I'm Erica Krause and this is excuse the intermission a discussion show surrounding the blink of an eye. Today's pod is all about Mission Impossible, the final reckoning, the presumptive final chapter in the Tom Cruise Ethan Hunt impossible mission force. The three of us will discuss the film's pros and cons, the critical and financial reception to the movie, and present our categorical review on this episode, which continues on the other side of this break, if you choose to accept it. Okay, how are we doing today? It's a good day here in the Pacific Northwest, really funny for those of us. You know I always want to kind of continue to leave breadcrumbs for people to maybe go back and listen to previous episodes If you've been watching the Last of Us.
Speaker 1:The Last of Us is really spotlighting Seattle in a funny way right now, and so when I look out and see like a gorgeous pacific northwest afternoon right now, but then I'm coming off of watching like, uh, what is it even called now? Lumen field where the seahawks play and it's like a refugee camp in the last of us, um, just kind of funny stuff. Weird, weird times right now to be consuming, uh, pop culture in the pacific, I would say.
Speaker 3:Lumenfield. So you're saying Lumenfield in the show is prominently shown as as a camp, oh yeah, and and is has like the jungle taken over all of, like downtown Seattle or the rainforest, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the most part it's still very populated by these different factions, the wolves um, if you're watching the show or kind of the group that has taken over seattle, so but yes, I mean, everything is like bombed and depleted and mother nature is starting to take it back the space needle or sky view, as we talked last week.
Speaker 3:Is that still standing in the show?
Speaker 1:Have we seen the Space Needle, Erica?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I'm not sure. Well in the game. I don't know that we do. We might see it in the background, but I haven't watched the finale yet of the Last of Us.
Speaker 1:I feel like maybe when they first show Seattle in present time, there's someone up in the Space Needle using it as a sniper tower lookout area. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we do get that. So, yeah, but no, how are you guys doing? Like I said, beautiful day, we're getting close to summertime, it was just Memorial Day weekend, so what's new with the two of you? It was just Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 3:So what's new with the two of you? You know beautiful and warm down here in Southern California. Yeah, great holiday weekend. Got to go out and see some films this weekend.
Speaker 1:You're kind of burying the lead here, Max.
Speaker 3:What. You had a fucking birthday. Yes, I turned uh 35 yesterday and, uh, that was, that was very fun. Got to go see godfather part two on the big screen. Um, I also got to meet up and see. I can't remember if we we enter. Did we interview izzy lee on this show, or was that just?
Speaker 1:on, silver Screams yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, silver Screams. We interviewed a filmmaker named Izzy Lee a couple years ago for her short Meet Friend. Her West Coast premiere for her feature was this weekend here in my neighborhood, so I got to go to the local theater for that as well and meet her IRL in real life, which was really fun and a great turnout for that feature. Very exciting for Izzy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just another day.
Speaker 3:Yesterday was just another day. It was all good I get one step closer. As our friend Tim said, I'm halfway to 70.
Speaker 1:erica, how are you? I'm good not so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:We can tell no, just nothing, a lot nothing to report on. I had a very busy weekend just working and went and saw our movie yesterday and yeah, just really just hustling, unfortunately. So that's nothing exciting to report on my end.
Speaker 1:Well, let's do some reporting then on the film for today, of course we are talking about Mission Impossible 8, the Final Reckoning. The box office performance over the Memorial Day weekend typically the start to the summer blockbuster movie season yielded some pretty solid results for this film, although it did get demolished by another movie here that I'm going to mention in just a moment. But the numbers on Mission Impossible over the weekend, which I just pulled the actual Friday, saturday, sunday numbers for were 64 to a million. So that's obviously underwhelming. The film has crept up now, including the Memorial Day totals, to $79 million total domestic with a $206 million gross worldwide. So that's much more what Tom Cruise and McQuarrie and everyone who financed this film that's what they want to see. The movie that just crushed at the box office this Memorial Day weekend was the new Lilo and Stitch film, which hit to date and we're recording this on on Tuesday May 27th. Um, so same release, same release window, has grossed $182 million domestically and 361 million worldwide, like my goodness, and I can tell you firsthand experience Lilo and Stitch.
Speaker 1:For the last five, six, seven years because of, I think, its presence on Disney Plus, there's been a lot of shows, sort of like mini movies, if you will.
Speaker 1:It's stayed in the in in relevance with with pop culture and what kids are consuming right now. Kids are consuming right now. So I think that this movie is now capitalizing on this new generation right now of like elementary aged students being to that point at that age where, like they are so jacked for something that they feel like they still have grown up with because they've got a lot of new content from this Lilo and Stitch universe, now they have their own movie, and so that was obviously reflected in this incredible weekend performance from Lilo and Stitch. I don't know if you guys want to touch on that at all. I know you are both aunts and uncles respectively, so I don't know how much Lilo and Stitch plays a part, sort of, in your extended families, because you think the franchise is ripe for a revival now. But I'll give you two seconds to touch on that because we probably won't talk about Lilo and Stitch on another future episode. But this box office performance is incredible.
Speaker 3:Well, I believe it's not the first time Tom Cruise has lost to Lilo and Stitch in an opening weekend. I'm pretty sure Minority Report came out the same weekend as the original Lilo and Stitch and got crushed.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 3:As well. So Lilo and Stitch are a thorn in Cruise's backside, I would believe.
Speaker 2:I'm sure the holiday weekend had a huge part in that too. In that too, um. But yeah, I've been hearing some, some buzz around this movie, specifically just some controversy about the, the story, how they changed things a little bit. It's been a really long time since I've seen the original lilo and stitch. My nephew fucks hard with the soundtrack and we're trying really hard to push the movie on him, but he's not really a movie guy. Like it's hard to get him to sit still for it. He's only four, but the, the soundtrack is played often in our household. So, um, I I want to try to get out and see it, but I've just been seeing a lot of weird stuff about, um, just the whole plot of lilo getting taken from, like I don't remember exactly what happens, but I think, um, there's, there's just some controversy. You'll I might have to do a little bit more research on that if you're interested.
Speaker 2:But you're saying lilo's like being trafficked uh, no, I mean, I don't know, I haven't seen it, but uh, there's a part where, like in the original movie, you know her older sister I think it's her sister, right um, she's getting taken away because she should. She's not supposed to be her guardian or whatever, but she's fighting for her and doesn't let it happen. And then I guess in the new movie she, they, she just kind of gives up custody of of lilo. That's just what I've read all over the internet.
Speaker 2:People are kind of up in arms about it and there's just been some significant changes and, um, there's a couple accounts that I follow that just are, you know, just really against the whole live action remake thing. You know, just feels a little unnecessary, and there's just it's obviously a huge thing these days, but I don't know, I haven't seen it, so I I can't say too much, but it's, that's a maybe that's what people are saying well, and just to correct myself before uh, my segment before what I said turns into people are saying Minority Report outgrossed Lilo and Stitch by like 400,000.
Speaker 3:Not by much, they were both over 35 million, but Minority Report just beat them out back in June of 2002.
Speaker 1:So Tom Cruise won that battle andlo and sish wins this this weekend quite convincingly, yeah, um, okay. Well then some of the specs. Just going back to mission impossible, the final reckoning, before we get into some general overview, the film's being received in a lukewarm fashion, I would say, by a lot of critics. User databases are a little bit more positive on the film. Right now it sits at 3.6 on Letterboxd, 7.6 on IMDb, 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and it actually has an A cinema score, and so I think that there is a bit of a divide on this movie.
Speaker 1:We can get into, obviously, throughout our seven categories while we review it, what we really liked and maybe what we thought was maybe a too long. Did it need kind of scene critique, kind of stuff, but overall maybe just talk about expectations first going into this film and then that can maybe lead us into did Final Reckoning meet those expectations? So, erica, I'm really curious as to what you have to think about this film and sort of maybe where you think it fits into the Ethan Hunt Mission Impossible lineage, because you are not as invested in this franchise as perhaps max or myself yeah, um, yeah, like I have not seen hardly any of them except for fallout.
Speaker 2:And then I did see dead reckoning. Um, fallout was my intro to mission impossible. So I mean I just was like, is this what I've been missing out on this whole time, like so hyped on that? Um, so this one, I think I mean I know that dead reckoning was not nearly as exciting or it just wasn't as good as fallout, but I still had a fun time with it and I really, and I did enjoy it.
Speaker 2:But, um, I had this expectation and this is totally just my, this is on me, um of it being like, okay, if this is, if this is the last one they do, they're really gonna go all out. You know, this is gonna be like the mission impossible movie and and I like to see those franchises kind of come full circle and um, and kind of wrap things up in a big way, and I was really excited for that. And so, um, my dad and I went and saw it in imax yesterday. Um, did it live up to those expectations? No, um, I, I had a fun time with it. It was a really slow start. Um, I think that it was a little too long for me. Um, I would have maybe nicked off like 30, 45 minutes of it. Um, overall, I I did have like a decent time. Of course, like in the end it's kind of hard not to, but, um, I don't, I think maybe my expectations were a little a little high for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, similarly I. I think I had this on my most anticipated for the year. I am a Mission Impossible like. I mean sweaty, like I just I love these movies. I rewatch them often. I fired up the first one just last week before going to see this new one. I do agree that it does feel long, especially that first hour and 15 minutes probably.
Speaker 3:It is a lot of explaining what the entity is and what the stakes are, and I understand movies have to do that, because not everyone goes and sees dead reckoning, especially when you're doing a, a direct sequel. But the final reckoning just tries to be too many things at once. I think you know it's it's this direct continuation of a previous entry, whereas you know a really great thing about Mission Impossible until, like, christopher McQuarrie really got involved was like each thing, each movie was like its own flavor of movie right and its own mission. But it's also, you know it's a climactic showdown against a villainous AI. The AI, you know, is faceless and I think sometimes that can be a problem. Even though in Dead Reckoning we had the character Gabriel as kind of the surrogate to the AI, in this one he like is just completely crazy and is not is trying to stop the or trying to control the AI as well. So he's like a secondary villain to both the AI and Ethan Hunt. I think you know it's trying to be a character send off to to Ethan Hunt, to Luther, to Benji, to a lot of characters that have been in these movies. You know Luther's been in every single one with Ethan Hunt, which is Ving Rhames' character. It's also trying to be a full series retrospective. Right. There's lots and lots of clips from previous Mission Impossible movies edited into this film, which I'm never.
Speaker 3:Personally, I think that you just shouldn't do that, because that just makes the audience think of those past films and A can take you out of it but also make you want to go watch those and make you think of those and remind you of your feelings. It's almost like a. I know they're trying to play on nostalgia, but I feel like it works against the film usually when it does that. And then it's also a meta commentary on the state of cinema and the world at large, right With AI and internet and, like you know, there's a little bit of this. You know the AI has this following.
Speaker 3:That's kind of MAGA-like and we're trying to touch on everything and I just don't think all of it really lands well. I think the biplane stuff is some of the best stunt work we've seen in these movies. It's incredible. But I just felt that at first there's a lot of war room stuff and we'll get to kind of you know too long, don't need. But there's lots of people in rooms talking about the end of the world and I think it just drags it down a little bit and it doesn't feel as fun as some of the other ones. It also another like nitpick I have, and I don't know if we want to get into nitpicks, but like there's a.
Speaker 1:You're cooking. Keep keep going.
Speaker 3:There's a moment, the show is yours but like there's a, you're cooking, keep, keep going. There's a moment the show is yours. There's a moment where it totally kind of like throws dead reckoning, you know, in the garbage when the russians show up and they're like, oh, we have another key. Like the whole point of dead reckoning was to get the crucifix crucifix key, but the r the Russians had a copy. This whole time there's just some silliness going on here and there's some blatant mistakes. At the end of that biplane sequence, gabriel says his last words are like I have the only parachute, and then he meets his demise, which is great. And then the next scene is Tom Cruise, like jumping out of the plane with a parachute.
Speaker 2:I thought the same thing. I saw that scene and I was like no, that's not true. He said there's only one.
Speaker 3:Listen again. That's nitpick. That's movies Like. Sometimes, you know, parachutes just appear out of out of nowhere and then ethan hunt has to. That has to happen, right, because ethan hunt has to get out of the plane, get down to the ground safely.
Speaker 3:Um, I also, just, you know, I felt I didn't think hayley atwell was was as great as she was in dead reckoning I. There was like some chemistry that was weird and off between her and Tom Cruz. There was no. Like you know, they had that great car chase and like the magic and the sleight of hand and they try and they try and you know, tie that in and that's why she has to be in the cave to to grab the, the, the glowing box or the USB drive that they're going to trap the entity on. Um, but she just felt, you know, she's not Vanessa Kirby, she's not Rebecca Ferguson, there's there's no sexual chemistry in this one, right. Like where is the white widow? She was on that train in dead reckoning and she shot stuff, stuff for this movie and then they just don't put it in this film. I think she was missed dearly.
Speaker 3:But you know also locations and I understand that. You know the Bering Sea. That's cool and we are globetrotting right. We start in Britain, we go to, I'm guessing, somewhere in America where this war room is. We go to the Bering Sea, like the Arctic right, and then we end in South Africa.
Speaker 3:But I just never felt those locations. You don't feel them like, you know, when we're in Dubai in Ghost Protocol, or when we're in France in Dead Reckoning or when we're I don't know. There's just some stuff missing and it felt, felt. This movie felt more than the others. And I know this is how they construct all these movies. They think of the stunts and then they write around them and this one just felt very, very obviously built that way. Has mccorry said that? His crew says yeah, yeah, mccorry. Mccorry has said that in multiple interviews and and so yeah, uh, for me personally, this is it's. It's not my favorite, mi, you know it's. It's a great. And again, like the underwater sequence, the airplane sequence, those are the two big stunts that are happening here. They're really fun watch, but everything else around it just did not work for me. So it's towards the bottom of the list for me when it comes to the ranking of the Mission Impossible movies.
Speaker 2:I had a big problem with the way these men in the movies pronounced the word entity. I don't know what that was about and I'm sure no one with that doesn't have ADHD wouldn't pick up on that, but I swear on my life. There was five different men in there saying it like entity and like they weren't pronounced. And they're just like entity and I'm like it's entity. They're just like entity and I'm like it's entity. Like, just say like pronounce your t's. It drove me, sorry, that's. That's my major nitpick. I was waiting to say that this whole time that's funny.
Speaker 1:So I really like this movie. I think that this movie, um is better than dead reckoning. Uh, part one whatever we're calling these Dead Reckoning and then the final Reckoning. I think that what we get in this movie is more like what we get in Mission Impossible 1 and Mission Impossible 2, with a stripped down version of just a classic cheeseburger no fixings. We don't need avocados, we don't need, you know, some crazy sauce. We'd need like two really solid set pieces. We need Ethan hunt, tom Cruise, in the center of every frame. I'm not going to buy his sexual chemistry with anybody in any film ever, and so I don't need that.
Speaker 1:I was so impressed with how mccorry and whoever else ever else worked on this script, aside from like nitpicking and saying like well, this doesn't make sense, this is a continuity error or whatever. But how they were able to take what I'm sure was like one dead reckoning story and then split that up, because Tom Cruise, one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, if not maybe the most powerful right now they're still not going to let him make a five and a half six hour long movie. Had they would have, maybe we see something else, but the way that they were able to split these two movies. I give them a lot of credit for doing that um and for keeping the train on the track as well as they did, because, like, at the end of dead reckoning, I think that the cgi on just you know, mentioning of trains here, of that, that's the kind of stuff that takes me completely out of the movie. The first 30 to 40 minutes of this scene, everything that happens in London, basically I am with you on there on that point, both of you that like, let's just nix all that stuff we don't need to do. Like the South park throwback episode of like member remember. Like we don't need to do all of that, um, or if we do, we don't need to include the clips. But this is a two hour and 50 minute movie. And once we're out of London, everything that sets up for the Bering sea exploration. I love all the stuff in the war room and I think that that has a lot to do with the character actors that are coming in to play these bit parts. Um, I really I really enjoyed all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:The absurdity of it all and how you have to suspend your disbelief when going into these movies is nothing new in this film. That's nothing new. We've been doing this from the jump and so, like I'm not in I'm not in a mission impossible movie, sitting there saying that like I need this to look like just to think of something recent. Like I don't need this to look like alexander or alex garland's uh warfare. Like I don't need to think that, like every single person on set went through days and weeks of of training for this. Like I mean tom cruise doing six stunts and I need crazy bad guys. And we get crazy bad guys in across the dead reckoning span and I'll get to the entity later because I actually think that, while we can draw parallels to maybe the recent political climate or what's happening with movies right now, that stuff will probably actually age pretty well in 10 years and in 20 years.
Speaker 1:When people look back and study the 2020s and say what movies were making commentaries or what big budget blockbuster movies that are seen by millions and millions of people on a holiday weekend are actually talking about this stuff. I think we'll point to a movie like dead reckoning, and and and the final reckoning and say, well, they were doing it here a lot Like the way that at the turn of the century, when the internet was really becoming a thing. What are we doing now? We're going back 20 years and we're saying, like damn, the matrix was really on this. And now I'm not trying to compare the Final Reckoning to the Matrix, but I am just saying that like that's not a bad thing to be making an attempt to do a meta commentary in the moment. So I do kind of actually really appreciate the entity as this villainous character in this movie and their shift to focus on the entity as opposed to Gabriel. So I don't know, we can get into it, um, because I think, I think this these will our categories are going to lead to a bunch of other really good conversations here, um, so so our first one is that it's been a long time now since we've done just a seven category review, um, so so we'll do a good job we'll try to do a good job here, listeners of explaining each category before we introduce it.
Speaker 1:The first one is top of the lineup. So we take a batting order in baseball, basically, and we structure different characters from the film every now and then we've done some like cast and crew members, and so that's also on the table, but we have a lead-off hitter, a lead-off character, someone who we want to like, help us move the story along or maybe introduce us to what's going on, carry out the themes, like you kind of want your lead-off batter to be like. This is what our team's all about right here. They embody us, um, and so there's. There's kind of your lead-off character.
Speaker 1:We have our on deck person who then can sort of move things along, hit for a little bit of power, have some scene stealing moments, but isn't like the star of your movie, usually a pretty solid supporting role. And then in the hole is your power hitter. That's who you want, like they can drive in, runs, steals not only the show but like carries the entire movie. And then a pitch hitter, so someone who comes in and maybe for two scenes, maybe five scenes, maybe they're on screen a lot but don't have a ton of dialogue but do a lot with a little. So that's your pitch hitter. So four different spotlights here. We'll start with each of our lead off batters, our lead off characters. Max, who do you have in this spot?
Speaker 3:I have the stunts Like this is what the Mission Impossible movies are about. This is what gets me in the theater. We are here to see the stunts. In this film we have an underwater sequence which is deep sea, diving in the Bering Sea. Then we also have the biplane chase which has been all over the marketing with the yellow and the mustard and the ketchup plane, uh, in south africa.
Speaker 1:and listen, those, those moments, those sequences, fucking rock those are like two hours of the two hour and 50 minute runtime.
Speaker 3:They are both very long. Yeah, they're probably like 30 minutes each, I would guess. And yeah, they're cool. I will say I think anytime they do underwater stuff in Mission Impossible it takes me a little out of it because underwater it's just like they are in a tank, but it's still cool to see, you know, tom cruise put on this crazy dive suit and you know dive um, but the airplane stuff him holding on like doing like chin-ups on the biplane wings is is fucking awesome, it's really awesome. And he's 60 fucking I think he's 62 when he shoots this or 61 um, it's, it's just incredible.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I've also heard him talk about, especially with that biplane sequence, like it's him. You know, there's a pilot in the, in the, in the cockpit. He's on the wing and then they have cameras mounted. So he is. He is not only acting as Ethan Hunt, but he is the cinematographer too. Right. He is playing to each camera and having to know, like a, where the plane is in the flight sequence but also where the cameras are. So a is not spiking the camera, we're not looking straight into the lens, but we're. The cameras are. So A he's not spiking the camera, we're not looking straight into the lens, but we're playing towards it and we're doing this while we're flying at high altitude, low altitude and very fast, and it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. So the biplane sequence again it is when put up against some of these other amazing stunts he's done over the years in these movies, it's right up there.
Speaker 1:Who's your lead off, Erica?
Speaker 2:Well now I think, did I do this wrong. I chose a person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I always break the rules, you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, well, I chose Tom Cruise shows a person yeah, yeah, that's I. I always break the rules, you know, okay, okay, well, I chose tom cruz. So I mean to me, he, he is the one who's setting the this, this five, these particular, or the four that we're going to talk about. I feel like tom is in two of them. For me, because this movie is so surrounded by him, you know, and good point, everybody else is really just a very minor part of the story. I mean, you have all of his like you know, his little crew that he goes around with, and they're great, but tom is is the story. He is focal point of all of these movies. So that's, that's my lead off, but he's also another one for me.
Speaker 1:I have the character William Donlow, played by Rolf Saxon, here in my lead off spot, because he is the ultimate legacy character in what is ultimately a legacy film. Where this movie starts with the flashbacks. It starts by showing us things that have happened in the movies before and again. I'm out on that, but I think, as many different franchises have shown us, a way to really tap into that nostalgia. Not that that's a good thing, it can be very baity at times, but when they brought back the william donlo character in this movie something I had no idea was happening I don't know if he's featured in any of the trailers um, he's not, he's not I.
Speaker 3:I had no idea either. It was a great surprise so it's a great surprise.
Speaker 1:And then what I really appreciate about the performance and the writing for that character is he has a lot to do. Actually, it's not just when they are up preparing to get the coordinates for this. Uh, what is it called here?
Speaker 3:the sebesta pool off of his floppy disks from the year 2000, um, or 1994, excuse me, 1994, right, 1994, 96 96, 96 um, and but I guess the the the event where the sub sunk was, I think, 2011, 2012, okay, I think is what they say. But yeah, he's been up in the arctic since since the lengthy breach.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, so, so again, just the way that they construct all of that really funny, really smart, um, you know to. Basically it plays off again of this whole like destiny. Not like humans as beings on this planet, we have our own destinies that cannot be controlled by, by artificial intelligence and that have existed in a time when, when the, the influence of social media and computers and everything, wasn't as great. Because all of all of the events of Ethan Hunt's career in the MIF you know they do a really good job. I think of saying that, like his commitment and his willingness to put his team first, his life first, and to basically gamble, which he's been doing in every single movie, but gamble with the fate of humanity, all of it is for nothing, like, there's no coincidence, basically in these movies. And so if the events of the first one don't happen, then the events of the final reckoning don't happen. If Donlo doesn't get exiled up to this, this substation in the Arctic, then he's not there to help the events of this film transpire and ultimately succeed.
Speaker 1:So I thought, just like as a legacy character in a legacy film, he was great, he sticks with, he becomes part of tom's crew basically, and they have a great, great moment as they are leaving the arctic and they're on this airplane flying back and he basically says this to tom the donlo character, where he's like I never would have met the love of my life if, if you hadn't got me reassigned up here he pulls out the knife that falls out of tom's um bag up in the ceiling and still has it on him to give him just like a really good moment that I was not expecting, like a lot, of, a lot of emotion in that scene and communicated through the William Donnell character. So he was great in a legacy film. My lead off character has to be a legacy character.
Speaker 3:Nice On deck. For me and again, this is like the person who kind of moves along the film. Right, we get stuff moving on the bases. For me it's Simon Pegg. Right, he is constantly explaining what the plan is. Um, he is as benji he is, he is fully in the field now, which he has been for a couple movies. He, you know tom, leaves the team, uh, in this movie for a while, so like he is running the imf team and and kind of putting the players in position. So he is, and he is always kind of a lighthearted, like funny moments of of of each of these films where he, you know he is, he's constantly like well, this is insane, but I guess we're going to do it, I guess it'll work. It's going to work, don't worry. And so I enjoy Simon Pegg. I've loved him since Mission Impossible 3. So glad that he's been in all of these movies and survived all of these movies and he's always great to see. So that's my on my on deck hitter that's also my on deck hitter.
Speaker 2:Um, I think simon pegg is like the ultimate wingman, you know. He is such a great sidekick to tom and balances him out in such a good way, and I think that even just their chemistry on screen as as actors really goes hand in hand, and I it I was thinking about that yesterday just how much I really enjoy his character and how he's. It's like sometimes a little bit of a comic relief too to his scenes, but also very like heartwarming. And you know, when you, when he goes through something like you know, with him getting stabbed, I think is what happened, or shot um, um, and towards the final scene, um, you're, you're obviously really invested in his survival and um, I don't think that these movies would be what they are without him that that's a great call.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate his performance in this film and also the work he's put in in this franchise because, as someone who doesn't really like watch the Edgar Wright movies a lot, I don't really have too much of a relationship with Simon Pegg as an actor outside of these films, so it is really fun to have him in these movies On deck. I have the entity this is where I'm going to give another little shout out to the entity as a villain that I think does a really good job, sort of reinventing what a quote unquote bad guy can be in a movie and in a franchise that has shown us all kinds of evil geniuses, these megalomaniacs, these quote unquote criminal, criminal masterminds, these anarchists, um, we've really kind of seen it all. And so, to take a step back, as McQuarrie and Tom Cruise did, before writing the, you know the storyline for these two films. I think, writing the, you know the storyline for these two films. I think that the the arc for the Gabriel character to turn him into, he's almost like he is like the MacGuffin in these movies, almost where, like the bait and switch happens over this four month period which we don't get to see in between these two films, um, which is again kind of like another nitpick, like what's tom been doing? What's? Why is he not like still in contact with grace, like when he and when he and grace meet back up? That's something that I'll get to later. Like just a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:They're kind of dumb, but, um, I think the transition away from gabriel, who's like not a strong villain anyways, I would have, I would have been more upset had they have tried to really make us buy in to Issa Morales' character as this Philip Seymour Hoffman type bad guy that we really need to quote unquote, take serious, because we just don't spend enough screen time with him in the first movie to really have that investment, especially like Sean Harris in I think that's four and five, five and six time with him in the first movie to really have that investment. Um, especially like sean harris and I think that's four and five, five and six, five and six like we spend a lot of time with sean harris in those two movies and now like there's a heavy, heavy investment in in his villain character and his arc is pretty solid. But like, again, I'm glad they didn't just try to do that again and reinvent something else, um, or what they decided to do is like invent something else by giving us the entity as this bad guy in this mastermind of sorts that we kind of as again like this is my appreciation for the meta text of it all Like we don't know how to best defeat this. We really have to give ourselves over to the movie and be like okay, luther, create some crazy gadgets.
Speaker 1:Okay, tom, again, risk the fate of humanity. Like all you guys have to come together and just expo dump. Tell us how you're going to do it. Show us how you're going to do it, because it's not like we're just going to have some big crazy hand-to-hand combat or gunfight, or you know, we do have the chase scene, but ultimately it is to destroy the entity not necessarily gabriel in this film and so I thought that the entity as a villain should get a little bit more credit than, uh, than I see it getting out there yeah, I think the entity is is interesting.
Speaker 3:I just I I think gabriel as a character really takes. He's really such a different character in this movie, even compared to dead reckoning. Right, like in dead reckoning he's, he's suave, he's cool, he's a, he's an evil. Ethan hunt uh, you know, because he's an ex imf. Uh, in this he's just like gone completely mad and they try to say that like he's been, he's been in the pod.
Speaker 1:He's been in the pod Right yeah.
Speaker 3:He's, uh, he's been uh zapping, uh pimples on his face with that mask for for too long, um, but which is interesting. But also like the entity don't know. I just feel like the entity comes down to just like a big doomsday clock, um, which you know a running clock is in all of these movies and like very fun to do. I just wish the entity I I almost kind of wish like the entity had more of a like we got to see it take over more things. More of a terminator terminator vibe, right. More of a like we got to see it take over more things. More of a terminator terminator vibe, right. More of a sky sky net vibe. We're like it's.
Speaker 1:Actually. I do think that maybe we're missing a scene where the entity does like pop off and take some physicality, uh, yeah because otherwise it's just like this thing that's out there and we know that in it's over analyzing everything, and they do do a good job of telling us like it's not going to attack until it knows it can be completely safe, totally totally so it's not going to do something brash and something, something that you know would be for our entertainment?
Speaker 3:yeah, but also, though, wouldn't the entity know that, if it is so secure and safe and knows every outcome, why wouldn't it know that, oh, the team is going to be at the doomsday vault, they're going to have a poison pill and a and a usb to to capture it. I, I, you know and again, that's nitpicking, and also like no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I think I think that they have explained that, like the, it does, it expects. It expects tom to give it over, especially after tom and the entity have their moment in the pod together. It expects Tom to take the risk of having a moment where, yes, it could possibly get captured, but if that blink of a nice second millisecond is mistimed, it wins, and that's like the safest the safest, the safest route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because if it just goes through with launching all nine nuclear powers missiles against each other, um, you know the world? The world is no more, and so is it. Um, so isn't?
Speaker 3:isn't? It? Isn't the world gonna be no more even even say it does, get into the vault safely and then launches everything. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then it can rebuild it. And now you're almost stepping on my number two category here. But but that's what the entity wants. The entity wants the chance to rebuild a a broken uh you know planet that has fallen into nuclear fallout. Okay, okay, and at least that's my read. It read on it Um okay.
Speaker 3:So our number three hitters uh, in the whole it's Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have that too.
Speaker 3:The God of destiny. Uh, yeah, he is, and I think even more than recent films in this franchise. You know, uh, I think Alex, you said this he's in every frame, right Like he, and he is very soloed off from the team, uh, and a lot of these uh moments in the film where it is, it is just Ethan Hunt, uh versus the world and um, yeah, he's, I mean he's Tom Cruz, he's great, he's fucking. You know he is. So it is interesting that he is so, so serious and so like dramatic. He is very, very dramatic in this film. Two earlier films in the franchise where Ethan Hunt can, can be a little bit more jokey or a little bit more uh, less, uh gravitas, right, like a little bit lighter on his feet. Uh, it he is. He is commanding uh the screen. Uh, at all times in this film, yeah, yeah, I, I also had Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2:I mean, he again, he is mission impossible.
Speaker 1:He's these movies, you know the opening credits literally start with saying a Tom Cruise production yeah, incredible stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to know where he's hiding in the beginning and I mean I understand that, like they usually always somehow get a message to him. But yeah, it's funny that he's watching a tape where the president's like, yes, we don't know where you are, you know, but you're. But we somehow got this to you, please come in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, you forgot to turn your GPSps off on your phone. Actually, yeah, yeah, um, I think we might have to have just like an eighth category for nitpicks, because I was furiously like trying to remember stuff or like very like my theater was packed so I could not be that person on my phone, but I was just like I need to put this in my notes, I need to remember to mention this, um, so maybe at the end we have like a or maybe we fit in part of too long, didn't need is also just like nitpicks. How about that? Yeah, um, okay, and then so. So mine was ethan hunt as well. I mean, one more, can you say so? Uh, pitch hitters now, who were kind of your scene stealers um, I think I chose um.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right, but Ving Ramis.
Speaker 3:Ving Rames.
Speaker 2:Ving Rames um Luther. I love him. I I think that like just his little side role, always I'm in his in the movies that I've seen. I just really enjoy him on screen and I wish that there was more of him. And RIP to Luther.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for real.
Speaker 3:Spoilers. Yeah, it's really sad he looks old. Ving Rhames looks long in the tooth and it's weird because he's been.
Speaker 2:He's really not. He's only like in his 60s yeah he.
Speaker 3:Well, he's always, he's always been a big guy you know, yeah, exactly and uh, but yeah, he was, he was looking they I don't know, maybe they added makeup, but he looked really old and and uh and weak and um, you know he's been a part. He's been in movies for me since the 90s, right. Like I mean, he's just been a part of a great character actor in so many different movies, uh, over the years. And yeah, luther is one of his great, great uh roles and uh was sad, was sad to see him go, but uh, you know he also gets the last word, so, um, he does which he does, kind of which I think is great and you really you do.
Speaker 1:But you do believe that that brotherhood, that connection I'd say between Ethan and Luther, like that's, there's no manufacturing done there. That's real stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3:Uh, my pinch hitter was Tramiel Tillman.
Speaker 3:Uh captain Bledsoe, uh the USS Ohio uh which is the sub that uh Tom Cruise show gets onto before he goes deep sea diving and, uh, this guy is just he, he, he obviously is huge from his role in severance, which I've only seen a couple episodes, but you know he's always very fun when he comes on screen. But this guy is magnetic and I think he has the best chemistry in the film with tom cruise, like he's constantly calling ethan hunt mister like, yeah, he matches his freak, he totally matches his freak yeah, and what does he say he's like?
Speaker 1:if you want to poke the bear, you came to the right person.
Speaker 3:Oh, you've come to the right man, yeah, yeah, and he's just, he's just fantastic. Made me want to see a whole movie about the USS Ohio with him at the captain of this of the submarine up there in the Arctic looking for Russian subs.
Speaker 1:It really made me want to watch a submarine movie. The entire sequence Also shout out.
Speaker 2:Katie O'Brien too in that scene I was like I was excited to see her.
Speaker 1:I almost had her down here, because I believe that she also has some pretty legit chemistry with Tom tom I wish she was more of it.
Speaker 3:I thought she was going to be much, a much bigger role.
Speaker 1:Yeah um to say yeah same same with this person, but they ultimately do have more screen time at least, even if their their lines of dialogue don't necessarily balance, aren't necessarily in balance with their screen time.
Speaker 3:But I have palm clementine's character of paris so I almost had paris as my on deck person as like my favorite. She was like probably my second favorite character of of the film. Like I just think again she's like she's got good comedy, she obviously really good timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good at martial arts and stuff and yeah, I I wish there was more of her, her action as well yeah, I, I like her, her character arc and could always, you know, want I, I would, I will always be wanting more um out of that character, which is, again, not a palm clementine problem, that problem, that's a story problem. But I do think that some of the critiques and criticism of this film maybe not being as quippy or as fun are sort of lost, maybe on a little bit of the language barrier, where she does deliver a lot of good one-liners and again has that comedic timing, but we don't necessarily think of it as like banter in the moment, someone going back and forth with tom, but basically everything that she says, whether it's to benji or tom or whenever the whole crew is together, like she doesn't miss. She got a really high shooting percentage in this film. Um, so I just, I really I really liked her character. What?
Speaker 3:am I again? Like go ahead. One of the one of my favorite lines of hers was when uh benji was like you need to, he's like dying from the bullet hole, and he's like you need to save me, and she's like I killed people yeah, and he's like we'll make it work.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, I do. That was one of the first times that where I was like, oh no, we can't be doing this. Like, trust me, I remember, we all remember why she has that scar on her stomach that you just introduced her character with. And then they still show the flashback of, like, gabriel sticking the knife in her um, again, not a palm problem, um, but but just throw that whole first 30 minutes out. Okay, uh, best, best quote, uh, for me it's second category.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for me it's uh, you're spending too much time on the internet, Uh.
Speaker 1:Hagar Hagar, you're spending too much time on the internet. Yeah, I have that written down as well for one of mine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's just. It's great stuff. This is on the submarine. Ethan Hunt gets attacked by one of these divine followers of the entity and again, I think it's good. I think it's a good meta commentary on our world right now and what kind of rabbit holes you can get into if you spend too much time on the internet. I thought that was pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Do you have one, Erica?
Speaker 2:I struggled with this because my theater was also really packed and I knew I was going to forget something, but I did really. I mean because I thought the movie was pretty hokey, like most of the time I did. My favorite quote is really just Luther's speech, and his monologue at the very end of the movie was pretty hokey, like most of the time I did.
Speaker 2:My favorite quote is really just Luther's speech and his monologue at the very end of the movie. It's really really heartfelt. There's very like kind of like some spiritual elements to what he's saying to Tom and like to Ethan and and like kind of leaving him with this like really profound message about life and, um, I actually really like kind of teared up during that part. So that's I. I could not quote it, obviously, and I can't find it on the internet to to recite any parts of it, but and I wouldn't want to spoil it, I guess, for anyone else anyway because it was very moving and a good way to end the film if they really are going to kind of leave this where it's at, just be done with the franchise. I did think it was a really great send-off to Luther and Ethan's relationship.
Speaker 1:That's a great call I have the Children of the atom will rise from the ashes. And this is from doomsday cult member, I think, number three or four, that we see on the news clip at the beginning. And this guy totally fits into that like religious fanatic, you know, like you're thinking, jim Jones, you're thinking, you know, like conspiracy theorist, and and, and one of these, one of these people who have given their life over to the entity and feel this, this impending doom of AI, ready to take over. So I thought that it was funny. First of all, they show this, they show this guy twice, I think. The second I'm we, we hear this quote is when tom is in the pod with the entity, um, this guy pops back up. But but yeah, I just thought that, I thought that that quote was funny but also pretty indicative, um, of just kind of like the, the vibes that they're the stakes that they're trying to set here the children of the atom will rise from the ashes. Thought that was a good one. Um, okay, shoot your shot now. So your favorite little sequence, favorite, um, little camera trick, maybe piece of cinematography, I'll go, I'll go first on this one, um, because I have a couple of honorable mentions that I I want to get out there. I've heard this scene talked about a lot my finalist here but I do want to give a shout out, for when Tom is in the entity chamber and he's having this vision of a world in this post-nuclear war, this nuclear holocaust, and the entire world is exploding basically, world is exploding basically and we see this vision of like a round sphere of the earth with all these different, you know, devices being launched and then detonated and it zooms out and it is the iris of Ethan Hunt's eye, of Tom Cruise eye, and becomes and then, you know, we zoom out and we get his face and he kind of snaps out of the vision. At that point, um, obviously, um, computer generated and I I still don't. It's just like. It was a really cool moment, though, where I was just like, oh, dang, that was. That was really cool how they did that there. Um, so, so I did really like that um.
Speaker 1:For anybody that wants to say that this franchise is not sexy or steamy and doesn't doesn't um set the mood in any scene, I would like to direct your attention to the 30 seconds of hayley atwell performing slow motion cpr in the decompression chamber while wearing a tank top phenomenal stuff, um. So I gotta get that out. But but my, my, my favorite part is is ethan leaving the ohio, the submarine that he is on, and once he has gone out, the films like dive chamber. Then he and this was like, and I get it, I get it, it's in the, it's in the big dive tank, um.
Speaker 1:But when the momentum of his exit then takes him back and the propulsive um like flow of the water in in the propeller of the bellerog, the russian sub that is right behind him then sucks him towards the ship, and this is mostly done like in one take, in one take and and Ethan then bounces off this submarine and is holding on to one of the, like the side fins of it. That's when I was like Holy shit, we are cooking, like I don't know how they did that. Just really, really good stuff. And this will not be the last time that I bring up that entire um sequence of him leaving the ohio and and ultimately going to the sebesta pool to retrieve the podcova. But I thought that I thought that that was just like an incredible uh exit right there from the ohio, bouncing off the bell rock and then going further down.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that was incredible stuff yes, I the the hayley atwell stuff is is really really funny. Uh, it's, it's no. Vanessa kirby pulling like a knife out of her corset listen I am.
Speaker 1:I wish I could phone a friend and bring in my sister right now.
Speaker 1:Like I grew up on the I grew up in the school of mission impossible too and like when you're talking about tandaway newton wearing like black lingerie, sign me up.
Speaker 1:Like that is sexy, I get that. Like this you can be sexy and then you can just be like this bottled up horniness of sexual tension that will never be opened and that's what Tom Cruise is like with every single female partner that he's ever had in any movie ever. And so like everything that happens, not just the slow motion, cpr, where Haley Atwell is featured prominently across my giant screen, um, where hayley atwell is featured prominently across my giant screen, but then like this, this um, I don't know what you call that film technique max, but this almost like um, this hazy, like superimposed cuddling session that's kind of happening between them while he's like snapping out of his decompression and they're just like touching each other's faces. And I'm like I wish, I wish I could bet a live money line on movies, because I would have been like what is the over under on them kissing right now, because it'll never happen. You have all this sexual tension happening right now and there's like three different parts throughout the film where I'm like they're gonna, they're gonna kiss.
Speaker 1:Oh, I never think they're gonna kiss, but I'm like you would be dead. You are dead wrong if you think that I'm about to split up from hayley atwell and run after gabriel and the the the device that's around his neck and leave hayley atwell next to a nuclear bomb without kissing her, like it's just not happening. It's not not happening, tom. What are you doing? So a lot of, there's a lot of stuff with Hayley Atwell in this movie. It's not air quotes sexy, but a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 3:My shoot, your shot, is the beginning. Yeah, I think it's the beginning of the biplane sequence. Yeah, I think it's the beginning of the biplane sequence. Specifically, tom Cruise, or Ethan Hunt, is on the wing of the red plane and we're flying over like a river, in a cavern, like a canyon, A canyon, yeah, With on either side lots of greenery going on and again just beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they look really close, the planes look really close, but also like they're pretty close to the ground too and like and, and the rocks on on either side, and like there's just a specific shot in there where I was just like, wow, that is like that's just beautiful. What a thrill that would be like wow, that is like that's just beautiful. What a thrill that would be to shoot that and like to capture that on screen. Um, that was definitely by far my favorite favorite shot. Um, also interesting note about the biplane sequence they were denied access to.
Speaker 3:I think it was like they said seven countries they wanted. There were seven countries before south africa that they wanted to shoot this sequence in south africa or somewhere in south america, south africa. And and, yeah, and uh, seven countries turned them down and said, no, you're not allowed to shoot this in our country because we don't want to take the risk of, you know, tom Cruise dying uh on our, on our soil. So, uh, shout out to South Africa for letting them shoot there. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a pretty backdrop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, uh. My favorite scene is definitely the biplane scene. The whole thing was really incredible to watch and very nerve wracking the whole time. Him like transferring from his plane to the other guy's plane I don't even know his character's name, so sorry, but Gabriel, that's right. I don't even know his character's name, so sorry, but Gabriel, that's right. But him like hopping from his plane and then you see his plane just crumble beneath him was really amazing, and yeah, I just I thought that whole scene was just Just wild. Wouldn't expect any less, though, from from him, so I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:I did really like once he got out of the plane and the plane stuff became more tactile, as opposed to like this dog fight without weapons. Really because, Max, something you said earlier in the film um, which I do agree with you on, was that like the flashbacks take you out of it Anytime. I see Tom Cruise in some sort of aviation, uh, like piloting position, that's what I just get taken out of it, Cause I'm like you're doing top gun Like we just love. We've seen you fly.
Speaker 3:We've seen you fly, and like, I feel that way in this, in this one too.
Speaker 1:Right when, I like in this one too, right where like well, like even in fallout with the helicopters, like that's nothing but just like a top gun scene. And and so I did like when it became more like hand to hand, um, like yeah, he's like this real stunt work as opposed to not that like flying planes isn't stunt work. But, um, you know, I just I did feel like, oh, here we go, we're doing the, we're doing the pete mitchell thing here again yeah, yeah, uh, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean even like that first sequence where we get onto the aircraft carrier um oh, with off sprays going up, yeah, and like the jets coming on and off, like yeah, it's so tough, it's so tough, so tough man.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is fine, because you know I mean Christopher McQuarrie is.
Speaker 1:Oh, they both can't help themselves. Yeah, they both can't help themselves. Yeah, yeah, okay. All Hans on deck Shout out to Hans Zimmer, one of the best to ever do it. Piece of music in the film Could be jukebox soundtrack, could be something from the score kind of, depending on what movie we're talking about. So you know, funny enough because we are talking about a franchise with one of the most iconic theme songs ever, and so is that the route you went? Or was there another moment throughout the film that stood out to you guys?
Speaker 3:The like, large gaelic, almost hans zimmer, like tones that happen when he's underwater, when he's deep sea diving.
Speaker 1:They're like this is what I have. I I have written down source code retrieval. The rumbling, the grunts, the torpedoes falling. I looked it up on the score. This is like a five minute long song composed for the score called the sebesta pool. Yeah, and it's cool. It sounds like something that mark corbin did for the lighthouse it is so good. It's so good and I love that for the most part, that entire set piece, unlike every other set piece in this entire franchise, is paced so slowly and like you're talking to silence, almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've subscribed to the thalassophobia subreddit page for as long as I've had a reddit account, so like shit that goes down underwater, like that tickles my brain in such a scary and intense and in a fascinating way. And so the moment he comes out of the ohio to the moment that he floats back up to the ice surface, um, when he's actually like not breathing at that time. But all of that stuff I just think is so good and the music helps with it so much. Because, yes, little to no dialogue, I'm pretty sure no dialogue and the music is not this like high-paced, frenetic action sequence, even though it is like some of the most white-knuckle stuff that I can remember in the entire franchise.
Speaker 1:The submarine feels like a haunted house where he's, you know, around every corner he's finding these corpses that have been rotting down there. You have this other great ticking time bomb moment and the music does such a good job and just the sound mix in general do such a good job of building this tension of this submarine. It's sitting on this shelf on the ocean floor. That's already 500 feet down, and it is because of tom opening ethan, I should say opening the different chambers and and shifting the balance of the submarine because water's going into different areas of the ship, it's beginning to slide down this shelf and so it's just like it's so good, guys, it's so so good that stuff that happens underwater. So, yeah, the music helps it. It's definitely my favorite part too.
Speaker 2:I think I had the music down for the fight scene in the cabin because I really enjoyed that whole scene of kind of them swapping between, like, the team fighting the russians and then also tom fighting the guy on the ohio, and so I really enjoyed that whole scene and the music in that.
Speaker 2:But I, you did mention, like the theme song of mission impossible and, like you know, the title card of the movie doesn't come for, you know, several minutes into it and my whole theater like erupted into applause and because I'm, like fairly new to the franchise, I and I've had only positive experiences, um, with it so far.
Speaker 2:I get pretty hyped when, like the theme song comes on because I'm just like let's go, like I'm ready.
Speaker 2:So I think the theme song is worth mentioning in this because it is so iconic and, you know, unless you've been living under a rock, you really just are immediately going to recognize the song, you know, and it can feel a lot powerful, kind of tying into some other things I was saying before of, like you know, with this, assuming this is the last movie, it can give you a little bit of nostalgia and and kind of, like you, you reflect on the last, you know, whatever, there's seven, eight movies now and um, and so like obviously I I don't have a long history with them and I haven't seen the majority of them, but I think just kind of tapping into like the collective experience with Mission Impossible. Hearing that song can really flood back a lot of memories and reflect on your upbringing with. The franchise is pretty powerful. And there was, you know, I had a lot of, like, older people in my, my theater and everyone was just really hyped and it was actually really fun. And um, you know, monday afternoon and everyone just started cheering.
Speaker 3:I had a bunch of old people at my screening too, and they were cheering when Tom Cruise. When tom cruise, uh like is lands after the biplane, uh, uh, sequence right. And he's got like the because, like he, he pulls up parachute, that parachute lights on fire. Then we cut away from him and then we get back to him and he well, we see him pull a second shoot, but we don't see it go up yeah, and he, like he's now on the ground.
Speaker 3:I had, I had and again, like this was a friday morning, the you know bluebird special, uh, I had people hooting and hollering, they love tomcat in this town, uh, and so, yeah, that's, that's a lot of fun. But, um, my question was gonna be, uh, what's a better theme song? Mission impossible or the james bond theme song, because I think it's really.
Speaker 1:I think they evoke the exact I was thinking about this yeah yeah, um, because I think it's the exact same thing. You, you can't wait for the cold open of a james bond film and a mission impossible film to end even though sometimes that's like the most fun you have during the entire movie because you can't wait for that needle drop of like either or possible is better. They totally do the same thing.
Speaker 1:They totally do the same thing they do the same thing, and then I think it comes down to personal preference. Yeah, you're right. Okay, so now we get to, we're going to do some nitpicking here. We'll start with a big. Too long didn't need. It sounds like consensus might be just the London stuff, everything at the beginning. We've mentioned that a lot, all the clips, all the remember this stuff that's happening. I mean, that's what I have written down.
Speaker 3:If you guys have something bigger that you want to focus on now, we can do that or we can get into nitpicks I have something very specific, uh, that I, I, just I, I couldn't believe they decided to go with this, and this gets into spoiler territory.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're so far past that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I mean, this is something I had no idea.
Speaker 1:And when it came on, I groaned If you're an hour and 10 minutes into this and we haven't spoiled something for you, thanks for hanging out.
Speaker 3:Right, I do not need Shea Wiggum's character to be Jim Phelps jr. I thought that was a huge mistake and just just horrendous lazy writing.
Speaker 1:That's where the legacy stuff, that's where the legacy stuff goes wrong and I'm not against the decision to do it. But if you're going to do it, shay needs to be in like 30% more of the movie.
Speaker 3:The character does not even matter.
Speaker 1:I don't even know who Shay works for in this movie, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:It's insane, it's absolutely insane.
Speaker 1:I love Shay. That hurts me so much. Love shay too I want more. Shay was great in dead reckoning right, but he also also though in dead reckoning. I don't know who he works for. What's he doing?
Speaker 3:it's it's absolutely insane. And why does?
Speaker 1:he not care about his partner, who's now just working with ethan working with, yeah, just I mean just flip sides. He's probably good like this. Ethan guy is probably good because my partner's now just like in his crew. It's insane dude. I can know that. Right, she has to know. Does he think his partner's dead? I have no idea I have no idea.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, it's, uh, it, it's, it was. That was crazy. That was crazy when they revealed that and I was like that's just too far. Um, so that that is the thing I just want out of this movie.
Speaker 2:I don't know I'm. I'm curious like how you guys feel about this, because for me, like I, it just doesn't work. For me I cannot stand nick offerman in these like weird, like government presidential roles I don't like him cleanly shaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was scary too, but you know he was the president in civil war right, um which you know.
Speaker 2:very, very little part in that movie, but him in this.
Speaker 1:Almost like stunt casting in that role.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like no, sorry, it doesn't work for me. It just feels so like awkward and like try hard to me and I hate to like. I tend, you know, I think a lot of people do this with certain types of actors who are primarily known for comedic roles or, you know, maybe a dramatic role, and then they try to do comedy or whatever, but I just like it doesn't work for me. As him in these weird, like serious roles, but especially this movie I was, I just was like get him off my screen, I don't, and I like Nick Offerman, but I'm curious, like I don't know if that was just me, like that's a nitpick for sure, but I do.
Speaker 1:I do like how they kept his character's motives sort of in the dark. When he goes to ask for the one sergeant's firearm and you're not sure like is he going to be not necessarily a radicalist, but is he going to be someone within the president's cabinet that tries to take her out because of a decision that she's ultimately going to make and or not make? Um, and so I I do like that you're. You're left wondering what's going to happen with his character in that regard and ultimately, that that moment does come to fruition and we do get our answer. I like the answer that we get to. It's a cool scene, um, but I do, I do agree with you that, um, I think there's 20 other 45-year-old white guys in Hollywood that I could have seen in that role and either been indifferent towards or liked better in the position, someone that I think you're right you don't have the same sort of comedic relationship with. It'd almost be like not necessarily on this level, but pretty close to Like. If Steve Carell was that part you'd be like what the?
Speaker 2:fuck, we're not that far off from that, that character, but just being like steve carell offerman's a great tv actor he is a good tv actor and and it's not that I don't think that he's a good actor, it's just that like it has just his.
Speaker 3:I couldn't stand his voice and I know he talks like that in like everything he's in, obviously, but to me it just felt so corny and like I didn't like it at all I'm like no, I I mean the, the, the, all the war room stuff right, and they're trying, they're trying very hard to do the diploma thing, where they've got the tilted angles and the, the over the top dialogue and the cheese going on there and and we're you know it's supposed to be very tense. But yeah, I think I don't know if it's Offerman or I mean even some of these other character actors that we have in there Holt McCoy, you know I I tend to always really love Holt McCoy. You know I tend to always really love who Holt McCoy, holt McCoy.
Speaker 1:Holt, mcclacrini, I think is his name, or McClareni.
Speaker 2:McAllany.
Speaker 3:McAllany, mcallany there we go Holt McAllany yes, a Fincher guy, really love that guy. But again, I think this War Room stuff they're trying to do diploma and I just I think it's just poorly executed or it's just not diploma or I'm just, I'm just I don't know.
Speaker 1:I I was very allergic to anything going on in that war room and I just did not want to be there yeah, and I think offerman also has a part in that right okay, here were some of the side things that I was able to write down to remember to talk about here. Um, first one, I wrote and I hope there's an answer to this, um, I just I wrote down luther is in a hospital bed in the bottom of a condemned sewer.
Speaker 3:Question mark yeah, so is he sick. What I don't under was he sick in the seventh one because I the weird.
Speaker 1:this is why you just gotta throw out the first like 30 to 40 minutes, because I was under the impression that after he comes back in, like after ethan watches the the blair wedge project tape, and he comes back in, then he and and Benji and Luther meet back up and they learn that they need to make all these different devices that can activate the source code within the Podkova. And then Luther also has to build this trap that will hold the entity inside of it, will hold the entity inside of it, like they're all in what looks to be some sort of like imf workroom, like lab or whatever for that scene. And then we're subterranean london and luther's in a hospital bed but he's wearing.
Speaker 3:But he's wearing doctors like he's wearing nurses clothes.
Speaker 1:He has a nurse. He has a nurse. Yeah, like, are you she a traveling nurse? Is she a nurse provided by the imf? Like I had so many questions about, why is luther in a hospital bed in the sewers?
Speaker 2:I almost brought that up earlier, but I was like maybe I missed something, and why?
Speaker 1:again, you know we just talked about death's design with final destination. But why is ethan like yo homie, that's my briefcase. Like yo homie, that's my necklace, with the device on it? I need that. And then luther's like nah bro, it's good, I'll just keep it no, no, ethan hunt, ethan gives it back to him like yeah, he takes it, like yeah, he's like yeah, I'll take that, and then he's like no, or yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1:Then ethan's like no, you keep it, you keep. And luther's like all right bet. And then gabriel finds him and like oh shit, now everything's going wrong, hey yeah, there's like no other guards or anything, there's just this nurse just luther benji's not even there. I'm so confused by that yeah, that's all very strange okay, next next question nitpick, whatever. Do we think that there is a real doomsday vault somewhere?
Speaker 1:uh, because if not, that's a crazy thing for them just to make up and write and put it in South Africa. And now there should be one, if there's not one.
Speaker 3:There probably is one. There's definitely one under the White House right, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:One under the Denver airport probably.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go. Now. This is what I love Crackpot Erica with the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2:This whole movie is based on conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:This is true.
Speaker 2:This is true.
Speaker 1:Okay, also, too, I couldn't help but think this during the film. They decide that, as like an act and in an act of good faith, if the? U were to attack all these other cities who have gone offline with their nukes, that we should be sacrificing one of our own cities. They don't tell us which one it is, but I was like I have to ask Max?
Speaker 1:No, because they say that they're like we can't give up, Like we've come up with a list of like strategic and geographical options. Now I've always read stuff like much to my chagrin, that Seattle and the entire Pacific Northwest because of how much Navy and all the other kinds of military bases that we have up here that like this would actually be a high target value for like an attack during a war and you could you could do a lot to deplete the entire nation's forces by like attacking the pacific northwest. So I don't think seattle's on that list, but I'm like what cities are on this list?
Speaker 1:denver denver, somewhere in texas somewhere in texas, chicago, philadelphia, I was kind of thinking can you refer?
Speaker 2:I could, I could definitely pick some.
Speaker 1:So you rephrase the question again or just repeat it I just want to know what cities do you think were on that list that that madam president had to look at to to sacrifice to sacrifice because obviously they would have listed them off.
Speaker 2:I guess I was picking my own personal ones okay, because it's not going to be dc.
Speaker 3:It's not going to be new york, minnesota, it's not going to be los angeles.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I think seattle's clear miami oh, someone florida, sure miami? Yeah, good, miami, knock off Miami. Ooh, someone in.
Speaker 3:Florida.
Speaker 2:Sure Miami yeah.
Speaker 3:Good Miami.
Speaker 1:Atlanta, Atlanta.
Speaker 3:Louisiana, that's, you know, pretty much underwater.
Speaker 1:I think Miami makes a lot of sense. You take off Miami and they just sort of like the panhandle just goes.
Speaker 2:Austin would be awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, texas. Texas makes a lot of sense, cause there's a lot of empty space out there fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm trying to think those are the three things that I had written down, but there's so I mean there's a ton yeah, another nitpick for me was we only get one mask thing like there's only. But listen, this is I don't need my cheeseburger to be like it, doesn't need to be a smash burger, but like just that's like the, the, that's mission impossible.
Speaker 1:I mean like that is. But these are the trappings, though, is if you do the same thing over and over. Because I can remember, I I remember when, when dead reckoning came out and people were like jesus christ, there were seven different mask moments in this movie, and so like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, yeah yeah, I, I don't know, I'm a damned if you don't.
Speaker 3:Person, I like the masks. There was only one part and I just think they're fun. Ask her for do it and ask for forgiveness later yeah, absolutely it's, it's, it's the end, it's the end of mission impossible.
Speaker 2:Like you, know, supposedly yeah um, what else?
Speaker 3:uh, yeah. So yeah, I mentioned the parachute.
Speaker 1:I mentioned, you know, the videotape at the beginning, like also again, maybe it's, maybe it it's part of why Ethan has to do it. But also when he goes to this like black tie event in London, I'm like what are you doing? Yeah, I have no idea. Why is he there. You are a fugitive. Everyone knows what you look like. Yeah, everyone in the world knows what you look like.
Speaker 1:You know how many expos would be done on you like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's weird that I'm telling you that first. Oh, I agree, the first stuff, the first 30 minutes, 40 minutes, basically, until we understand like, okay, cool, because here's the thing. We talked about, this after dead reckoning like hell, yes, the next chapter is going to be like a submarine movie. It's going to be sick. Yep, and guess what was sick in this movie? All the submarine stuff. Yeah, so until we get to like this setup for that which introduces like the katie o'brien character and just this whole plot of how he has to get out there. I love how he has, like I'm jumps out the bird. Yeah, I'm really not trying to spoil my driving double feature by talking about this part too much yet, but like the way that he asked to negotiate with Angela Bassett as the president to even get this part going, like I loved all of that stuff. I thought that was so good.
Speaker 3:Like we just got to get out of london faster. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get out of the, the sewer hospital. Uh, that would be nice. I hope that's where I go hey, wait guys, when I get old and sick, just send me to the sewer, just send me down to the sewer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the iron care. Um, it's crazy stuff, okay. So here we go drive-in, double feature for this film. Um, you go unconventional, you go conventional. Obviously, when you're what we assume to be the final chapter of a franchise maybe we don't assume it to be, but, like, there's a lot of stuff here that you can pull from. So, so what are you pairing this movie with?
Speaker 3:I have a whole list. So if you guys want to go first and then I'll, you know, add some scraps, sure.
Speaker 1:Sure Erica.
Speaker 2:I struggled with this, but I chose tenant.
Speaker 1:Oh, tell us why.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It kind of gives me that same vibe. I also what recently watched, re-watched it. You know Tenet is really about them like trying to prevent a world war three, um, and it just kind of gives me that same vibe. Like Tenet I know a lot of people think is like really long and um, a little like painful to watch. I personally really liked tenant but um, it kind of gives like I don't know. And I really, like I said I struggled with this one hardcore because I was like well, I'll just pair it with another mission impossible movie, but um, I thought that like there was a similar like the, the whole ai thing, for whatever reason it's, because it's so like technologically advanced. I compare that to how they're, you know, manipulating time yeah um and it um.
Speaker 3:So that's my that's a great pick and a movie that, like I would have never thought of. Erica that's, that's, uh, it's a good pull yeah that's really thinking outside the box. That's yeah, yeah, it's very tenet of you.
Speaker 1:So I went way outside the box Box didn't even exist for me on this one because I think that some of the first things that came to my mind may be on your list as well. Max, I'm happy that you're going to bring a couple of different titles to the table here. I'm going to TV, actually, and I'm going with season three of 24. And now I think that Ethan Hunt and Jack Bauer have so much in common where they are the person who always ends up at the center of these world crises and they are the only person, for some reason, that can save the day. And and so, whether, like you could say that Ethan Hunt's a superhero, you can say that Ethan Hunt is James Bond. I'm like Ethan Hunt and Jack Bauer are the same person.
Speaker 1:And and now, what really made that apparent to me while watching the final reckoning was that scene in which he is trying to convince Angela Bassett and her entire cabinet to basically give him carte blanche to carry out this mission the way that only he sees that he can do it, and he has to keep things classified and everything else else.
Speaker 1:And after he leaves that meeting, you see that angela bassett's character of the president, unbeknownst to the rest of her cabinet is like, yeah, here you go, here's the green light. That is so jack bauer and david palmer, where dennis hayes bird's character in 24 would just be like you don't ask me why I'm trusting jack, I trust jack and that's all you need to know. Um, and so season three, specifically, is when when jack and president palmer, david palmer in the 24 series, really start to have that kind of relationship and really just like flex that friendship on everybody else and and you know, keifer sutherland is left to just go do his thing. Ctu and IMF also not that dissimilar. So, yeah, that's the one that, after thinking about it for a minute, kind of came to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great poll, that's a really great poll Because, you're right, jack Bauer and Ethan Hunt, I mean, obviously Ethan Hunt came first, I guess in in the 60s, right, but jack bauer is kind of like a, like a more violent, grounded version of that, for sure, yeah, uh, okay. So I have, yeah, a big long list. Uh, you know, I I think last week we touched on no time to die, uh, is is a good thing to pair with this, because it's the last Daniel Craig, james Bond movie, um and uh, or the dark night rises, um, you know, the last Christian Bale Batman movie kind of ends a little, you know, it kind of ends a little similar to the way this ends, where we're head nodding, our friends, and then we're looking at the camera, winking and walking away. I also had movies like Logan, toy Story 3, the Last Crusade, avengers, endgame. Those are all like the end of certain franchises or eras in franch, franchises. A lot of those then, you know, go, end up going on and ruining some of those legacies.
Speaker 3:Uh, on those movies, but one that I was thinking about, uh, a couple other ones that are kind of outside the box and not having to do with ending a story something. There's so much, there's so much like water diving, navy stuff in here. Yeah, right, I check out the abyss, right I? I think that's an interesting we're at the bottom of the ocean, we're. We're going around trenches, uh, we're. You know that one gets a little bit more sci-fi than than a, a, uh, mission impossible movie, or you can go and this is one I think alex and I watched, or at least I know I watched during our kevin costner moment last last year. Uh, is it the Guardian? I believe.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:With Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner. It's like a frogman jumping off helicopters into raging ocean film Coast Guard film. So I think those would pair nicely with how much water action we get in guard film. So I think those would pair nicely with the uh, with how much water action we get on this film.
Speaker 1:I think for a lot of the same reasons. You could throw you five, seven, one the hunt for red October. Right, you could do a couple of different submarine movies with this one as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Yep your water, uh. Starring Kristen Stewart.
Speaker 1:Oh underwater yeah, starring.
Speaker 3:Kristen Stewart oh, underwater, yeah, we started William Eubank baby.
Speaker 1:Okay. So now let's talk about the legacy, our final category here for this film. I think I'm maybe the strongest supporter of this movie, so I'll go first and just kind of say my piece and then be done with it. I do like what you just mentioned. This is a good segue, max, or you kind of set the table nicely for me here, I should say, because a lot of those other franchises that you did just mention did go on to try to revitalize and reimagine or reboot themselves after we were told we're done.
Speaker 1:So here's how I feel about the final reckoning. If the franchise ends here, I think people are going to come around to this movie pretty quickly, and and if they're able to just like, like, if McQuarrie and Cruz and everybody Cruz first and foremost, but if everyone's able to stay away from it, I think they're not only going to get credit for their strength, the restraint that that shows, but I also think that, as I mentioned at the top, this movie's relationship with AI and the way that they are confronting some of these things in real time and how that might feel a bit too like on the nose in the moment. I think give it five, 10 years and we're going look back on it and and feel we're gonna be more um sympathetic to some of those ideas.
Speaker 1:and now, that's not be me being like pessimistic by saying like in 10 years shit's really gonna be bad, um, but like I just think that in in five or ten years, if this franchise hasn't tried to come back yet, we're gonna, we're gonna look back on it pretty fondly and then, if this franchise does continue, I think people are going to say we should have left it here and the final reckoning was a good end to the ethan hunt story. So I think this, I think this movie in either way, um, no matter what we, no matter what happens next, I think this movie's in a good position to grow in a lot of people's estimation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll be really interesting. To be honest, I haven't watched Dead Reckoning since it was in theaters, right, the last Mission Impossible movie I own is Fallout, and so I think sitting down and maybe marathoning these two together might help Final Reckoning a little bit more. Or it also might hurt it, right? Because that might be even worse if you get through Dead Reckoning and then you have to get through everything at the beginning of this movie where everyone's telling you exactly what happened in Dead.
Speaker 3:Reckoning and what we're up against. I think the big question is is this going to be the last one, the fact that the oscars are now recognizing stunts in 2028? Does the lure of that oscar, of a possible oscar for tom cruise, chris, uh, you know, mckugh and and team, does that make them come back, you know, uh, or are they gonna make him go back to maverick? Well, so yeah, that's gonna be part of part of the part of the news coming up, uh, so yeah, I don't know, it's, it's gonna be really interesting. I, I hope this is the end and you know this movie again. I think it just needs more reexamination and, like the stunts are amazing, I just It'd be cool if there was a super cut out there of Dead Reckoning and the final Reckoning together, where maybe we get rid of the train sequence and we get rid of the first hour of this film and and somehow, stitch them together.
Speaker 1:Can we keep rebecca ferguson alive? That'd be amazing, because that's another. That's the biggest part. That's the biggest thing that I feel like is missing from this film is just, we don't have the time invested in the hayley at will character yet, and like we all felt this and talked about this on the pod when dead reckoning came out, is it like that was a terrible decision to kill off that character? Yeah yeah and this movie now, and this movie now suffers because of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, she's, yeah, she leaves a gaping hole, for sure.
Speaker 2:My take on the legacy thing. I want to believe that this is the last movie, because not that I really am invested either way, but it's more of just my belief in how Hollywood just loves to over milk things and just keep making movies for money, rather than like letting like a really great franchise or story just be what it is. You know with with this, with this movie or these these movies, it's very likely that we'll have one of those like it's not going to be right away, but maybe like I don't know, but it's like how do you do that? Well, I don't know. I mean you might do that without Tom and then have some like younger actor taking his place in the stunt department, but tom's still involved somehow. You know what I mean. Like I I feel like we see that often where they'll bring in like a hot new actor and and he's maybe like the like the new ethan hunt, even though he's not playing ethan hunt, but like I could really see that happening like 10 years down the road, maybe even less than that, but I hope it doesn't. I just I mean I'll always stand by, like just leaving, just like this movie is getting like mixed feedback but it's not really being like.
Speaker 2:I don't think people consider this movie like a flop or anything, or it's definitely not like whoa. This is really bad, because it's not. It's just like it's a little too long, it's a little, you know, hard to follow for you know some people, um, but it's still good. So, like, leave it alone. You know, just like.
Speaker 2:Just like, let something die peacefully. And like, let us all be like just kind of nostalgic about it and say, you know, like let's move on. And I don't know, I think it'd be nice to see Tom Cruise and like other roles, you know, and doing other things, kind of getting back into some of the stuff that he used to do in his like earlier days and I, I mean, I don't know, I who knows what'll happen. I just I really hate how hollywood just tries to continue to like like keep going with things when it's like kind of clear that it's reached its expiration.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah it's. It is sad it's. It's the ip era that we live in right now, um, where they yeah, they just milk it dry and we'll see. I don't know, they've tried.
Speaker 1:Listen, the entity wants us to believe we have. We have shown the entity that that's what we want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the algorithm, the entity is, is is aware. Um, and you know they have tried to do the whole.
Speaker 3:Brandon the young hotshot with Renner with Renner, with, uh, what was the guy in in three? Uh, John Reese Davies or whatever, um, so, yeah, I don't know, that would be interesting, but also, like, I think, I think it needs to. You know, stuff like this, stuff like Indiana Jones, stuff like even Star Wars, right, where, like these legacy movies that have been going on forever now, and and Mission Impossible is probably the youngest out of those, definitely the youngest out of those movies we just got to stop, though. We got to just put it down. Put it down, it's been a great run, it's been a great 30 years.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I would want my franchise to die, to be put to bed very peacefully. You know what I mean. And like everybody has still has a good taste in their mouth with it. It's not like, oh my gosh, another one came out and this one sucked and it's just not good anymore. And you know, like I like just let art and like just let it be what it is, and like we can, there's plenty of other movies to be made out there, you know, and there's you can make more movies just like this if you want. Like who cares? But just, I don't know, like just don't over do it, Don't over milk it, it's too much. If I could just tell everybody in Hollywood that message, I would. There's so many movies that are coming out that are just so unnecessary welcome back to the space of dramatic acting with a capital D.
Speaker 1:Then I think that he will be able to leave at least Mission Impossible alone. I think the stage is better set for him to maybe hand off the Top Gun franchise to someone like Glenn Powell or Miles Turner and so or not. Miles Turner, you can tell I've been watching too much basketball. Miles Teller and so and so or not. Miles turner, you can tell I've been watching too much basketball.
Speaker 3:Uh miles teller and and so and turner is a center who can hit a three, though, all right listen, I'm trying to nix that.
Speaker 1:Game's probably in the fourth quarter right now. Nix pacers, game four um, go pacers. We gotta wrap this shit up, um, and so I I do think that that'll be. That'll be very telling. As opposed to um, if he feels like he needs to come back to this, because I was tom, tom did something. I would advise everyone to go and listen to tom's interview.
Speaker 1:He actually went on a podcast and was on the pat mcafee show and talked for like 30 minutes and it's incredibly telling and also very obvious that, like tom tom simultaneously is always going to march to the beat of his own drum, but he's very aware and I won't say like he necessarily quote cares what people think about him, but he is hyper aware of of the state of movies and his importance to movies and and the power and the influence that he holds, and so if he feels like he can walk away, I think he will. But now that is again going to hinge on this transition that we're going to see, starting with his appearance in the new Inuritu film, and I know nothing about the plot of that story and if he's going to be the central figure to it or just part of an ensemble, so we will see. We will see what's next for tom. That's really this, like this legacy conversation is almost more focused on like tom cruise is an actor as opposed to totally mission impossible it's, yeah, it's, it's exciting, it's very exciting.
Speaker 1:It is, um, okay, so. So that'll do it for for our conversation around the final reckoning. Max, you did ask if you could have a little time at the end here, for some people are saying tidbits. I also. I also do want to touch on our big winners coming out of the Cannes Film Festival, so we can talk about that for two seconds here as well. But what do you got for us?
Speaker 3:Well, so I mentioned earlier Christopher McQuarrie. I was watching a. He was on some podcasts today he has penned the script, or at least the first draft, for top, or for top Maverick, top gun three. So that is in the works, and then I also have some graphics here that I want. You guys are sick of Scorsese. Do we need a five-part series about a director and his legacy? There's going to be Daniel Day-Lewis is coming out for this. This Kate Blanchett, dicaprio I mean you can, you can just imagine all the people that are going to be on this. Uh, five, I can't believe it's five parts. That's just that's five hours of of content and that's a lot.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to get your guys' reaction to that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think that's. I mean I love a documentary no matter what, and a docu-series of that about an amazing filmmaker. I mean I'll watch it Always. So I think that's exciting.
Speaker 1:I think that these things are always a sum of their parts, and so if, Daniel Day, if you got DDL and Leo and a bunch of his longtime collaborators, De Niro, I would expect um you know if they're going to show him yeah, if they're going to come and show out for him, um, then that's, that's great.
Speaker 1:I will say that I always think it's a little weird when these career retrospects and documentaries come out on people who not only are still living, and documentaries come out on people who not only are still living but, more specifically, like, still working. So if, if he's gonna make like two more movies, then I'd say like no, to answer your question, we don't need it, not right now, just we need it. We need it, but just wait yeah yeah, yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 3:Uh, and then, alex, I was really interested in this piece of news that I saw and, again, I have no idea if this is real, but it's what people are saying and maybe I'm spending too much time on the internet. Uh-oh a movie in the works, starring DiCaprio as Chuck Knoll and Brad Pitt as Art Rooney, covering the Pittsburgh Steelers who, if people don't know you, are a diehard fan of. Yeah, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1:That already sounds more prestigious than what we're gonna get with bail and cage. Doing the story on the raiders, right and and I think that you never want to be reactionary, right, and so a little bit of that does feel reactionary to me where maybe some studio, some director, whoever it was to do the, the john madden story, the al davis story, the oakland raiders story maybe they just like tapped into that first and now someone else is saying like oh wait, we can take a bigger and better franchise that has a bigger global reach than the raiders, and there's not too many of those.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it's probably the cowboys yeah um, and and we can get more accomplished actors and, um, maybe we feel like we have a more interesting story to tell. I think anything post once a time, once upon a time, in hollywood with brad and leo together, is going to obviously, no matter what it's about draw a lot of attention. I'm not going to sit here and say I'm not for it, uh, but I I also I'm sort of with you where I'm like is this real?
Speaker 1:I have no idea if that's real yeah, and is there an exciting enough story to tell like, yeah, you could do, you could do a whole run through the 70s of them winning their super bowls um?
Speaker 3:who's your pick for terry bradshaw?
Speaker 1:maybe make a great sports movie. Who would I pick for terry bradshaw? Gosh, who right now is like matthew mcconughey in 2001. That's who I want. Glenn Powell I want. Right, that's just too easy, though. I don't know Gosh 10 years ago, I don't know. There's a lot of people who I could say this person 10 years ago, this person 20 years ago, I don't know, I'm not sure that's a good one, though. Yeah, we'll see. I'll keep my ears peeled for more news on that to come. Leo's kind of one of these guys. You know, you see leo at a bunch of basketball games, obviously lakers, um, specifically, but he's sort of like tom cruise, where I'm like does leo, does leo care about the same things that we care about? I feel like brad pitt cares about the same things that we care about. I feel like Brad Pitt cares about the same things that we care about, but like, does Leo care about telling a story?
Speaker 3:I don't know, from 50 years ago in the NFL. I have no idea. Yeah, you know, I think you're right, I think Brad Brad does care.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:I think Brad does care about that stuff, cause Brad has a production company, right, brad has a production company, right. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But like, yeah, leo is just like on beaches with squirt guns, like I totally or trying to make.
Speaker 3:Don't look up yeah, yeah, I guess he cares about the environment.
Speaker 1:He cares about the environment, right, right, yeah, I have. No, I don't know, I don't know um got anything else for us I do.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know if this is like old news or anything, but I'm really excited to hear that alex garland will be taking on the elden ring live action movie because, I feel, like last, when we did our alex garland episode, I think we had touched on kind of wanting to see him do some more fantasy stuff and I mean I know I really love this realm that he's in right now with, like you know, a lot of his war horror stuff going on. But I feel like we did kind of touch on like maybe going back to a little bit of fantasy, like it from annihilation that we saw um and it has been confirmed that he will be doing a live action elden ring, which I have not played the game but I know it is a very popular high fantasy game that uses and I I from what I was me and my friend were talking about is that george rr martin will be helping collaborate a little bit on this movie oh, so it'll never end.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, but I think this is exciting and I think that this is in the right hands. And I again, I don't have any tie to elden ring, but, um, I would love to see one of my favorite directors right now take on something like this and turn it into like. I mean, I can't even imagine what this would look like, so I won't try to like get my my hopes up too high, but I do think that a project like this is in the right hands with Alex.
Speaker 1:I'm just happy to hear that you know. Also, something we talked about on the warfare episode was him potentially calling it quits after that film, and so that seems to have been swiftly debunked yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a24 confirmed this too at A24 too.
Speaker 3:It is going to be. That's going to be really interesting to see, because we yes, we've seen him do science fiction, but we haven't seen like this is like medieval, like knights in armor high, like you said, high fantasy stuff, celtic, nordic high fantasy shit, like I love that I mean very interesting yeah yeah, I'm really excited.
Speaker 2:I loved the movie the northman um, and I definitely want to see more stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And so for Alex to take on this, like Celtic fantasy video game adaptation, I, I'm like 100%, I'm in and I'm and I do believe that it is an eight 24 production which just and you know this could be the next wave here, which just and you know this could be the next wave here because of you know, stuff like Last of Us doing so well Video games now it looks like might be might be the next wave of films as well.
Speaker 1:So to keep to bring things back then full circle to. So to bring things back then full circle to well, I guess sort of like just the other side of that coin of that IP adaptation stuff. And to wrap up, cannes Film Festival, which you won't often see, big IP blockbusters debut there. We do have this year's Palme d'Or winner. It's a film titled. It Was Just an Accident from ananian filmmaker, so that took home the palm. Neon acquired the film um, actually before it debuted too, it can and so that is six years in a row now where neon has been the distributor of the palm dior winner. So once again the film was called it or titled. It was just an accident. So be on the lookout for us to talk about that film as the year wraps up in the winter time and more eyes get on that to see if there's any oscar buzz around it.
Speaker 1:There was also really good word of mouth from joaquin trier's new film. He of course, directed the Worst Person in the World a few years ago. That film's titled Sentimental Value. It won the Grand Prix. A film called the Secret Agent took home a lot of awards as well, and then just some other things that we've had our eyes on, like Highest to Lowest, was actually received very well at Cannes, so that gives me a lot of hope going forward for spike lee's new movie um alpha by julia ducar new, I guess is not being received as well as fans of hers would like yeah, they're being, they're being rough yeah, I mean, however, the bar for her.
Speaker 1:She is one of those with titan. She is one of those former palm winners. So, however, the bar for her. She is one of those with T-Tan. She is one of those former Palm winners, so she has set the bar extremely high for herself. But so encouraging stuff coming out of Cannes. Sounds like an extremely international year this year, as it always is, but really some stuff and some filmmakers I know Kelly Reichardt's film premiered out of competition there so some stuff that we will definitely be keeping our eye on. As far as distribution goes, I think mooby also walked away. I'm just reading um the dailies right now and sounds like neon and mooby were the big winners as far as having films that uh, premiered, did well and or they were able to acquire at the festival. So good stuff for, for for film companies, distribution companies that we really like and admire.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, one last show note, uh, before we wrap it up. Uh, this is on YouTube, this podcast is on YouTube. Go to the chatter network. Uh, on YouTube you will find our playlist excuse, the intermission podcast, um, and you can watch us now. If, if you like to do that, uh, with with a podcast, uh, and we have fan mail, you can. You can send us your notes, send us some notes. You know, uh, if you, in any podcast app that you use, you click on the link above the show description, take you to a prompt or a page to send us a note or a text or a lengthy letter complaining about me and my takes, please do that, because we'd love to have some interaction and read that stuff on air comment section on YouTube now as well.
Speaker 3:Comment on an episode while you're watching it?
Speaker 1:yep, for sure. Yeah, it's really cool. Okay, next week are you off, erica? Are you with?
Speaker 2:us next week? No, I'm not, I'm off next week.
Speaker 1:You are off next week. Okay, so it'll. It'll just be Max and I on the podcast next week. We're unsure of what we're going to talk about yet, but a lot to chew on right now, as the calendar turns over to June and once again, the box office is booming. Summer blockbusters are here, so that'll be a good time. Until then, please follow Excuse the Intermission on Instagram and the three of us on Letterboxd to track what we're watching between shows, and we will talk to you next time on ETI, where movies still matter. This podcast will self-destruct in five seconds. Bye.
