Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Mission impossible, the final reckoning is over. Mister, if you wanna poke the bear, oh, you've come to the right man.
Trailer: This can't all be true. Every word. CIA black fault break in. Am I reading this correctly? The Kremlin bombing?
In fairness, the bomb was actually meant to kill him. He gassed a security briefing. That was just two months ago. This explains the handcuffs. It's still not clear why he's here.
If we want to bring the world back from the brink, we have to deal with him. Should he choose to accept? Smart people on every side are close to panicking. What exactly is your plan? Your team has been betrayed, Ethan.
All your secrets compromised. Everything you are. Everything you've done has come to this. You gave him an aircraft carrier. Our lives are the sum of our choices.
This is recalling your destiny. I have no regrets, neither should you. I need you to trust me one last time.
Pete Wright: Okay, Andy. Here we are, thirty years in the making. The final reckoning, the next I'm just gonna say the next Mission Impossible movie is upon us. We have seen it. I've seen it twice.
Have you seen it twice?
Andy Nelson: I have not. I was impressed when I saw that you actually went a second time. That's
Pete Wright: I did.
Andy Nelson: Stellar of you to have done that. But no, I did not make it out.
Pete Wright: I IMAX ed it and I deboxed it.
Andy Nelson: Wow. Look at you. I know. Okay.
Pete Wright: I didn't screen exit. That's my third. I could screen exit.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Which I've
Pete Wright: I've never done, which is ridiculous.
Andy Nelson: It is ridiculous. Yeah. This is we're we're coming back to the Mission Impossible series, which we did back in 2023, kicking off our what would that be? Our twelfth season We kicked off with Mission Impossible? Or or no.
Wait a minute. Now that I say that, it was the end of our eleventh season. Yeah. Our franchise season. Because we timed it so that it would hit with July, we would have that member bonus of of Dead Reckoning part one.
Pete Wright: So we're just doing that again, is what you're saying?
Andy Nelson: We're just now coming back, and we're we're finishing it off with another, the this next episode. But this is a member bonus episode, yet it is gonna be one that we release to the public because, of course, membership. We we love, we love our members, and we just wanted to make sure that all those wonderful people who aren't members yet know what they're missing. And where should they go if they wanna learn more about membership, Pete?
Pete Wright: True story dot f m slash join.
Andy Nelson: And TrueStory. True has no e, t r u s t o r y.
Pete Wright: St0ry@.fm/join. And, you know, we release it as a member bonus, but none of the member bonus stuff that we normally do in member bonuses is in here. We usually jaw about stuff before the movie starts.
Andy Nelson: But not in member bonus episodes.
Pete Wright: No. I guess that's a good point. We don't do any pre show chat. But if you remember on all the other episodes, we talked before the movie starts, and that that's worth paying for.
Andy Nelson: Well, yeah, the pre show chats like okay. Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning. If we were to be doing a member pre show chat for this one, we could have been talking about movies where Tom Cruise runs that aren't Mission Impossible.
Pete Wright: We which is all of them. The catalog is huge. We could also be talk about, talking about, great biplanes in film history. I would love to do that.
Andy Nelson: Barnstorming. Absolutely. Yeah.
Pete Wright: There is there's just no end of the kind of stuff that we talk about on that show.
Andy Nelson: Yes.
Pete Wright: Absolutely. Anyway, member bonus. Here it is.
Andy Nelson: Here it is. So let's let's dive into the final reckoning.
Pete Wright: Where do you wanna start? Are you giddy with anticipation?
Andy Nelson: It's interesting because this is, you know, theoretically, the last of this. You know, they've kind of come out and said, this is the last of the Mission Impossible movies. Now, you know
Pete Wright: What have they what have they really said? What are their words?
Andy Nelson: Do you really want me to pull this up? Don't make me don't make me pull it up.
Pete Wright: What I wanna know is, but don't believe their words. Believe their actions, Andy.
Andy Nelson: Well, that's the thing. That's the thing. I mean, McCrory did say this is 2023 after dead reckoning. He said this pair would not necessarily end the series, and they were developing ideas for future installments. And Cruise said he was interested in making more movies about Ethan Hunt.
Anyway and he actually cited at that time Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones all the way into his eighties. So I think he saw that. And this is, I think, the danger of things like Harrison Ford saying, yeah. Let me play Indiana Jones one more time. Then Tom Cruise goes, oh, wait a minute.
I'm only 60.
Pete Wright: That's okay now?
Andy Nelson: Twenty more years of doing these movies. Right? So but then just this year at the premiere of in New York premiere of the film, Tom Cruise did say this is the last one in the franchise, saying they didn't call it the final reckoning for no reason. So but then again, you know, Paramount Pictures probably has some say in this, I would imagine, and it's entirely possible they might actually bring Jeremy Renner back to, take it over again. Who knows?
Pete Wright: They just give it to Hayley Atwell. Just let her have it.
Andy Nelson: Do you feel like they were setting it up for him? Because, I mean, at one point, Tom Cruise had actually mentioned that perhaps Glenn Powell, who he worked with on Tom Cruise Yep. Top Gun
Pete Wright: Yep.
Andy Nelson: Maverick could be, the new lead, but who knows?
Pete Wright: I just I just don't know. I know that I'm sure that they are setting it up for somebody because the franchise I mean, the franchise opened to its best opening of the franchise this weekend. It's which I'm sure we'll talk about. But the I I I'm sure that something will happen, but that it won't be Tom Cruise at the lead is the news. Here's hoping it sticks because I I could use this being a point of finality.
Andy Nelson: It's like Paddington two. You're like, they don't need to make anymore because this ending you gave it the ending it needed. And I felt like this was like, there are some great speeches. There's some great character moments, some beats, everything that worked really well as a way to sign off at least with this particular crew. You know?
Pete Wright: Yeah. I think so too. And so I'm I'm okay. I feel I feel resolved with it. It took me a little bit.
I my my first viewing, the ending of the film felt a little bit unresolved for me. Interesting. And this on the second viewing, I
Andy Nelson: feel like I got it. Unresolved because why?
Pete Wright: Because it seems like all of them meeting in a town square in a busy square and walking off in separate directions is kind of a a thing.
Andy Nelson: You mean kind of a thing because it's it's it's a thing that this franchise does often.
Pete Wright: It's a thing that this franchise does. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: So you thought thought it because they chose to do that again, it almost made it feel like they're gonna be back because we're having that same sort of thing.
Pete Wright: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Andy Nelson: Should it just have ended with, like, Tom Cruise just suddenly exploding as the rest of them walked off?
Pete Wright: No. It should have ended it should have ended with a long aerial over a field, and then Ethan Hunt's broken body on top of a parachute or on top of his his burned out parachute.
Andy Nelson: Interesting. Okay.
Pete Wright: He ended up putting the poison pill on the the old hard drive and smashed into the ground at a thousand miles an hour. That's what I think should have happened.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. So this is a brand new movie for us as we talk about it. So be aware. We are gonna be spoiling it. So just expect that.
I'm glad you
Pete Wright: said that. Just expect that.
Andy Nelson: But to his point, it does not end with Tom Cruise broken body in a field in South Africa, holding the, the device and the poison pill. No. But I could I I do have questions about that, and we'll get to that. But let's let's jump backward a little bit because I think it's important to discuss this as intended to be kind of part two. Right?
And then they I mean, it is. It ostensibly is dead reckoning part two. They just said, you know what? Forget that part one, part two nonsense. We're just gonna rename it.
And so hence, we have the final reckoning. But as far as, like, that whole part one, part two, that vibe, because I mean, the first one definitely ends with kind of that feel of unease, like, he's made it off the train. He's got the device. You know, he pulled it away from Gabriel, and now she has kind of gone off with, with the the IMF team to to become another member of them ostensibly. And then we get kind of a voice over kind of setting it up.
Things are at unrest right now. Where are we gonna go from here? You know, very much like a two towers, that sort of of ending. And then this one kicks off now granted, it was intended to kick off the summer of twenty twenty four. So we're, like, a whole year late because of COVID delays and other delays and stuff.
But but it kicks off with kind of a reset, kind of getting us up to speed. How does that play for you?
Pete Wright: Well, it's a bummer that we're opening on this because I feel like Yeah. It is important. But but there's so much that I really like about this movie. And the opening bit. And I and I I think, really, the opening table setting, which lasts a long time.
I mean, it's twenty two minutes until the opening trailer run or the opening credits run. And from there, it's it's like another half hour before we get into, what I like to call the Red October section of the film, and then, you know, the abyss portion of the film, and then the big missile scene. Right? So it's a long journey into what I think of as the meat of what I want out of a Mission Impossible movie, and I think it's a slog. It feels like such a slog.
That second time around, I was not in it. Ironically, I was more in it the latter part of the movie. Like, I it just really roped me right in. But I felt like that opening that opening bit was, after the initial, like, excitement of the fact that I'm in a Mission Impossible movie, there is a lot of table setting that I could I feel like was egregious in this movie. Move along.
Andy Nelson: It it I mean, and it definitely has set up. And, you know, I think that's part of going back to what we were saying about Tom Cruise saying this is the final one of these. It really felt like not only are we going to set the table for where we left things with Dead Reckoning part one, but we're also setting the table for the entire franchise. Like, we have jumping back from the very first film, like, intercut all sorts of different scenes of Ethan Hunt doing his thing across the previous seven films. Like, we're seeing all of it.
And so it's really setting up this world of Ethan Hunt and everything that, you know, he has been responsible for and how he's helped through the IMF over this entire thing. And I thought that was actually it definitely felt, I don't wanna say bloated because I didn't necessarily feel that when I watched it, but it definitely felt like they were really working to remind us about this entire franchise and everything that had come before. And it was part of it was because there are key things from the first and third movies that they are very specifically tying to. But otherwise, it really felt like I don't know. For me, the way I took it was like, this franchise is called Mission Impossible with the impossible mission force because these people are doing some insane things trying to help the the world, essentially.
And they actually have a few times, like in the last film and this film, they're talking about, like, when in the last film when he's we have those moments of seeing Tom Cruise when he's at at the very beginning, like those flashbacks of Gabriel and and and how he came to this job. Right? And it's brought up in this one with with Hayley Atwell, and Ving Rames talks about about the their job, about these people they'll never meet. And I think the way I took it, and I can understand why it's gonna feel kind of bloated and heavy and too much, but I just felt like it gave me a sense of it was like a nice reminder of this whole franchise as kind of a single story of Ethan and the IMF, and what they're working on and trying so hard to do in order to actually help those people who they'll never meet.
Pete Wright: Yeah. And and I like that. I do think, you know and and we talked about this. There's a there is a degree of retroactive continuity to introduce this. You were given the choice you were given the choice to join IMF because you were a criminal.
We never got any of that in the first six movies, not until number seven when they when they show us the that Gabriel killing the woman in the dark alley. And by now, I feel like we've we've adapted. It's been some years since they introduced that, and it feels like, okay. That's a part of the world now, and we can we can understand that. They leaned in pretty hard on that oath, which was the oath that they presumably took thirty years ago, and now we're just hearing it, you know, for ostensibly the first time.
And so, some of that backstory, like, I just couldn't help but wonder. And I'm sure this is gonna age softly on me. I really am. It's me being just hypercritical. Just saw it brand new.
But I just wonder if some of that stuff was a little bit too too held as as sacrosanct. Like, they just they just felt too emotionally tied to the franchise, certainly more emotionally tied to the franchise than I am. And I just wanted to get to the story. And this is this it just took a long time to get there. I felt like a lot of those emotional beats were pretty repetitive, and, I I think they they took their own sweet time.
Andy Nelson: I yeah. And I I I can totally see that. I definitely see that. I guess I don't know. For me, I just find that it's their last film.
I'm giving them maybe more grace. Yeah. Maybe Let them have it. Yeah. Because I'm like, I I like that.
It's I mean, maybe it took a long time to get to this point, but I like that it feels like, yeah, this this has become a very important franchise for these people. And the way that they have crafted that the monologue, we see at the beginning of the previous film when the delivery guy comes to drop off food for Ethan in that abandoned warehouse, and it turns out he's actually in he's a new recruit who's kind of, you know, getting all of this. And and they kind of go through that that verbiage of, you know, why this is so important. You're doing this for some people you'll never meet. You start understanding, like, the setup of the job.
And, I mean, it's I I think there's probably, I don't know about the similarity in the language, but probably something along the same line for people who joined the FBI or the CIA. Like, there's probably some sort of language that they also are adopting that's probably a similar sort of thing. And so I don't know. I I like that they chose to end this going really big. Like, actually making it feel like these missions are flipping impossible, and this team somehow manages to do it.
And they're doing it because of the love for humanity and wanting to make things okay for all of these people. And I don't know. I guess I'm just giving them a lot of grace. And I I kind of felt like, for me, I welcomed the way that it started.
Pete Wright: Yeah. You know, I and I mean, I get that. And I think there are two sides to this. The the side that is just like, I'm here for a Mission Impossible movie. I do I think the hour could have been done in a half hour?
Maybe. It's almost a three hour movie. And because it felt bloated to me, it felt like they could have achieved the same thing without the the breathless sort of parade of beats. But the other side of me is, like, give the give these guys their credit where it's due. This is an absolutely epic franchise.
It is a favorite franchise of a lot of people, and let them take their time to to, you know, do the parade march. It's fine.
Andy Nelson: It is interesting to your point. It will be interesting to see how it plays, like, once it's out of theaters and it's been released. And, like, when you decide I'm gonna do a marathon of, like, twenty plus hours and just watch the entire thing, how will it feel? Like, by the time you get to this, is it gonna feel like, I just watched all these movies. Now I'm just ready to get I get it.
Get into the the submarine. Yeah. Right?
Pete Wright: Oh, I got this. Exactly.
Andy Nelson: Well, okay. So the film, once we kind of get that set up, now we have Ethan on the run. And the idea is that this whole thing trying to figure out, like, basically, he gets a message from the president herself, Angela Bassett, who I believe had been the head of CIA, right, before Right. Kerry Ellis took over. She is now the president, and she's the she is the person who's delivering the message that self destructs because he will not respond to anyone else.
And that actually gets him to come in, turning himself in, and, and we kind of get a setup of the crux of the story that he has to get whatever it is that's on that submarine, the entity, all of this sort of stuff, and and really kind of kicks things off. As far as the way things get moving, I mean, I know you talk about, like, the that abyss, like, the hunt for October sequence being, like, where things really kick off for you. But as we get to that setup with everything going on with everything at the meet in the meeting with the president and all of her team, and, you know, the trip out to the battleship and getting onto the submarine, I mean, or or onto the the other sub that takes him to the island, like, that whole setup for the the beginning of the film, I mean, how's all that play for you?
Pete Wright: So, you know, there there are elements of it that I think are really good and taught. And I do like the part where Benjie and and Luther and Ethan are together, and I like when they say foosball table together even though I do not believe that that is what the three of those guys would do if they had a place together and were decorating. I thought that was that was amusing to me. And I like their comradery when we get it. We have a couple of of bomb diffusing scenes, you know, where other movies, the bomb is the big thing, and here, there's a bigger thing.
And I like how they ratchet it up. It's not just one little bomb. It's one little bomb and then a really big bomb, and then you know what? The entire world's a bomb. So we're just ratcheting it up over and over again, and I think they do a great job of setting up those stakes.
The setup is I I think this first hour leans heavily into exposition in a way that these movies have sort of perfected, if you like this kind of thing, which is cross cutting between expository sequences, right, where you have the the, you know, one set of people talking about one thing that's coming, and and somebody in another location, in another scene answers that that question and continues the conversation, and they toss back and forth. And they do that with scenes of exposition. They do it with action sequences and fights that crosscut back and forth as if a punch thrown over here is received on a submarine somewhere. They do that all over the place. This first hour is full of it.
And even as that first hour is really long, I do think those kinds of sequences are are good, especially for a movie with so much baggage around strategy, around what we're about to do, around naming things that are, you know, that you're gonna forget in two minutes. Because there's a lot of hand wavy action that goes on, and we have to make sure you're keeping up at a bare minimum. So we're gonna keep telling you over and over, and different people are gonna tell you in different places so that you really can hammer it home. And I think the movie just really leans into that. So there are a lot of those mechanics that I found I I enjoyed.
I enjoyed playing with him. I loved the initial fight, the rescue of you know, when he's there he's tied up and and, Haley Atwell is tied up against the, you know, concrete column. And, like, that sequence was great and funny. Funny that, you know, it's one of those scenes where we get her, and she's just exceptional at watching grievous trauma happening off off camera and delivering incredible looks and, and the final setup with the, you know, the bad guys with an axe in his back. I thought that was delightful.
Like, those kinds of elements were really fun.
Andy Nelson: Axe in the back. So delightful.
Pete Wright: So delightful. Like, that's not a Mission Impossible thing normally. Axe in the back, like, that's a joke, and I like the joke. I'm here for the joke. Yeah.
I mean, you didn't have any any sort of reductive vibe getting him out to the battleship, getting him out to the flattop?
Andy Nelson: I I I don't know. I I mean, I've only seen it the one time, and I was pretty excited. And I I can definitely see why you would feel that way, but I didn't. It wasn't slow for me. I appreciated kind of like the catch up, the way that we were kind of like getting a sense of all of that.
And again, it just made it feel like there's this big story here. Like, we're kind of working on an epic level for this franchise. And I felt like in a film that literally ends with kind of the fate of the world in this one man's hands, I felt like we're working with some pretty big stakes. So playing with this whole scene where meeting with the president and her whole staff and and all of that, I mean, it worked for me. I it I thought it played well, you know?
Yeah. And like, you know, the whole escape of of him and Grace, I thought played nicely, and then trying to catch Gabriel leading to, you know, the the moment where, as Gabriel says, one of your team's gonna die, and it turns out to be Luther, who, I don't know, conveniently was sick suddenly for this film. You know, he hadn't been sick, as I recall, in the previous films. And I think that they were just coming up with a way to make it okay to kill him by having him actually be sick and and dying. And so it's like, well, now it's okay, and he's okay with it.
And that's kind of the whole thing that he ends up disarming the nuclear device. The bomb is still gonna go off. I'll never understand the physics. This is an aside. If you have a nuclear device and you disarm it, but it still is a bomb that has to go off as part of the disarming.
Like, I don't understand that. But how does just the fact that a bomb going off isn't gonna somehow still make the nuclear device go off? Like, I just don't understand that. Maybe this a scientist can explain it to me, but I don't get that. Like, you know, and and but that's that happens several times.
Pete Wright: It happens it happens a good two times, and it's devastating both times. So let me let me ask you this, if I may. What does the entity do to Ethan when Ethan is in the sarcophagus?
Andy Nelson: It because everything that happened with Gabriel in the last film, where Ethan bested him and got away with the key, Gabriel's now on the bad side of of the entity. And and so Ethan now goes into the sarcophagus. And my impression is it like I don't know. It like taps into his brain, like the wiring of his brain or something, and basically learns everything it can about Ethan from his mind, but also, you know, incepts, I suppose, all of the additional information about all of these other people and everything into Ethan so that Ethan now has this massive amount of knowledge and backstory and all these little bits and pieces about everybody. I don't know if it's I mean, it it again, it's movie magic.
I don't know if I need to fully understand it. Light flashes, electric shocks, all of that somehow connects the two, which is what Gabriel had also had done with when he was working with the entity.
Pete Wright: Okay. That's I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. He'd got Johnny mnemonic. Right? He just had too much data in his brain.
Andy Nelson: Yes.
Pete Wright: They did not make a big deal out of that at all. It was just like, okay. This is just the thing. The entity is now plugging in, and you're fine.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And that was a question because because Paris is just like, it's gonna change you Yeah. Or something to that effect.
Pete Wright: Yeah. It will change you. And I I guess it did. I mean, he came out. He questioned reality.
He was able to say, you know, don't go on the ice, Grace. Whatever you do, like, he had these visions of the future. Great. I actually I thought that was a a not going too into detail on what happens when the entity talks to you is a good thing. We did not need to go completely Johnny Mnemonic, and we just get an idea that this is kind of what's happening, and they move along.
We never see the sarcophagus again, which is great. Don't need to see it again.
Andy Nelson: Are you do you think that he goes into it again? Because I it Gabriel seemed to
Pete Wright: That was like his sleeping chamber.
Andy Nelson: It was like his He knows the rot to it. Vampire. Exactly.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Whereas yeah. I don't think Ethan well, and also because from that point forward, he's trying to stay distant from the entity. Right? It's doing its thing trying to take over all the nuclear weapons in the world, and Ethan has this plan where they're gonna try to, you know, find the the Sevastopol and disarm or steal the information on it, etcetera etcetera, so that they can stop it with this whole thing in South Africa.
Pete Wright: And in that way, as sort of magical as the entity is, we're I think you said it right. Like, we're at kind of a distance from the entity. The entity just becomes a ticking clock as visualized on this giant map of countries that are falling. And we don't need to think about it. We don't need to think about what it's doing.
We know it's just hammering away at security systems, and that's the ticking clock. That's the that's the problem that we're trying to solve. And I think that's good.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, it's it's interesting because the entity in the last film seemed to be able to tap into everything going on everywhere and always was watching Ethan. Right? It always seemed like it would just show up, like, when they're at the party with the White Widow, they realize that all of the screens, like, they're in the entity. It's it's kind of everything that it's observing everything that's going on.
And here, and that's a point where it's like, I mean, we know the entity has a particular mission. Did it need to show us that it also is on the aircraft carrier? That it's also on on the submarine. Like, does that matter that we're I mean, are we still assuming it's everywhere watching what Ethan's doing, but not worrying about it because it has this very particular plan that really kind of requires Ethan to just go through all of this stuff anyway.
Pete Wright: Well, if if that's a if that's more than a rhetorical question, then I'll just say,
Andy Nelson: I I personally I'm entitying you.
Pete Wright: You just entityed me. I personally was not thinking about it because, you know, the thing picks up four months later. The movie picks up four months later and sets up, I think, well that the entity has just absorbed everything. The entity is everywhere. The last thing that it needs to do is the the, you know, nuclear arsenals of the major nuclear countries, and it's just working on that.
Like, we don't need to do the AI tricks that the last movie did because we've seen that before. Right? Again, coming at this doilistically, we don't need the the tricks, like, the glasses, in the camera feeds. We don't need any of it because we've been there, done that. Now we're gonna see something different as much as we can, which is yeah.
So I think it's okay.
Andy Nelson: I'm glad that you put it that way because I think that that helps the fact that it's not we're not seeing that little kind of the image, way the entity looks every time we see it. It's not popping up on other screens elsewhere. And I get right. I don't think we needed that. So Yeah.
But that pretty much gets us to the North Pacific. Right? We're we're visiting Saint Matthew Island, which is, I think I don't know. I think a pretty exciting part of the film because it brings back CIA analyst William Dunlow.
Pete Wright: The last character in a million years that I would have expected to bring back. The the guy that Ethan and team gave horrible diarrhea in the first movie. Yep. What here's what I here's what I love about that. And we're we can talk about kind of their initial meeting, which is great.
But what I love the most about Don Lowe being back is the meeting between Don Lowe and Hunt on the plane. That could have been played for laughs, and it was played for heart, and that was awesome. It was awesome. Because the last time they were together, it was played for laughs.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Exactly.
Pete Wright: You know, to hear Ethan say, I don't know how to make amends for what I did to your life and have that come out the way it did. You don't have you don't apologize for anything. You gave me the life that I have. You gave me my wife. You gave me this incredible last thirty years.
I should be thanking you. It was a very powerful sequence. That was earned. I was legitimately surprised that they rung that out of this what could have been just dump stunt casting.
Andy Nelson: It played so well. And they gave him this, wife who's a local from the area, and I bought into that relationship too. It's a small little bit that we have between the two of them, but it's clear how she kind of connects with people. And, like, when she last leaves Grace as they're, splitting up in the the little place in South Africa, and she's just like, I will see you again. It's like, you know, really heart tugging because it's like they've developed these characters.
They had the two of them off on their own little mission. And now we we see that that there is this connection between them. It just it made for just an incredibly sweet touching way to continue that element of the franchise. I loved it.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Me too. Me too. I really did. I thought it hit just the right spot.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Now that's the connection to the first movie. One of the other things we learned is, and this was, you know, back in our conversation about Mission Impossible three, we had some questions about The Rabbit's Foot, aka the Antigod, and we're getting more information about that now. And how did that connection to that film play for you as to what we how it, like, evolved into this film?
Pete Wright: Okay. JJ Abrams, all due respect to your mystery box, I do think McCrory just flipped you off. Like, I really do.
Andy Nelson: Is that even his mission or his his mystery box, or was that purely just, like, the the biggest of MacGuffins? Like, oh, yeah. It's this thing.
Pete Wright: It's this thing. You don't need to worry about this. It doesn't matter because we're telling the human story. And I I just I mean, it was a laugh out loud. They didn't tell you what was in the rabbit's foot, did they?
It's computer code. As if just so defiantly resolving this decades old mystery from what was ultimately a good Mission Impossible movie.
Andy Nelson: Sure. Yeah.
Pete Wright: It just it it was just one of those one of those things, and I think it actually resolved really well. He said it because Cruise actually acknowledged or Hunt character actually acknowledged. I didn't know what it was, but I know why I stole it. And the reason I stole it was not good for the country, and that put us in the in the bind we're in today. I I think they ultimately I mean, good a time as any to just say, I'm in favor of how they built the row of dominoes leading from the first movie to Ethan Hunt's guilt and shame here, to Ethan Hunt's responsibility for getting them in this position here.
I don't know that, like, I think I could, if I wanted to, pull these apart and and think, oh, this is you know, it's it's ridiculous the way that why he would feel shame for that. He did what he could do. He's a soldier in the in the fight against terror and against this kind of crime. Why should he feel bad about anything? But, ultimately, it was emotional motivation that I bought, and I don't wanna pull that stuff apart.
Right? Because I was on board with it as we got into that part of the film. And, ultimately, I was on board with it because it could exist without needing a terribly strong villain to exist too. Right.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I I mean, I love I love all of that. Everything you said, agree with. It it it's exactly where I stand with it. I I just thought it was, it played really well.
As far as the villain, Gabriel, versus the entity, but a human villain, Gabriel, this is, the second film with him as our villain. How does he work?
Pete Wright: You know, more power to him for coming back for another movie. But Esai Morales was underused in this movie, or or maybe underwritten to be the the human manifestation of the villain that we that I needed. And that's okay. He was mysterious and awful in the last movie. In this movie, once the entity sort of took over and he was separate from it, I found I no longer really thought much of him.
Right? He was a vessel that delivered some great action sequences, and that's kind of the extent of it. He was not a he was just not a great compelling villain in this movie.
Andy Nelson: That's interesting. Because I don't know I think I liked him more than you did. Like, I liked that he was kind of butthurt. Right? You know, the entity the entity dumped him, and now he's just like the the angry ex, and he's just like doing what he can to to still come out on top.
And now he wants to come out on top of even the entity. And I mean, yeah, I agree. It they could have given him some stronger moments and stuff, but I mean, I kind of enjoy seeing, Morales in the role and doing all of this stuff. And I I, you know, I had fun. I guess I didn't run into this with specific problems because of the way that it was it was structured.
Pete Wright: Yeah. And I'm I'm not gonna say there were real specific problems. I mean, the point is, like, he left with the poison pill around his neck, and that gave way to an awesome chase in the sky. Right? I mean, he was just more present.
I think back to great villains, like our villain in in three, and I think, where's that? That's the level of sinister that I would love to have seen in Gabriel, and I just didn't feel like it it I got it.
Andy Nelson: I guess I yeah. And I I can definitely appreciate that. I guess for me, I just wasn't too worried about needing that again. Like, I enjoyed that. It just put us into a place where everybody's now trying to, you know, get control of the entity, including him, including, Kittredge.
Right? Like, they're all they all show up. They're all trying to figure out how can we come out on top. The only thing that I felt like it was missing was actually even more governmental people from different parts of the country of the world coming here trying to also get the entity for themselves, which as we would as we talked about in the previous film, everybody apparently wants it, but we never actually see anybody trying to get it. Right.
That's it. Yeah. But I I mean, you mentioned the the incredible stunt work that we have at the end of this in South Africa after Gabriel gets away with the poison pill. Of all the Mission Impossible stunt sequences, I still am like, how are they flipping topping themselves again? Like, that was some of the most insane work.
And it went on so long. I'm just like, this is this is mind boggling.
Pete Wright: Okay. I we're gonna talk about that. But I'm before we talk about the plane, I know I'm hijacking. We gotta talk about the underwater stuff. Because the underwater stuff, I thought, okay.
Everything's he's in the he's in the torpedo room. Like, he has to go through this submarine. Yeah. This is Right. The Sevastopol.
He has to make his way through it. He has he ends up flooding it. First of all, because he's already a bistot, he's gone down way too far. And he's in that suit, and he's already compromised. Delusions, his fists are Shaking.
Crimping up. Right. He's shaking. And so he's he's compromised. He has to get into this submarine and crawl through the submarine.
It's to different degrees of flooded and, open.
Andy Nelson: And frozen.
Pete Wright: And frozen. Yeah. It's just all kinds of bad news inside. And once he starts bringing water into it, it dislodges the submarine, which starts to roll, and it's rolling toward an even steeper cliff. So now we have a new clock, a new danger that he's working toward.
And he has to go through the whole thing into to get to the through the torpedo room, which is full of torpedoes that have all fallen off of their moorings, their rails, and get into this little room. He gets the hard drive, and then he comes back out. Now I thought, what are they gonna do to make this exhilarating? This could this is gonna be this is gonna be the first miss of the stunt sequence in Mission Impossible. I was like, this is I'm already set up to be totally bored.
Because frankly, I was a little bit upset that he pulled the Red October thing. I was like, come on. That's like a half hour of you doing the exact thing to get Jack Ryan onto the ship to get to the helicopter, to get to the thing, to pull the cable so he's in the ocean to get I mean, it was the same sequence. And I was a little bit speaking of butthurt, I was butthurt. I was like, this is this is as unoriginal as they get, this setup.
And then he's a bistot down in the fancy suit, and now he's walk he's traipsing around. And he proceeded to do this thing in this in this submarine tank that had me on the edge of my damn seat, Andy. Those slow motion torpedoes falling all over the place were awesome. I thought it was great.
Andy Nelson: It was fantastic. That whole sequence, I didn't have any issues with the setup being too, like, stolen from Hunt for October. I just like it it plays. Like, I thought all of it worked quite well, and and I also love the fact that we're living in this world where we've got women and and non white men in charge of everything. Like, it's just like this was a great way to kind of, like, subtly just throw some throw some notes out there for our current administration.
But I I I really enjoyed all of that. And so yeah. But once we get into the submarine, I mean, I agree. It was, it was so tense and claustrophobic, especially because he's got the shakes from from, the nitrogen getting into his blood. And now he's, trying to figure out how to escape and can't quite the way that he's rigged up in the suit and has to keep figuring out things to remove things to remove to the point where when he's finally on his ascent, it's just like there's no way that he could actually survive without drowning, which he does.
And they have to actually bring him back. And it's just like, it played so well. It was exceptional.
Pete Wright: And it does make, I think, the beauty most beautiful single shot in in the movie is as the camera rolls, and we see him as he's rising toward the ice. He actually appears to be descending to it and lands in the slush on the underside of the ice. That shot, that single shot, I think, is just devastatingly beautiful and well, well earned. It does feel a little bit like he dove in the fancy suit to a much deeper depth than he would have been able to just free swim to the surface. No.
Andy Nelson: There's no way. Like, he was so far down, there's no way he could I mean, it only made sense if he drowned on his way up, which which he does. So I guess
Pete Wright: Which he does.
Andy Nelson: You just Right. You just have to, you know, acknowledge. He drowns, he freezes, they put him in a decompression chamber and save him and, yeah, it all is done with a magic kiss, Pete. It's all done with a magic kiss.
Pete Wright: The magic kiss. Another question. And I don't wanna I'm not, like, I don't wanna overanalyze. Is it okay for someone who is not experiencing massive decompression sickness to hang out in the portable decompression chamber.
Andy Nelson: I was wondering about that. I was like, should Grace be in there?
Pete Wright: I don't know. I don't think Grace should have been in there.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's
Pete Wright: very romantic, and I love it. Heart forward. But I don't think that was I don't think that was cool.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, it just it's going to be putting her into a place where it's compressing her and then slowly I mean, I guess it's okay. It's no different than diving. Right? It's gonna compress it gets to the compression depth of where he's deeper, and then just allows for that slow decompression that he's supposed to do when he's actually in the suit.
But theoretically, maybe it's okay.
Pete Wright: I don't I don't know. I don't know if I buy it. Yeah. So anyway, they get out. I love that reunion.
It's great. It's lovely. And because I'm so in the bag for Haley Atwell, I'm so glad she's in these movies right now. She's just fantastic. We did not mention two other characters that we don't see after this point again, and I just have to mention them because of how much I adore that they're in this movie.
Hannah Waddingham as the, rear admiral on the on the aircraft carrier is wonderful from Ted Lasso. I know her. But she's also an incredible singer, and she is she's just a phenomenal talent. And she's got a bang up American accent. Not bad.
Andy Nelson: I've never seen any of the shows that she's been in. So I feel like as I watch this I mean, I know she's been in things like like she was recently in The Fall Guy, where I think she's also American. Right? The the producer. I missed the Garfield movie, unfortunately.
Interestingly, she was also in Lilo and Stitch opening the same weekend as this. So she's
Pete Wright: going to She's having a hell of a year. Let's just say that.
Andy Nelson: Have a hell of a weekend, man. Jeez. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
I I I I enjoy her, but I don't know enough of her to celebrate her.
Pete Wright: Well, I think the other person who's having a hell of a year is, Tramelle Tillman, who I think is an extraordinary talent. And coming off of his work in severance to see him as the chief of the boat, put him in any submarine movie, and I am here for it, but really any movie. I think he is fan tastic and so such charisma. He's just magnetic. I cannot wait.
Whatever you wanna put him in, I'm I'm here for Tromel Tillman. I think he is awesome.
Andy Nelson: %. He was so great. It was great seeing him show up here, and, I just hope we start seeing more of him on the big screen.
Pete Wright: Yeah. He's had a lot of TV leading up to I think he did let's see. He did Baron's Cove, which I haven't seen. Sweethearts, which I also, haven't seen. That was a Max original.
But those are the those are the two films that he did, and then Severance and Mission Impossible. So it's nice to see he's got three new projects coming up, including Severance, the next and last season of Severance. So he's just great. He's just really great.
Andy Nelson: Can we talk about airplanes now? I mean
Pete Wright: Yeah. Okay. Now we could talk about airplanes.
Andy Nelson: I've been holding off. But yeah. I just well and honestly, I don't know if I really have much to say other than, Tom Cruise is insane, and the stuff that he chooses to do is mind boggling and watching this whole sequence. And I mean, it was nice to see in the end credits, like, when you see the the pilots of the biplanes, it lists like eight guys, one of which is Tom Cruise. And, like, he consistently is listed in all of these different things because he's this guy who's learning how to do this crazy stuff.
I mean, the behind the scenes of him, like, where he's wired in, like, he's cabled onto a plane
Pete Wright: wire is a joke.
Andy Nelson: He's still doing that stuff. And I'm just like, it was I was I was pretty stunned. And I was also just impressed with the stunt team because not only do we have all of this happening, but we have an entire camera department either on the plane filming or on a different plane filming, whatever they're doing. I mean, it's just it's top notch stunt work, and it's just I mean, it led to one of the most exciting sequences. But it ended in a moment that I have questions about.
Pete Wright: Well, can can I ask you a different question? So the last movie, the promotion of the last movie, they made a big effort to show so much of the jump. Right? The big jump. And I personally loved that.
I loved going into the final movie knowing how the stunts worked because it made the movie better. And I loved I I loved the biplane sequence. I loved the wing walking. I thought it was really great. He was so obviously there, and I love watching his face get peeled back.
He peeled back. I thought it was great. But I went with some intention to watch a lot of the behind the scenes stuff now that they've they've released it after the movie was released. And I actually feel like I I enjoyed it even more the second time seeing how he did it because how he did it is still ridiculous. It is still absurd that this human being was latched to that plane with that teeny tiny little tiny frail stupid chain wire and flipped himself around on those wings and climbing from plane to plane.
Ridiculous, human being. Why would you do that? It was exhilarating. So I wonder if it wasn't I don't know. I mean, the movie's doing fine.
It it probably make the case that hiding some of those things was the right decision. But for my money, I appreciate these stunts even more after seeing how they were done, the a little bit of the rawness of it.
Andy Nelson: I will say I appreciated not seeing any of the behind the scenes before going into this because I felt like with the last one, and because they started this trend, I don't know, back when he hangs on to the plane and, whatever the two Yeah. Two before.
Pete Wright: What was that? Fallout?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Anyway, he he hangs on to the plane. Like, they started this thing of like, oh, we're gonna show how we did this real thing for real and everything. And I felt like the jump was, like, so much information about it that I just it was not exciting at all when I finally saw it on this next week. I'm like, okay.
Well, I've, you know, I've already gone through this. So now let's let's get to the end of it. I mean, it was fun to see, but I like and nice to see in context of the actual film. But like this one, I like, I I don't know. I guess for me, I I realized it's more powerful for me when I don't have the behind the scenes beforehand.
Like, I appreciate that stuff so much more. I see it the first time, and I'm in the in the world of the movie, and then I get to figure out how they did it afterward. And I just like that so much more.
Pete Wright: Fair. Okay. What was your what what was your concern with how it ended?
Andy Nelson: Well, again, this is just, you know, again, reminding people, we are spoiling the hell out of this movie. So if you haven't seen it, you should shame on you. You should have already watched it before getting this far into the conversation. But, okay, Gabriel jumps out with a parachute. He goes and and he immediately gets killed at the kind of funniest way possible.
I couldn't stop laughing. But so Ethan finds another parachute, and he gets off. And his parachute catches on fire as he falls, and he still managed to accomplish his mission. But then it turns out he actually had another parachute? Like, did
Pete Wright: A backup chute. Yeah. Right.
Andy Nelson: So you're okay. So you you you saw that coming. You knew that there would be okay. Because for a minute, I'm like, are they pulling a a no time to die here? Because I, like, I legit with no time to die, you can set up this world where your heroes can die and set up for and and yet the series could potentially continue.
Pete Wright: Yes. But and I was I that was what I expected to be. As as I said, the long tracking shot over the fields of South Africa demonstrating Ethan Hunt's broken body. Yeah. But the I did not I mean, I I kinda knew that there was gonna be the backup shoot.
That was that was I I didn't have a problem with that.
Andy Nelson: It's just for for having a backup shoot, it just felt like he would have just pulled that right away instead of falling through the clouds. Like, it just it's one of those things where it's just
Pete Wright: Seems like it would have slowed him down to give him more time to do what he needed
Andy Nelson: to do. Like, if your parachute's on fire, just pull the backup. Like, once the fire is out, just get it out right away. But Right.
Pete Wright: I I guess I just like, my anxiety was not necessarily that he was going to I don't know what this says about me. That he was going to fall to his death, but that he didn't have the poison pill and the little drive somehow tied to his wrists because I was worried he was going to drop one of them
Andy Nelson: Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright: In the sky.
Andy Nelson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: And there was a lot of anxiety around that.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. No. I can I can see that?
Pete Wright: Yeah. But it was a it was a great stunt, and that's another one, Watching how they pull that stunt off and the kind of camera rig that they they strapped to Tom Cruise and then threw him out of a plane and set him spinning was extraordinary. It was incredible.
Andy Nelson: He's crazy. Man, just crazy. Well, I mean, it's I think it's a strong film, a strong entry in the franchise, and it's got, you know, a nice, return in some capacity of Luther at the end that I think, for me, really kind of connected the whole thing. It was it was that final puzzle piece that we needed to really kind of wrap up not just this film, but the franchise as a whole. I thought it was just so effective.
I loved it. I mean, it's a great movie. Glad we had a chance to add it to the films that we have discussed on the show.
Pete Wright: Me too. For sure. And I will say, beside that first hour, man, I look forward to seeing it again. I really enjoyed my time with it.
Andy Nelson: I'll even take the first hour. I'll I'll watch your first hour again.
Pete Wright: Watch it twice? Yeah. That's good. At some point, you'll get tired
Andy Nelson: of it. We'll see.
Pete Wright: I'm sure. Five or six. I don't know.
Andy Nelson: I haven't gotten tired of all the endings on the Return of the King, so I I might be okay. I might be okay. Alright. Well, we will be right back, but first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Solace, Oriel Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, box office mojo Com, IMDB Com, and Wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. Okay.
So I'll just say ask it again. For the record, do you believe this that there are no sequels that are coming for us?
Andy Nelson: I mean, here's the thing. I believe at this point, they feel there are no sequels coming. Does that work?
Pete Wright: No. I mean, I think that's a candy ass way to put it, but alright.
Andy Nelson: I mean, here's the thing. It's a money making franchise for a studio that is designed to make money. Do I think that Paramount is kinda gonna come back and say, it's time for us to get back to this? Yes. I think that they're going to say, at some point, it might be it might be fifteen years.
It might be a legacy franchise continuation that we end up having. Who knows? But I I can't imagine that they're gonna let it end here.
Pete Wright: I think they're gonna they should try a ballerina for it like they're doing with John Wick.
Andy Nelson: I think the the thing that I think will make it the most complicated for them to continue is figuring out in Hollywood who is the next Tom Cruise? Who is that insane? Who's doing all of these things themselves? Because in some capacity, I feel like that's become such an essential part of it that, like, if you have, you know and I'm I'm gonna say Glenn Powell just because his name has been brought up before. I'm not saying this about Glenn Powell in a negative way where I don't think he could actually pull that sort of stuff off.
I'm just saying you also have to find that person who has that thing in their head who's just like, I am so committed to this that I am going to tie myself to the side of an airplane and do all of this stuff for real because I it's that important to me that I'm bringing that visceral non CG experience to the audience. And that's that's a big ask of somebody.
Pete Wright: You know who it is, though?
Andy Nelson: Nicolas Cage. It's always Nicolas Cage. He's always the answer, Pete.
Pete Wright: No. This case is Florence Pugh. Did you see the behind the scenes of her on that building?
Andy Nelson: Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright: The I think that was an audition reel for future Mission Impossible. She was saying, I love heights. Watch me. I'm gonna throw myself off this building with a smile on my face. Like, she's she's awesome.
Andy Nelson: Speaking of butthurt, Hayley Atwell would be pretty butthurt if it ended up being just, hey, Florence. Come on in.
Pete Wright: Hey. Is Hayley Atwell gonna do it? I would be there for Hayley Atwell. Is she gonna throw herself off a building with smile? I'll be there.
I have a %. But so far, everybody who's currently in these movies, all they talk about on the promo as if contractually obligated to do it is, oh, Tom's amazing. He's so crazy. I couldn't do what he does. No one has said, I'll do
Andy Nelson: it. That's the thing. Yeah. You need to figure out that's you you just have to find that person who's got that that that switch in their head. Yeah.
Far as far as we know in this world, Tom Cruise is the only person who's got it got that switched. I'm curious. Is there another one? Yeah.
Pete Wright: Is there another one? Alright. Well, how to do how is it doing as we record this at the box office?
Andy Nelson: Well, because of delays caused by both the pandemic and then the twenty twenty three strikes, McCrory ended up with a bloated budget of $400,000,000 to make this massive wrap up to the franchise. That makes it about the fourth most most expensive film ever made. Pete, quick question. Do you know what the other three ahead of it are? Any ideas?
Pete Wright: In adjusted dollars?
Andy Nelson: In adjusted dollars. Yes. Is one of them an Avatar movie? No. Is one of them an world?
Avatar the Way of Water is number nine on the list.
Pete Wright: Wow. Yeah. Is one of them water world?
Andy Nelson: Actually, I don't know if these are adjusted. They're just the officially acknowledged figures.
Pete Wright: Okay. Then I'm I'm I'm all at sea.
Andy Nelson: Let me just say, they're all they're all within the last ten years. Like, weren't making things this expensive even in the Waterworld days.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Okay.
Andy Nelson: Number one, Star Wars The Force Awakens, estimated at $447,000,000. Damn. Then Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, 432,000,000. Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker, four hundred sixteen million. Then you have this.
Next is Fast X, which is at 379,000,000, tied with Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides. And it goes down from there. But, yeah, that's a lot of pennies to make one of these movies.
Pete Wright: That's so funny. I think my head is just twisted around that. I don't think I would have put two Star Wars movies in the top three.
Andy Nelson: Well, yeah. I mean, can make sense, I suppose, if you think it's the new one that's gonna restart the whole thing and bring us back. And then it's the big finale. So I can see them.
Pete Wright: Makes sense.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Maybe it's just J. J. Abrams. You know, his paycheck was a big chunk of that.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Who knows? Huge. Right.
Andy Nelson: Oh my goodness. Anyway, the movie had its world premiere in Tokyo, May Fifth, then screened at con before opening wide May 23 Memorial Day weekend here in The States. And while it couldn't pull into first place ahead of the live action Lilo and Stitch, which more than doubled what Mission Impossible eight made, it did end up, as you said, breaking the franchise record for a global opening. On just over 3,800 screens, it so far has earned 77,500,000.0 for the four day opening weekend here in The States with an international weekend estimate of a hundred and 20 7 million for a total gross so far of 204,500,000.0. If it keeps this up, I think it's fair to say it's on track to break even.
Of course, that is not including prints and advertising, so maybe it won't. Anyway, it's nice to see you doing well so far.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I think the question is, is it gonna make a billion dollars?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a tough one. But you never know.
It could. It could do really well. We'll see.
Pete Wright: Alright. Well, I'm sure glad we talked about it. I'm glad to feel like we closed the book on this franchise, maybe for now. But it's a it was a hell of a way to end it.
Andy Nelson: I thought so too. I mean, I just I I think that they they delivered something really big and exciting, and and it felt like an epic finale of this world of these actual impossible missions that somehow one person somehow does manage to actually like, it felt impossible. Like, legit felt like this is seriously impossible, yet he managed to pull it off and loved it.
Pete Wright: Exactly.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Well, we will be right back for our ratings. But first, I don't know. Here's the trailer for another surprise member bonus episode that we're gonna drop next month, Pete. Something you're very excited about and added to our car racing series, Joseph Kaczynski's f one.
Trailer: See, like straight talk.
Straight as an arrow. No sugar.
Why are you here, Sunny? When you look in the mirror, you see this rough and tumble old school cowboy. Doesn't take orders, goes his own way. A lone wolf. Well, I have news for you.
Formula one is a team sport. It always was. Listen. Let's get this straight. We all lose our jobs if you can't pull off a miracle.
No pressure. None.
The only question here is why did Sunny Hayes come back to f one?
I think it's really wonderful that Apex are given second chances to the elderly.
It's alright. You just wait. I'm quicker than you.
You're making a mistake, thinking that I'm just gonna be some grateful kid who'll bend a knee to an old timer.
I never should have pulled you into this. Down the inside, inside contact.
That's the other driver. You say he was old. He not that old. That's a handsome man right there. What's he doing?
Plan c. Be ready.
He's got hope for some lucky breaks.
Hope it's not a strategy.
Anything else, professor?
Drive fast. Ever seen a miracle? Not yet. How do you think I'd feel if you die on the truck? Relax.
Relax the lifetime.
Pete Wright: Letterbox. It's letterbox, Andy. It's letterbox time. This is where we apportion our stars and hearts to see what we think of the movies, and cement them in history forever and ever, never to be undone.
What are you going to do for this movie this week?
Andy Nelson: I enjoyed this immensely. I had a great time with it. I was very impressed with what they did to wrap all this up to tie things together. Is it a little bloated? Yeah.
But, you know, the franchise has bloat. It's just one of these things that I feel like is part of what they do with this franchise. I think they get so excited about these big stories that they just keep making them bigger and bigger and bigger. And I was in it. I like, from beginning to end, I was along for the ride.
I don't know if the bloat will end up being an issue for me as it goes, but I had a great time. So I'm gonna say am I gonna say four, four and a half? You know what? I'm gonna go four and a half. I'm gonna go big.
Go big and go home. Man, that's where I'm sitting. Four and a half and a heart.
Pete Wright: Go big and go home?
Andy Nelson: I'm yeah. Not. I'm going home.
Pete Wright: See you. Go home.
Andy Nelson: I can I can go big and still be at home, Pete?
Pete Wright: You could go big at home. Go big at home. I I'm gonna go four stars. It's not quite a five star, and I inevitably, I think the the Internet ranking crew is going to, you know, figure out where this thing is gonna sit. And for me, it it's definitely in the top half.
But I kinda feel like I need to revisit all my reviews first.
Andy Nelson: I think it's easy for me to say that pretty much, god, it's really hard because four, five, six, seven, eight are all kind of so good, and I don't know how I would squeeze one of them out to make it into my top half. But I don't know. I it's it's solid. It's a whole solid bunch of films. I mean, people say this is like like rare to find a franchise that just continues besting itself.
Pete Wright: So Yes. Totally true.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Totally true. Although it hasn't since fallout.
Pete Wright: I guess that's true too. But still. Extraordinary sequences. Like, you could if you broke up the movies into their major sequences, I think we'd have kind of a runner. Because there are there are certain stunts that are still extraordinary.
A movie as a whole, I think, Fallout is is probably the best.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, this will average out to 4.25 and a heart, which will round up to four and a half and a heart over at our account at Letterbox, which you can find us there at the next reel. You can find me there at sotaglry film, and you can find Pete there at pete wright. And we should just do one more plug for membership, Pete, for those who are listening to this because this is technically a member bonus episode, but we're releasing this to the public as just a way to say, hey, we love people listening to the show. We love talking about these movies.
And if you're listening, we'd love you to consider becoming a member.
Pete Wright: We sure would. It's just $5 a month or $55 a year, and all of that goes straight to the crew, everybody who works on the Next Real Family of Film Podcasts. It sure helps us keep this business going of podcasting about the movies we love. So thanks for being a part of it.
Andy Nelson: And as Pete said, like, our members get, early access to ad free episodes. They get, preshow chats on regular episodes and post show chats where we answer listener questions who are are tuning in live. In fact, we may actually throw some of those listener questions at the end of this just so you can hear what that's like.
Pete Wright: Oh, we gotta do that.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. All of that you can experience, by becoming a member, so please consider checking that out. So what did you think about Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the ShowTalk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week.
Pete Wright: When the movie ends.
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Letterbox giveth, Andrew.
Andy Nelson: As Letterboxd always doeth.
Pete Wright: Oh, this is new movie territory. New movie, new reviews. And they're already some of the great ones. There's some good reviews first?
Andy Nelson: Sure. I've got a three and a half and a heart by Jay who says, you can't hate this one. That's what the entity wants. It wants us to turn against each other.
Pete Wright: Oh, outstanding. The I've got a three and a half star and a heart from Frames of Nick who says, the first hour, here's what you missed on Glee. The following hours, how the f is this even possible? This s is the greatest action set piece in the history of man, not even Nathan Drake surviving this s. Oh my god.
That's so good. That is great. Here's what you missed on Glee is outstanding. Frames of Nick for the win. Thank you, Letterboxd.
Andy Nelson: Alright. We're gonna go through some of these. We've answered some, so I'm gonna kind of skim. Did you feel any COVID protocol production aspects to the finished movie?
Pete Wright: No. I didn't notice.
Andy Nelson: Well, I didn't see anyone else underwater with him. I think he did a good job distancing himself.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I didn't I didn't notice, and I was not thinking about it. I wonder if I missed stuff.
Andy Nelson: I don't feel like I ran into anything that felt like, because of delays and everything, which, I mean, I think they were doing a really good job. I mean, Tom Cruise had a whole yelling fit about people not following protocol. So I think he did a good job of of creating it, working hard to create a safe environment so that they were able to actually capture all this footage.
Pete Wright: Yeah. He had to put the fear of Cruise in them.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I like Tom I always think about Tommy's comment when that came out, and he did the whole thing while he was running.
Pete Wright: That was the funny bit that we didn't talk about, which was the the behind the scenes stuff that they put out before this movie was McHugh. So I call him McHugh now because Tom does. McHugh on the the BTS camera saying, you know, what's a Mission Impossible movie without Tom running? And they just show him in London about to run across the bridge, and that was the behind the scenes. Was here's Tom running, and I thought that was pretty cheeky.
Andy Nelson: We gotta get the running in.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Thoughts on how this movie used Paris' character, Pom Clementif?
Pete Wright: We didn't even talk about Pom. I liked it. I liked that she was part of the kind of core team. I liked that she spoke French and everybody spoke back to her like they all understand.
Andy Nelson: It's like talking to
Pete Wright: a druid. French. It yeah. It was it was like talking to a druid. I thought it was great.
And I like Pom a lot, and I'm glad she is in it.
Andy Nelson: I actually really liked it too. Based on where we leave things off in the last film and how Gabriel, betrays her because he thinks she's gonna betray him, like, all played so well and built into this this person who's now lost, but is willing to help these people out because they helped her. And really, it's just because she has such an intense desire to stop Gabriel. Like, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the way that we kind of, that her character kind of evolved into this place where potentially she's now part of the team.
And the point where she's like, I only kill people, and she has to, like, operate on Sunday is like, yeah, it played. It really played well. What do you think of Luther's death and ending voice over?
Pete Wright: It was great. Nobody's you can't escape Phineas Freak. I like that they brought back Phineas Freak.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I, again, like, it felt like his illness, they just scripted something to make it okay that he ends up taking the bullet, basically. You know, that was like one element that was a little scripted for me. But that being said, it played really well. Like, all of that worked great.
His his speech at that moment to Ethan, and then at the end, I loved all of that.
Pete Wright: And there was no indication that he was sick in the last movie?
Andy Nelson: Not that I recall. Like, I mean, I just watched that before this one, and I'm just like, I don't think they ever show him even coughing or anything. So I think it's just something that they came up with to allow for that. Yeah. I did wonder about, like, is that nurse that's taking care of him, is she also IMF, or do they just have some random nurse just come down into the tunnels?
It's totally fine. Totally fine. Sewers.
Pete Wright: Bring your med bag. Yeah. Right.
Andy Nelson: Does this movie make you think Macquarie is close or not close to the level of James Cameron? What were the most Cameron y parts?
Pete Wright: Well, I think any of the submarine stuff obviously screams Cameron. But I also think that, you know, facilitating the biplane stuff is is pretty Cameron y level of devotion. Like you said, it is not a short sequence. Like, there is a ton of aerial footage to build that sequence. They spent a lot of time over many, many days in the air hanging off of the those airplanes.
And I think that is spectacular.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's stunning. You know, I I don't know. I suppose you could say that. It's it I don't know if that's more Macquarie or or Cruise himself, or really is it like the two of them coming together to kind of become that the their own entity.
Right?
Pete Wright: The cruisy.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. That needs to do these things. What did you think of the scene when Cruise got into the entities chamber thing? We talked about that a little bit.
Pete Wright: Yeah. We talked about that.
Andy Nelson: Would a director of the CIA get elected to the presidency these days? Not a chance.
Pete Wright: Not a chance. It depends on how many followers they have.
Andy Nelson: That's true. But is the director of CIA on social? Like, is that Yeah.
Pete Wright: Well, they would have to be. They would have to be, or they have to be actively also a Fox News host.
Andy Nelson: Hey. It's possible these days. You can only laugh, Pete. How many of the big ensemble dialogue scenes do you think had the actors all present at the same time? Some of the president's council scenes were pretty janky.
That's interesting. I mean, I I kind of assumed they were all together because when you get to that point where she's decided to push the button, they're clearly all there. I mean, they're all in shots. They're in single shots together where they're all hovering over her as she's trying to decide to push the button or not. I guess I because they were working on the safety of the stuff, I just didn't it just doesn't even cross my mind that they were trying to film this for COVID protocol reasons.
Pete Wright: That's a really good point. And, you know, there it was really interesting. The last movie, there is that sequence in, Carrie Elway's office that is shot stylistically with a lot of weird dunch angles, and it's it's super noir. And they put the subject faces in extreme close-up but odd places in the frame, and it's really a stylistic choice. And in this one, I was looking for, are they is he gonna make some of those weird choices again?
And and is it going to feel, you know, outside of the style of the movie? And I didn't feel that at all, which actually made it feel more weird since this was made essentially to be back to back to the last movie. But the I didn't notice the jankiness that that, you're talking about, Brian. It just felt stylish.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. This is something we didn't bring up at all. Do you appreciate that Shay Wigham was Phelps' son, John Voigt, from the first movie? I hated it. Legacy sequel screenwriting slop, in my opinion.
Pete Wright: I did not appreciate it. I didn't hate it. But I think they it it felt to me like it felt just very strange. Why are they doing that? I didn't need it.
It didn't feel like it it plugged a particular intellectual hole in the story for me.
Andy Nelson: What I liked about it is that it gives us a little more sense of who Shay Wiggum is as a character. Right? It it gives us this this idea that there's there's more reason for him to just be perpetually chasing Ethan. And you don't get that often with kind of these side characters who are just kind of like chasing. And so to that end, I kind of liked it.
I don't know if it completely worked for me. You know, I thought it was interesting enough. So I'm I don't know. I guess I'm not gonna complain too much about it. We'll see.
That's one of those things we'll see how it ends up holding up over time.
Pete Wright: Right.
Andy Nelson: I'm just gonna skip to a few last ones. What did you think of Cruise getting so many boxer brief only scenes? Did this movie have the level of sex appeal in line with the franchise?
Pete Wright: Yeah. The guy's 60 years old. He can pull it off.
Andy Nelson: I was just like He
Pete Wright: can do whatever he wants.
Andy Nelson: He's actually clearly pulling some stuff off that, you know, you don't see a lot of 60 year olds doing, so it was impressive. It didn't bug me. It it all worked for story purposes. So
Pete Wright: Mhmm.
Andy Nelson: With the Oscars adding a stunt to Oscars, Tom Cruise not going to make another one of these in order to share it with the team? Seems like no chance to me. I wouldn't think that's the reason, but I don't know. I guess we'd have to see.
Pete Wright: It it just screams like lifetime achievement stunt award at some point.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Exactly. And certainly, if there's somebody who's giving that award the first time that it goes out, it's gotta be Cruz. Like, it only makes sense to have Cruz giving that first award out. So Yep.
Did you miss Rebecca Ferguson?
Pete Wright: Not at all. Not at all.
Andy Nelson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: I feel bad saying that. But, and I think it would have been a great movie with her in it. But I was so down for Haley Atwell kind of taking over that spiritual, like, place in the team that I just was I was done.
Andy Nelson: Well, and I, you know, and I respect Ferguson's reasons for leaving. Right? She's just like, it takes so long to make one of these movies. It ties up years of your life, and I just had to step away. She said that, like, she she shot two full seasons of Silo in the time they were working on this one movie.
Like, she's like, I just wanna work. I just wanna be active in doing stuff, and these movies require you to always be at their beck and call for years. And she said it was just kind of exhausting. As much fun as she said, I love being a part of it, but I just I just needed to step away for my own sanity. And I appreciate that.
And but to your point, I didn't miss her at all here. I thought it worked fine the way that it ended up playing. So.
Pete Wright: And it's interesting. All the homage that they did in this movie of the last seven movies, I didn't feel like hers was a role that was celebrated all that much in that first hour.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright: If you wonder if if if he's holding a grudge, cruise a little bit.
Andy Nelson: I didn't read it that way, but, last question. What did you think of Grace's arc, speaking of Hayley Atwell, and Rebecca Ferguson and the whole shift, in this movie? What did you think of her snuggle scene with Cruise?
Pete Wright: Yeah. Well, I the snuggle scene is problematic because of the decompression chamber.
Andy Nelson: Like, she should have had if she had blood coming out of her ears, totally fine.
Pete Wright: Andy, you fixed it. You just fixed it. She needed ears and eyes, tear ducts. But, no, I really, I I just like her so much. You know, is she set up to do more?
I don't know. Did she just get captain Britained? Maybe.
Andy Nelson: I what I what I I I do like the setups and and the whole thing with a good pickpocket versus a great pickpocket, giving her a key thing to do at the end of the film. Like, it all it all worked for me. So I I don't know. I I liked it. I had a great time.
Pete Wright: She looks good fighting too. Right? She looks believable. She looks super strong when she breaks that guy's knees in the I mean, I am down for watching her fight. She's just really good at it to my eye.
I don't know anything about anything, but but I'm here for it.
Andy Nelson: But I'm here for it. Absolutely. Well, that's a good place to end. Again, everybody, thank you for tuning in. And, as I said, we'll be back next time for another of these surprise member bonus episodes to talk about f one.