00:00well welcome to this week's special edition of our cultural catch-up and we're concentrating
00:16on the massive franchise which is mission impossible joining me is my special covert
00:22spy david morricond you know i know what you've been doing behind you i know what you've been
00:27doing behind that desk you've been secretly looking at the history of this franchise which has been
00:32going on for now 30 years just so you must have started like watching the first one with that
00:36thumb in your mouth david uh well not quite but nearly um so yeah no i've i've i before the the
00:42release of uh final reckoning i did put myself through more than 900 minutes of the whole
00:49franchise i re-watched the whole thing from 1996 uh mission impossible by brian de palma all the way
00:55to 2023's uh dead reckoning part one and it is a special franchise to the extent that it has
01:03bucked the franchise trend it's one of these kind of series of films that is this almost blockbuster
01:10anomaly to the extent that ever since its beginning it's gone from strength to strength as opposed to
01:15several other series where there are dips now granted mission impossible 2 the john woo film
01:20was a little bit of a of a disappointment but if you hire john woo you get a john woo film certainly
01:25do lots of dubs yeah dubs flying everywhere where they should be singed pigeons instead but for some
01:31reason they're impervious to fire and and essentially this is like a franchise that has
01:36over the years over three decades really kind of not faced many diminishing returns
01:42except in 2023 with dead reckoning part one which we saw together and it was bloated it was weirdly
01:53underwhelming yeah and it represented a little bit of a for me at least a bit of a franchise low it was
01:59memorable for perhaps all the wrong reasons i would say yeah and and this is the thing now we come to
02:06the final reckoning it was originally supposed to be dead reckoning part two they've renamed it as the
02:11final reckoning and it has been billed as the final installment of mission impossible where ethan
02:17comes back and finishes off the story that started with dead reckoning part one so you know you've seen
02:24it and i know you've looked at all the french all each one in the franchise very very carefully
02:30how does this one rate compared with the rest rock bottom
02:36i need you to trust me one last time it is all over the shop it's an absolute mess of a film and
02:52it gives me absolutely no pleasure to say that because like i said i really enjoy the way that
02:57directors over the years have put their individual stamp on the film so you had brian de palma doing
03:02an espionage film then you had john woo and it went all over the shop as well but it was deliriously
03:08entertaining it was a very kind of early 2000s films loads of shiny leather jackets shades you know
03:14explosions in the background and then then you had jj abrams coming in and kind of giving it a little
03:19bit of a of a reboot or a rejuvenation brad bird afterwards for ghost protocol which was a fantastic adventure
03:26and then you had christopher macquarie who came in and who really kind of tweaked the formula
03:31and got it to where it needed to be with rogue nation and fallout which in my mind is the franchise high
03:39in 2018 and now you have the final reckoning which suffers from the same problems as dead reckoning
03:48which is very exposition heavy it's very clumsy the script is just all over the shop so essentially you
03:56you you pick up where it left off where there is the entity this um ai parasite which distorts the
04:04truth which sows seeds of division stokes fear if we want to bring the world back from the brink
04:14we have to deal with him should we choose to accept
04:18really the concept is excellent because it does speak to a time it does speak to kind of
04:27very very topical fears and at the beginning of um the final reckoning we hear about fanatics
04:33who are pledging their devotion to their digital overlord and you're like brilliant go with that go with
04:40truth distortion with post-truth with governments being divided and but no instead it it completely
04:48throws everything at the at the at the script and essentially the gaping digital sphincter that is
04:56the entity is both doomsayer um manipulator of doomsday and essentially is you have 72 hours to save the
05:06world from complete nuclear annihilation and this is the franchise forgetting what makes it so good
05:15at the beginning which is espionage films but you know obviously which is you know some of the action
05:22some of the stunts some of the state are completely ludicrous but you could suspend your disbelief
05:28because it was so deliriously entertaining
05:41there is a lunatic reliance on flashbacks you get these little snippets of the previous films because
05:48this film has been built of as it's all led up to this but it hasn't it almost retcons and and tries to
05:57kind of link the previous films to this one and you're just like why there's absolutely no need
06:04to do so but in doing that it really kind of puts the character of ethan hunt at the center and and
06:11mythologizes him there's there's dialogue cringe-worthy dialogue that says you know
06:17oh it's been 35 years mr hunt you were always the best of men in the worst of times you you are the
06:23chosen one that is a line in the film and you're just like i'm not watching a mission impossible
06:27film it's it's it's i'm stuck in the matrix there's you know now ethan hunt is no longer a special agent
06:34for the imf it's it's a messiah messianic figure and and it's so dull because the the first half of the
06:43film is like peddling through hummus because there is so much exposition it is it is so deadly just
06:50contrived and the worst part is with all these flashbacks and in the final reckoning is every
06:57time i saw like snippets from the previous film i was like that was good that was a really really
07:02good film that was fun and it just reminded me of films that i would rather watch as opposed to be
07:08stuck in the final reckoning and another problem that it it retains from dead reckoning part one is not
07:16only very very clumsy dialogue and a bloated script but also just characters i mean the cast do admirably
07:24well they are really really good they're giving it socks but there's there's a problem is that the
07:29villain played by a sign morales who plays a character called gabriel is so underwhelming he's
07:35he's a charisma vacuum in this and and he was that in dead reckoning part one and in the final reckoning
07:41it's the same thing and and a film especially an action thriller is only as good as its villain and
07:47when you've had in previous films philip seymour hoffman in mission impossible three um sean harris
07:54in um rogue nation and fallout who were fantastic villains and and and you know gave the the the
08:01series a sense of menace here you're just like okay you're a silver fox in a plane good for you
08:09what exactly is your plan
08:22it came to the point i was so bored by this film that at one point there's another useless callback
08:29from the first film um which leads us to this isolated cabin and this cabin is gorgeous it's got
08:37wooden beams it's got fantastic shelving there's books everywhere there's a little fireplace and
08:44this place because of the narrative i won't spoil it just well i will spoil it goes up in flames at one
08:49point and i was so just uninterested in this bloated narrative that i was just like what about the
08:56cabin what what what what what happens to the cabin these two people were living their lives you know their best
09:02lives in an absolute gorgeous chalet and you're just like you've ruined it for them what about
09:07the cabin tom cruise doing what he can for said designers around the world i mean it's not his
09:14fault he does he tom cruise as per usual is is great he does he does the stunts and there are plenty
09:20of really really good stunts in this as per the the rest of the franchise but even they feel bizarrely a
09:27little bit over underwhelming i just i i was bored tokes to be bored in a mission impossible film i
09:33mean that it's unforgivable sounds incredible and you're making it sound like a real snore fest
09:40and where does this therefore if this is like at the bottom of the the mission impossible rankings
09:45you know what does this say about the future of the franchise you know tom cruise has you know it's been
09:50they've been questioned so many times about the future could could you see him coming back
09:57it's an interesting question i mean in recent interviews he said you know he's been a bit cagey
10:01obviously because because it's billed as the final reckoning it's a little bit of a marketing campaign to
10:06say this is the last one it's all been leading up to this if you enjoyed the previous ones you have to
10:11see this one and and really for me no you don't have to see this one you you for me the franchise high
10:18was 2018 fallout and even that had just a better ending to answer your question this feels like it
10:26could be the last one it is purely because it's it you can't top the stakes nuclear annihilation you
10:34again it felt like a michael bay film it felt at times like even a film directed by mcg which is
10:40possibly the lowest compliment i can pay anything because this has absolutely gone to a whole other
10:47level it's just no you you stop it there it's done but really realistically what they're going to do
10:56is wait a few years and reboot the franchise and the only way they they can do this is by going back
11:03to the espionage routes with you know a new team maybe tom cruise coming back as this kind of elder
11:10spy who who who who plays the the the father figure to is there is there an heir apparent within the
11:16films well not really at first it was going to be uh jeremy renner uh who came i think in ghost
11:22protocol and who was uh in in in the latter films but here he's completely absent and and no there isn't
11:29and and in this case there shouldn't be it should be a brand new team tom cruise will probably come
11:35back as the jim phelps kind of character for this new team in a few years time so there is that but
11:40the the issue is and this is a mild spoiler it has to be said is that final reckoning just really lacks
11:47the conviction of its beliefs if it's all been leading up to this and we mentioned the bond franchise
11:53that under daniel craig it the the last bond film no time to die did this spectacular thing of let's kill
12:02off james bond it's never been done before a bold move a very bold move and it kind of worked and and
12:08the thing is is that here there is a sequence in this film again mild spoiler is that at one point
12:15a parachute malfunctions and you're just like ah this is it he's gonna fall to his death and his
12:21last moment is to put the flingamajig in the thingamibob and and and and save the world you know
12:27just at the last moment and then splat but no he he shows up at the end everything's fine he's you
12:34know they've trapped the the the ai in a little glowing box and it's just like well yeah isn't tom
12:41cruise isn't ethan hunt great and and yeah so it does leave the door open a little bit depressingly so
12:47but it has to be said this series of films the the the mission impossible ip needs the pants down
12:55spanking that jason born and mission impossible ironically enough gave the bond franchise to
13:01basically just go you've gone over the deep end lads you can't just have you know pierce brosnan kind
13:07of kite surfing over a digital wave you can't have tom cruise just you know miraculously surviving
13:13being in the mariana trench and then you know no consequences at all here you need to go back to
13:18something that is rooted in something that is believable and then stretch credibility but
13:24because it is rooted in real stakes you feel something i felt nothing here okay well mission
13:31impossible seems to be a flop you've made that very clear david uh our super spy uh taking that mission on
13:38on see us out right this video will self-destruct in five seconds
13:57you
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