Midweek Mention... Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Cris: I'm ready to do it. I'm ready to do you as well.

Dan: Can we do this? I mean, I'm not sure. It, it seems pretty a you can,

Cris: this doesn't

have an intro though, this episode

Dan: I, I think, well, I,

Sidey: what Dan's getting at is that this is almost, it's too difficult. Exactly. It could be a mission. Unlikely.

Dan: Unlikely. It could be something we choose not to do.

Sidey: Yeah.

'cause this is the start of full week, so we are watching

Dan: fall out.

Sidey: Mission Impossible Colon fallout, I think. I think it's colon. No, it's Mission Colon. Impossible hyphen fallout. There's a lot of punctuation,

Dan: Okay. There's a lot of punctuation in there.

Cris: on there.

Sidey: And

Dan: is this punchy though.

Sidey: Well, let's get into it, but do you know where this is in the timeline of Mission Impossible

Cris: It's after Rogue Nation.

Two years after.

Dan: It's number

Sidey: There's one, then there's two, then there's three. Three is the one that has Philip Seymour Hoffman as the very, let's get that one. Ghost Protocol, then Rogue Nation. [00:01:00] This is Fallout. Then there's dead Reckoning part one, and I've not seen the final reckoning yet.

Dan: yet.

That's

Cris: it out already? Yeah, the final

Sidey: yeah, yeah, yeah. At the Multiplex. Hasn't made its way into a streaming platform yet.

Cris: Oh, I might go and watch that.

Sidey: 'Cause in our household we are fans. My Mrs likes an action movie and she particularly likes the Mission Impossible franchise. So here we are

Dan: Well, I, I love the

Cris: Carol likes, Carol likes it as well. I think it's just Tom Cruise and explosions

Dan: Yeah, the first one I remember. You know, really enjoy him when he got dropped down and he's, it's almost like a jewelry heist thing and you know, it's fantastic. But I hadn't really connected with them in order after that.

They just, when they would come on the TV or

Sidey: tried to, they kind of elevate it. Then there is a kind of through line. It's not just a, they don't just exist in isolation, although you can watch them like that. But they do have a sort of thinly valid

Dan: Well, as we see as this one starts [00:02:00] off with him on a Ethan Yeah.

Ethan, Tom Cruise with the girl that no doubt he's about to marry. And the priest starts saying, you take this woman to, to care and to, yes, I do. To look after, not to stab in the throat and, or, I dunno, he just

Sidey: was the, the priest was the villain though, wasn't

Dan: The priest turns out to be the villain, and

Sidey: was the bat in Broke Nation and he's returning in this one.

Dan: Right? Okay. So I hadn't seen that, but you are able to piece it together and that whole scene turns out to be a dream because Tom Cruise gets his face burnt off by a

Sidey: yeah, yeah. Like a nuclear holocaust type

Dan: but he wakes up then in Belfast and there's a knock at the door.

Somebody gives him a code words, he gives a few code words back, like there, there's. The

Sidey: how's the weather today? It's

Dan: the weather today? Weather's crap. The seagull shits at dawn and then he's given this video tape, which he [00:03:00] opens. It's actually, it's it's a book, isn't

Sidey: It's a book with the, it's carved out and it's got little, little like projectors flips up and,

Dan: ho. Home of the Odyssey. Yeah.

Sidey: They're like technology. The extent of editing they've gone to in this video thing to tell him about the plan is quite amazing almost if it was made for the

Dan: and there's a mesh, a mission, should you choose to

accept

Sidey: All the classic stuff.

Dan: And then,

and

Sidey: It was, that was done by Lalo. Laylo.

Sherin, who, I think he died recently.

Dan: Right? Okay.

Sidey: Right. Okay. But he was Argentinian, so that's

Dan: A classic

Sidey: Yeah. Great

Dan: really great school. And then we're into it, aren't we? We're,

Sidey: we get thrust into our first sort of set piece where they're they're doing a, a handover.

They they're doing sort of switcheroo Yeah. To get hold of some enriched plutonium.

In exchange for some cash,

it's him and Simon Peg. I pgs obviously nervous. 'cause he's now not just a geek. He's

Cris: he's an agent

Sidey: a field agent. Yeah. So they've got Ving. Rames is in the van. He's on ops and [00:04:00] those two are in the field, he is the one who's gonna have the cash. So if it all goes to plan, he's then gonna turn up with the cash to do the switcheroo for the plutonium. But something like an EMP or something goes off, he loses all his power. And we've been told in the message that.

Ethan got about this syndicate they're called the apostles. The Apostles,

Cris: yes.

Sidey: So the main man has gone, but his band of merry men have now formed this sort of separate group. Hell bent on destruction. And was it the larger the suffering, the longer the peace?

That's the, that's the mo.

So they're gonna try and nab this plutonium back.

Dan: Yeah. There's already been smallpox been released in near Kashmir and other. You know, potential threats and Yeah. Chemical warfare being, you know, nearly used. But now this lot, the apostles are, are getting their hands on what will be three cannonball type. Yeah. Looking plutonium enriched

Sidey: there's a big [00:05:00] shootout, isn't there? There's a big shootout and in the end Bing Ram's character, his name escapes me. What's this called? What's he called? Yeah,

Cris: I can't remember either, but I can tell you

Sidey: seen these a million times. Luther? Luther, yes.

Luther Vandross, he's captured and if it, it basically comes down to Ethan choosing, and he says, Lou says, don't fucking, you know. Save me for the sake of the, because these bonds could be used to kill millions.

Dan: So this, this,

Sidey: and Ethan just choose that?

Dan: Well, he does choose that, but he could cover both bases. There's that like he has. The, the suitcase with the plutonium in. Yeah. In fact, Benji has it, he slides it over to the escape car where they're, they're gonna be, which has left the doors open 'cause they've got that on a on a remote control.

And he takes a couple of shots. Shoots Luther in the body armor.

Sidey: Yeah, so sorry. Luther guns him down.

Dan: And the other guys would escape that big shooty out and Luther goes, where's the plutonium? [00:06:00] And you're like,

Obviously it's just behind that wall that you just ran from and, and they've made off with it all. So he has saved one life and may have

Sidey: Well, it fades to black, doesn't it? And when it comes back, I think we're straight into a news report and it is about these three separate locations where BOMB has been detonated. And they've got the guy who's made the bomb, this anarchist kind of nuclear physicist guy who's part of the apostles.

He's, he's laughing, saying, you know, he says about the greater the suffering and. Then after he's confessed, and he said they're trying to get some information out of him. And he says, if you get the news reporter, if he says it I'll give you the

Dan: Yeah, if he, if he reads out the manifesto. So

Sidey: Ethan makes a call get, then all of a sudden

that cuts to the news cast a guy, he reads out this manifesto.

I've been told to read this. So the guy dishes out the information they want suddenly. The wall, all the walls come apart. We realize [00:07:00] we're in a set, and as we've seen a lot of these mission impossible films, you know, that they can create a face, a, a fake completely and utterly like identical face of someone else, including the voice.

And we know it's, it's, he's been set up. Yeah. But when you do this fucking trick in every movie, it sort of loses its impact quite a lot.

Dan: Yeah. And

Cris: you're know, I mean, you're surprised initially and then Oh, yeah, yeah. We've done it

Dan: This, this is kind of what happens a little bit later on the film when Henry Cavel comes in and he can't believe that people who still fall into this shit either, can he?

He's brought in as

Sidey: initially CI isn't he

Dan: is gone. Yeah. Yeah. And he's brought in as one of the CIA man men to,

Sidey: babysit, chaperone,

Dan: babysit. Make sure that it doesn't happen again. If you get sight of it again, whatever it takes you make sure that you,

Cris: August Walker.

Dan: August Walker.

Sidey: He's looking great. He's in great shape in

Cris: this.

Yeah,

Sidey: he's got the Tash as well. It is the famous Tash that when he was called back [00:08:00] to Justice League to do reshoots Superman, he wasn't allowed to shave his Tash 'cause they were still, you know, potentially gonna have more shoot to do on this. So they had to like that really bad CGI to get rid of his tattoos.

Oh,

Dan: what it was. Yeah. Amazing.

Sidey: But he's in great nick in this and the, the start of it. And I don't think it's any surprise later on when he turns out to not be who he appears to be. But the start of it, he's part of the crew. So you've got him, Ethan, and the gang, but then you also get Ilsa, Faust sort of.

Dan: Another one from a previous

Sidey: Yeah. She's turned up before. It's Rebecca Ferguson and she kind of exists in the, in a little gray area

Cris: in between.

Sidey: In between, Yeah.

between the goodies and the badies. She's kind of like a gun for hire, but in the end she will come over to the, the goodies.

Dan: side.

They jump out of a plane because they've gotta get to a mark in Paris. There's a storm going on. Overhead can

Sidey: that because the so sort of what these films are is a massive ego trip for Tom Cruise to be able to perform [00:09:00] these like fucking incredible stunts. Yeah. And I think, you know, that's why he does a lot of this stuff. There's the famous one in the part one, the.

Dan: on on the, on the bike. He,

Sidey: rides the motorbike off the cliff. And then does

Dan: did that at six times,

Sidey: did that six times? Yeah. So this, they, they trained for a year to do this. They had to do 106 jumps to get, or however many jumps it was to get

Dan: Caval do it as well?

Sidey: Ca? Yeah. Yeah. Him and Chris. Not proper halo jumps, but they would've jumped some parachute jumping and stuff like that, so it was like flat out.

And Tom Cruise is one of the only movie stars left who can command this kind of like. Big fucking set pieces like this.

Cris: yeah. With without the stuntman to do it for him, he, him to do the whole

Dan: thing.

The, the insurance. Yeah. He, he, he, he does get his kicks from all that, but he, he jumps through, I can't imagine It really was a stormy night though when he did

Sidey: No, that's added in. Yeah.

Dan: And he, he wouldn't really just be hooked about five inches from getting paled on a, on a shop.

Sidey: Well, it goes wrong for, it goes wrong for Caval, and he has to sort of free fall down to him and help [00:10:00] him. And in the end it's him. It's, it's l Lou Ethan that kind of crashes into the ceiling and Caval sort of looks at him like, what you doing?

Dan: Yeah.

Yeah. There's, there's a couple of little comedy moments where they share the screen together and it's always nice as a, a jersey man to feel like Caval is, you know.

mixing it. with the big

Sidey: elite, top level, you know, and,

Dan: Yeah. If you're a mission impossible and you are, you know, you're going toe to toe with cruise, then you are on your, your way to the biggies.

Sidey: This is where the film kind of just now descends into a really long and convoluted bit of unnecessary plot. Around

Dan: car chasers

Sidey: people that he's someone he's not. That Solomon Lock is still alive and he needs to be broken out of whatever fucking prison slash transfer that's going on there.

And a lot of the, a lot of the story, a lot of the motivation in the plot is because Solomon Lane wants to personally, [00:11:00] you know, infl, it's a vendetta, it's a personal vendetta for him against, ethan, Ethan Hawke. And Cavo says to him, we could just, you, we could just do it. We could just drop, you could do the bomb.

'cause it turns out he's a fucking, he's

Dan: well, this is it. So they, they've

Sidey: and he's getting, he's getting annoyed because we, we could just fucking get, the goal is not hunt. The goal is to fucking,

you

know, new old order.

Dan: when he's talking to him there, he's actually talking to Benji in a mask.

Sidey: Because they do that

Dan: because they, yeah, they, they do that again. And this time though, they actually fall to it because, who's the other ci? The MI five guy.

Sidey: CIAA Baldwin. Yeah.

Cris: Something? No, he's from the IMF.

Dan: Yeah.

Yeah. The Mission Impossible.

Cris: Yes. Yeah. Leader. Yeah.

Sidey: So we get to meet Vanessa Kirby's character, the Black widow sorry.

The white widow. The white, the white widow. She's a an arms. I saw a broker. She doesn't, she never actually handles the merchandise. She just connects parties who deal in this sort of [00:12:00] shit.

Dan: Chris had a bit of a, a soft spot for her,

Cris: Yeah. I quite like her. I dunno why, but I, yeah, I quite fancy I like the way she speaks as well. I, I can't remember in which movie I've seen her. She speaks like really posh. I know she's from the north of England, so she's not that posh, but she

Sidey: speaks really posh at some point.

Cris: so I just thought, Hmm.

Sidey: Well, she becomes a recurring character. She's in the rest of the series. In this, this is the first time I meet her.

Dan: Well, she's kind of the other side of the, the coin in the that she, she both goes for the goodies and the badies and although she, she plays them both. She's,

Sidey: she's just in it for the money. She's completely

Dan: own goods.

Yeah.

Sidey: in terms of the outcomes. Although the outcomes, if you are connecting people with nuclear weapons, are not gonna be positive for anyone.

But as long as she makes few qui, she really doesn't give a fuck no. So they need her to, to, to get the connection to who's trying to buy these things which means that Ethan has to pretend to be someone else for a bit. And it's yeah, John Lark.

Dan: And he has this massive fight with this guy who's hard as nuts, and he beats up both [00:13:00] him and Caval in the toilets. Yeah. But eventually Elsa comes in and

I think she just

Sidey: him. Yeah. So just, there's a, I find this middle bit, it's like just a bit too long. I mean, the runtime of the whole movie we get into it is two and a half

Cris: Yeah. It's long.

Sidey: the, they. The thing about, thing about these films that, and I do enjoy this franchise on the whole, but it does take itself very seriously. And you know, in the, in the Army day of action films, this would be 90 minutes, no more. But you know, they want to cram in as much fucking stuff

Cris: it's also a lot of, sorry, it's, it's also a lot of, there's also a lot of actors that they, they need the screen time. They, they're paid well, this is a big franchise.

They need the space or the airtime for them. So they, it's all, it's all you are now. They're double crossing. Now they make believe Ethan is the bad guy and he's double crossed everyone. No he's not. Then, I dunno, they, it always kind of turns a little bit

Dan: confusing. This is only about Cruz really. Everybody else is just fluffing around it. [00:14:00] Yeah. Even, even Caval is he's the second biggest star, whatever, and he's been giving it you right Chris, A fair bit of screen time and, and things to get his character across.

But this is all about making Tom Cruise look. Really cruisy and amazing. And it does take itself, I think as well, a little bit too seriously in Yeah. In that regard.

Sidey: But we, we have had the foreshadowing of the very, very beginning, like you mentioned about, ethan's dream at the start where he was thinking about his wife, it turns out she is alive.

Yeah. And she has been squirreled away into height, almost like on a witness protection type arrangement, but Lane knows who she is and that's his leverage. That's how he can hurt hunt because that's what he really wants to do. And so they eventually turn up, they track these this battalion down to this site and it's it's like a un sort of.

Yeah, it's like they're doing vaccinations and some sort of humanitarian outreach

Dan: which

Sidey: and she works, she's working on that with someone else. And it turns out that you know, she's been remarried. She's got a new fella and Ethan meets her there and he's realizes he's been stitched up here [00:15:00] because this is where the devices are.

They know that they're. They can be detonated and it will take her down. It'll take obviously millions down, but

Dan: they're greater than, well, it will, it's right next to a reservoir with where all the water

Sidey: the water, it's gonna pollute.

Cris: Yeah. They're gonna irradiate the water. That's what

Sidey: 25% of the world's.

the, or the regions?

Cris: China, and

Sidey: I think is what, isn't it?

Dan: They said it's in the Newborough Valley. I've been

Cris: India, Pakistan, and China.

Sidey: Okay.

Dan: I've been up to the Newborough Valley before and I mean this wasn't, this was filmed in because I looked afterwards and it's filmed in Queensland

Sidey: right?

Okay. Something.

Dan: Okay. But up in the Newburg Valley, it's right in the very north. It's not kashmere. It's, it's right. North of, India. But you know, right under the Chinese border up there, lot sandier than than green when I was there anyway.

Cris: Okay.

Dan: Okay. But it's in that region. Obviously big military egos in there and there's two parts to this particular problem.

One is the detonating device, which [00:16:00] has a, a little key in it that needs to be taken out. And the other is the bombs can be, 'cause Benji's found a way of

Sidey: they can only dis, they can only disarm the disabling disable through the detonator once the timer for the bombs has been activated. And I think that's a 15 minute timer.

So as soon as soon as they go. soon as it's set then that the, you know, the clock is literally ticking. And it leads to a pretty cool helicopter chase.

Dan: Yeah, it is. Considering he's never flown a helicopter before, he's, he's amazing at it, even when it gets shot at and,

goes on

Sidey: Well, he has to climb up a cargo net thing first.

Another Yeah. It's, it's such a Tom Cruise. He has to climb up that shimmy his way and like beat the, like pilot out, knock him out. There

Dan: that bit on the helicopter when he's, he's shimmying up and he's hooking across. You think? Well, yeah, that looked

Sidey: He's probably doing that.

Dan: It's probably real. Yeah.

There may be some harness on him

Sidey: this is the one, this film where he broke his [00:17:00] leg as well. You know, he does the,

Cris: jumps,

Sidey: loves, he loves to run. And he, he does the run on the rooftop. And when he hit the rooftop and he

Dan: Ah, yeah, that looked

Sidey: he smashes his leg in and properly smashed his, properly breaks his leg.

Cris: like he broke his ankle, like proper, broke his

Sidey: and he just carries on like a pro.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: You can see I'm hobbling around. It's fucked. Yeah.

Dan: he's thinking,

Sidey: But yeah, so we, we have a, a, a dog fight in these two helicopters. The clock is ticking of course, and then they have eventually

Dan: Helicopters down this I impossible. Little ravine that's just helicopter size cockpit size, and they're sliding through.

Henry Cavel gets a hook in the face after a long hard fight. And then he doesn't finish there. 'cause CA's then gotta go like, free solos. Style up El capita to get to

Sidey: this. Yeah. Cruise

Dan: Yeah, cruise. Sorry. To get to the remote control, which they decide they're gonna cut the wires at their place.

'cause they, they've lost comms, haven't they? Yeah. They would do it on one [00:18:00] second and when they all don't hear a nuclear explosion going on, they realize they've

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: And he just like, exhausted lying, just the

Cris: of Whew. The,

Dan: the, the helicopter comes and picks him up the rescue helicopter. And he wakes up with various voices and bits of his team just saying

Sidey: he is the best.

Dan: Yeah, he is the best. He's the best. He's the best of the best.

Argue and yeah, he's I think Eric, the, his ex-wife's new husband now realizes that he's not who he says he is. 'Cause he tried to pretend he was a doctor. Yeah. And there's some.

Kind of apology there from him to her, even though it's clearly not his fault. He's just saved the world. But tell everyone

Sidey: it was never there for, was he, you know, the mission always came first, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah. So they, yeah, basically go off and the, we will [00:19:00] await the, the next installment. This one was 2018, the next one. Was the one that was being made when COVID

Dan: Right.

Sidey: Right. And they were able to keep it going for a little while. And do you remember there was an audio of Tom Cruise going mad at the crew because people were not following,

Dan: oh. COVID

Sidey: oh, COVID COVID protocols and he was.

Like super fucking angry, yelling, like going bananas. But for all his faults, you know, he does, he fucking works hard on this

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: of shit. Yeah, he does. He pulls out all the stops. I think he really does give a shit, not just 'cause he makes load of money outta them. He's one of the last like real massive movie stars for better or

Dan: Yeah. I think he does so much.

The thing that annoys me about this is that they're my least favorite Tom Cruise films. Do you know what I mean? They're he did American Made. Thought that was amazing. Thought that was really good. Jerry McGuire loved that. You know, the, I mean, there's been a, a ton of films that he's done that I've Ray Man, you know, really great.

Top Gun, top Gun, even, [00:20:00] you know, some really great movies. And he's done six or seven of these, and they're probably three or four of 'em there. Okay. Or, or possible, but the rest aren't very good at all. Or they're just reh hacking the same sort of stuff. He does

Cris: kind of where, that's kind of where, where you, but this is the thing. That's why where I, I find that this is almost the, or not almost, is basically the American James Bond, where it comes a point where if you use the same actor and it kind of develops a story and you kind of get it into a, into a rhythm of this episode and the next episode, but all these episodes are two and a half hours.

It can be a bit, fucking hell again. Whereas, don't get me wrong, I like this. I liked it. I liked all of them really, because I know what I'm gonna get. It's the same with every James Bond.

Dan: Yeah. Easy to watch.

Cris: It's easy to watch. I know what I'm gonna get. It's generally a good cost. I know all the actors.

Of course it's gonna be, it's gonna be a long fight. He's gonna kill a helicopter with a tennis ball. You know, there's gonna be [00:21:00] some, you know, something ridiculous like that. But in all fairness to him, at least you know that half of the things that he does, he does it himself. And he's not CGI, he's tried a million times.

He's, I dunno, whatever.

Sidey: Wonder what's the one that's gonna kill him?

Cris: Scientology probably,

Sidey: because he does, he does more airplane stuff. He's done quite a few airplanes. It's the biplane stuff. I think in the, in the last movie there's the famous, obviously the train one where he does the. Motorcycle of the cliff in dead wrecking part one.

I like this one. I think this is probably my favorite of them all. We, we like these at home 'cause we can both enjoy them. Sometimes they take themselves too seriously. But then they have put Simon Peg in there who's finally a bit of light relief every now and then. I think CA's a great villain.

'cause at the same time you've got him playing Superman, so you know him a Superman, and now you've gotta playing a complete asshole. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. So that worked quite well. The, that's what I think the last film suffered from the villain is, ai, you know, 'cause it's the buzz thing at the moment of fucking, its so it's just a computer system, you know, that doesn't, you [00:22:00] can't really see it.

It's called the entity. So you lose that kind of like actual villain

Cris: person.

Yeah. Someone, yeah.

Sidey: So,

Dan: yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's not bad. If you haven't seen it, then you. You won't not like it, particularly if you like an action film, there's nothing. It is a little bit long as you said, right at the, at the top, you know, if this is eighties,

Cris: I like the one before that where they, they go to Vienna at the, I dunno, bald or I like that one because they, I dunno, it's that one. I quite like that one. That's where the Alec Baldwin comes into from.

Sidey: you get nervous when you see Alec Baldwin holding a gun?

Cris: Me, I, I, no, I don't care. And then allegedly he got cleared out of that

Sidey: No, he definitely got cleared. This was a big hit though. It cost 178 million to make, what do you think it actually made

Dan: probably made a billion or something

Cris: No, double to 300,

million. Wow.

Dan: far off a bill.

Sidey: Yeah, not far off the top.

Wow. Yeah. So these are massive, massive,

Dan: yeah.

well,

Cris: he, that's why [00:23:00] he keeps making them.

Dan: them. That's why he keeps making them.

Sidey: So they're, they're on that. It's, the last one was called Final Reckoning, but there is sort of chat that it.

Dan: Fi final.

Sidey: final 'cause, you know, I, I think he started to look a bit old and I think, you know, him sprinting around doing this is a

Dan: Yeah. He's not getting away with it in 2018 or barely like in this, so

Sidey: I guess we're here, but now it's

Dan: just about, I reckon as an

Cris: what is he, 60 something

Dan: for doing all that he needs to do? But as I was saying before, like you, you talked about it being in the eighties, nineties, this is an hour and a half. Movie. Two and a half hours is too long for me. Yeah, it's long.

Cris: It's

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: long. Yeah, it is too long.

Dan: And I think if they can snip

Sidey: it definitely is flabby around the middle. They could, they could, they could do a bit of movie

Cris: give him the snip, give him the snip is what I say.

Sidey: but it's a strong recommend from me.

Cris: Yes,

yes.

I agree.

Dan: You

Cris: not like Ethan Hunt.

Dan: duh, duh. Well, it's mission impossible not to.