#306. 'M:I—The Final Reckoning'
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This truncated, technical-difficulties-plagued episode centers on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise's final outing as Ethan Hunt, which the trio dissects as an unusually idea-driven entry in the franchise: Sonny loved it, framing it as a "movie of ideas" about an internet/AI-poisoned world redeemed by an old-school analog hero, and delighted in reading overt Christian/Catholic symbolism into both this film and Dead Reckoning (Ethan reborn from icy water, the "cruciform key," Gabriel the "dark Messiah") even as he grumbled the movie runs a baggy 30 minutes too long and should have been merged with its predecessor into one tight 180-minute film. JVL agreed it's "a glorious mess... not a good movie, but a deeply satisfying one," comparing it to Top Gun: Maverick as Tom Cruise processing his own mortality on screen, and clocked Christopher McQuarrie's choice to linger on Hayley Atwell's cleavage during the decompression-chamber "rebirth." Mike had zero reservations, calling the submarine sequence more thrilling than even the Burj Khalifa stunt and praising the film's fan-service callbacks, its goofy-dark comedy (the butcher's-cleaver fight, the "he did it, the son of a bitch actually did it" line), and the way Tom Cruise generously lets scene-stealers like Trammell Tillman's submarine captain and Hayley Atwell shine rather than hogging the spotlight himself. Before getting to the movie, the hosts spend the first third of the show on chattier business, since a Riverside outage forced a shorter episode: JVL brags from a decadent Waldorf Astoria suite in Chicago after his first-ever trip to Wrigley Field, Mike riffs on a listener's pinball comment and the running "use the kids as a social excuse" bit, and the crew digs into the weekend's box office, where Lilo & Stitch's record Memorial Day haul trounced Mission: Impossible's (still very strong) opening, with Sonny arguing Snow White flopped not from culture-war backlash but because nobody actually likes the Snow White story to begin with. JVL also flags the film's inclusive casting (Hannah Waddingham, Trammell Tillman, Katie O'Brien) and jokes about waiting for online backlash to it that never quite materialized. No Quadrant grade was issued this week.
From the show notes
Apologies, folks, we had some technical issues with this week's episode—The Entity does not want you to hear what we have to say—so it's a little truncated. But still very good! At least 90% as good as a normal episode!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Everything 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 your calling, your destiny. I have no regrets, neither should you. I need you to trust me, one last time.
Mike00:00:54Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who just emerged from a decompression chamber on top of an ice floe, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family to join the Sub-Beacon community at Sub-Beacon.com. Comment on posts. Join the conversation. New episodes every Friday at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about Mission Impossible. Final Request. Reckoning later on in the show. But first, let's check in to see how everyone's doing. Sonny Bunch, tell us what's going on in your world.
Sonny00:01:37Well, I think we're we are on a tight schedule today. We get we we had some technical issues. Riverside was down. Riverside was trying to screw us. And I feel like we want to save a lot of our chatting time for the movie. Right. JBL, you have lots of thoughts. I mean, I assume we all do. I think we all do. I think we've all got a lot of thoughts on this movie. So I will. And I don't really have anything. That interesting to say. So I will cede my time in the interest of spending it all on the box office. 20 minutes on box office later. All right. All right.
Mike00:02:08Well, before we do that, JBL, any any thoughts real quick before I will see 95 percent of my time.
JVL00:02:14I will just tell you guys that I am in Chicago. Last night I went to Wrigley for the first time ever called a baseball game. The greatest baseball stadium I've ever been to. Holy shit. Where were you sitting? Fourteenth row behind home plate. Oh, nice. It was astonishing. And and almost as good as that is that we're staying in the Waldorf Astoria. And when I checked in yesterday, they upgraded me to a suite that is larger than the first condo I owned. It has two bathrooms. It is two bathrooms. It has two when you get tired of the first bathroom, you know. Yeah. Two sitting rooms. I am currently in the sitting room that has. A fireplace in it, a working fireplace. My fireplace is on. I have a balcony overlooking the lake. It's the rich really are different and awesomer.
Sonny00:03:11Yeah, they're better. I don't think anybody would dispute that the rich are different and better than us.
JVL00:03:15They have more money. It means that they're that that means that they're better. That's the that's all I've got.
Mike00:03:21This reminds me, by the way, of the of the hotel and really the feeling I had when I saw the hotel room in. Home Alone 2 Lost in New York that Kevin McAllister gets with his dad's stolen credit card. And like the idea that there were like other rooms in the hotel rocked my little kid world.
Sonny00:03:43Yeah, this is that's like the first time I stayed at the Venetian. And I was like, wait, a hotel can have more than one room. I don't know. This is a different experience.
Mike00:03:53I do want to say real quick and then then I will move on from from this dude's chatting. To box office talk. JVL, you had asked last show if there had been any talk about pinball in the comments. And I'm I'm happy to report that for that show's comments, there was some talk of pinball. And I want to just share a comment from Tom G for you so that you can appreciate this. Tom G, one of our listeners, commented owning an old style pinball machine was an exercise in often frustrating repair of small. Electronics and works and worse. Can't say if the new ones are similar. Probably not. Suggestion for the in-person thing that you mentioned. Dragoon Flash into going if he has any interest at all in playing pinball. Conversation partner. Make Flash meet the weirdos. Exactly. And an excuse to leave. And sometimes the test acknowledge that you only get in person is quite valuable. I kind of liked this idea. And I particularly like the excuse to leave because it reminds me of something that my wife has. Always said, which is like if we're in a social situation or even if I'm in a social situation, she's not there. She's always her line is always use me as an excuse. If you're trying to get out of some social situation, a party or, you know, an after work thing or whatever it is, which is something she learned from her mom as a teenager. You know, her mom's like if you're like in a situation where you're in over your head, you know. Doing something that you shouldn't be doing or you don't like where you are. Just say my mom said I need to come home. And and so just use the people who you love and care for as a as a way to get out of social situations. Seems like kind of the perfect human shield. The perfect situation.
Sonny00:05:45I mean, I that's the best thing about having kids is being like, I'm sorry, I can't come to this thing. I've got to take the kids to ballet or possibly gym or karate or literally any. I got to take do something with them. I can't be with you.
Mike00:06:00And as it as you the longer you have kids, the more, you know, you don't even have to add those explanations. You can just say you could just start. You don't even have to say complete sentences. Just the kids, my kids, my kids, the kids.
Sonny00:06:16This happened the other day. I had RSVP to go to a movie screening and like literally at the last minute we had something change. I had to take one of them somewhere. I was like, hey, man, sorry, I can't make it. Emailing the reps, you know, give up my open my seat to the masses. But I can't be there. You know, I've got to take kids to Boy Scouts or something. They're like, yeah, man, that sucks. Well, we'll catch you on the next one. It's it's a total get out of jail free card.
Mike00:06:42It's what are they going to do? Call you on it?
Sonny00:06:45Well, I mean, the way these screenings work is that they reserve a certain number of seats for the press. And the theory is they want to have full houses. Right. Because they they don't want it. They don't want to have a bunch of empty seats. Usually what ends up happening. Is that the press sections are a little bit more empty anyway, because they want to treat the press again like the rich. The press are better than everybody else. So they want to give the press a little extra space so you can kind of stretch out. You don't want to be you don't want to have the masses on top of you while you're trying to watch a movie. But you want to you want to get their ambience. See, it's a very delicate balancing act because you want to get you want to get the fan reactions. You want to get the laughter. You want to get that energy. Yeah, I get that energy. But you also don't want to you don't want to hassle. The working critics, because they they will then take it out on you.
JVL00:07:31Well, they have so much power to move. They can move.
Sonny00:07:35It's if you if you cross the critics, you're done.
Mike00:07:39So JVL, they they they the critics need to be need to believe that they have that power. And so this is the way in which they are. They are sort of hoodwinked into thinking they have that power. All right. Well, let's let's move on since we're talking movies and all. The critics and stuff, the the box office, number one at the box office this week, Lilo and Stitch, followed by number two, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, also in its first week at number two, but far, I mean, dwarfed by the massive week for weekend for Lilo and Stitch. This is so I guess we should break out. Right. The Memorial Day weekend numbers are much better than. Just the regular weekend number. So if you're just counting Friday through Sunday, Lilo and Stitch grossing one hundred and forty six million dollars, Mission Impossible, Final Reckoning, sixty four million dollars in the if you add the third day or the fourth day, I guess, a Memorial Day, Lilo and Stitch bumping up to almost one hundred and eighty three million, seventy nine million for Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. What do we make of this live action, live action ish? Live action adjacent remake of Lilo and Stitch, which I guess is like a classic now animated film, just wiping the floor with the the final Mission Impossible movie. What do we make of it?
Sonny00:09:11I think you have there. There are three big takeaways from this. You mentioned you mentioned the big Monday. You know, it did thirty six million dollars or something like that on a Monday, which I think is I think I read it's the fourth biggest Monday of all time, bigger than Spider-Man No Way Home, bigger than. The the the one of the Avengers movie, I think one of the Avengers movies did more one, but bigger than the other one between either Endgame or whatever, whatever those were called Avengers Endgame and Avengers the last one, the last one, the next one. But the the the no, the big the big takeaway here is you you release if you don't release a movie that appeals to. To young boys and young girls for six months, there's big audience for them when one comes
Mike00:10:07out demand, pent up demand.
Sonny00:10:09I mean, I like it. You know, you can you it's interesting if you look at the box office, the yearly charts movies released in the year 2025 in the top 15, six of them are kids movies, and there have only been six kids movies released all year. And like some of those haven't done very well. Snow White, whatever. I'll get to Snow White in a second. But if you release a movie that is anticipated by young, young boys and young girls in this climate, you are going to make a lot of money, like just a lot, a lot of money. And what's interesting about this, you know, is that everyone a lot of people had been like, well, Snow White bombed the Disney live action remakes are dead, blah, blah, blah. And the the difference between the year, a couple you could you could say, well, the Snow White movie got hurt by controversy. People there were there were racists who said they didn't want to go see it. And they were turned off by the actress saying she didn't like the original. And, you know, and I I think that that is a mistaken way to look at what happened with Snow White. The reason Snow White underperformed is that people don't actually like Snow White. People people respect Snow White, like people respect Snow White and the seven dwarves are kind of iconic. And like if you go to Disneyland and Disney World, the seven dwarves are a big deal. But the actual movie, the the actual Snow White movie, if you give children the if you give if you put children in front of a Disney Plus app and you say, pick a movie to watch, zero percent of them will wind up on Snow White. Even even like looking at the classic Disney animated movies, they'll go with Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty before Snow White, I think, is I think is a fair way to look at that. Lilo and Stitch. Why is that, by the way?
Mike00:11:56Can I ask? Oh, quick. Sorry to cut you off. Why is that about Snow White? Is it just that it's boring? It's old. It's the story is not good.
Sonny00:12:04Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's boring. It's a boring movie. Like I watched it with my kid. We did a run through a bunch of the Disney classics with my kids back at the kind of the beginning of the pandemic. And I remember Snow White. They were like Cinderella. They they really enjoyed Sleeping Beauty. They really enjoyed Snow White was death. They did not care for it. Also, interestingly. They did not care for it. What was the other one they didn't care for? B&B may have may have been Robin Hood. It was either Robin Hood or the Jungle Book. It was either Robin Hood or the Jungle Book. I forget. It was one of those two that I was kind of surprised by. I was like, wow, I'm surprised they didn't. They're not into these, but they were not into one of them. But no, Snow White was by far like they they would frequently say they wanted to watch Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Never Snow White. So interesting. I don't I don't want to extrapolate my children's experiences to the rest world, but I don't think. I don't think it's far off, frankly. Got it.
Mike00:12:59Go ahead. Continue.
Sonny00:13:02And the second note here is that there it's it's really interesting because there have been efforts to gin up controversy about Lilo and Stitch as well. Like there there are people there are people itching for a culture war thing with Lilo and Stitch because they changed the ending slightly. So the older sister can go to college and she stays with like the kindly older neighbor who is like kind of the grandma figure in the movie, but also like she doesn't really leave because she has a portal gun. Doesn't matter. I don't want to get into I don't want to get into all that. But like there were people on the right who were like, look at her. She's she's abandoning her sister. This isn't what the meaning of the movie is about. She's going to go be a working woman. Come on. And then there are people on the left, which was also interesting being like, oh, an indigenous woman abandoning her child, daughter or her sister to the state, to the care of the state. Don't don't they understand? And it's like this weird horseshoe moment where everybody wants to be. I'm angry about this. And like kids just want to see a fucking movie. Kids like kids and parents just want to go see a movie. That's it. That's that's all it comes down to. So like, again, I think people misdiagnose what happened with Snow White. I don't think it had anything to do with I think it I think the one misstep that was made with that was Rachel Zegler being like, I think Snow White is outdated and boring. And, you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't, you know, we don't want to we don't want to celebrate that sort of thing. That was a mistake. I think everything else is just like. Nobody actually cares about Snow White. The other the other thing we should note here is, I mean, you you kind of sneered at the idea that Lilo and Stitch is a classic, Mike, but I didn't sneer.
Mike00:14:39I just didn't know. I don't know. It is. It is.
Sonny00:14:41It is my time. It is beloved by young millennials and and younger. Like my my daughter loves Lilo and Stitch like it is. It is very much. I would not I would not put it in the same caliber as like a. As like Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast was, I don't know, but it's it is very much it is certainly not like Frozen or whatever, but it is beloved. It's it's it is the kids. Kids love it. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, yes, this movie gross much more than Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, but Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning also had its best opening ever for one of these movies, like 80 million dollars for one of these movies is is a very good number. People kind of overestimate the box office. This appeal of these things, which topped out around 800 million or something like that with Mission Impossible Fallout. And there was there was a lot of China inflation there. There was there was some of that. But like this has never been a series. This has never been a billion dollar series. This is that's not what these movies are. So, you know, anyway, a huge box office weekend all right. It's the biggest Memorial Day box office ever. So it's what it comes down to.
Mike00:15:54That is the real story here, right? The theater experience is back. That's the theaters are back is what you're is what we can really take.
Sonny00:16:00Tom Cruise, president of the movies.
JVL00:16:02Can I can I say add one thing to this? The other thing that happened is the theater counts. So I texted Sonny sort of a gog when I went to buy my Mission Impossible tickets. But at my 16, my local 16, Lilo and Stitch was on seven screens and Mission Impossible was on three screens. Yeah, like I, I, I, I doubt that. Uh, nationally, it was a two to one number, but, uh, but Lilo and Stitch was on a lot more screens than Mission Impossible was.
Sonny00:16:34And, uh, yeah, Lilo and Stitch was on 4,400 screens. Mission Impossible is on 3850. Um, so like it was, it was, there, there was a gap there, but I think Lilo and Stitch was also just getting more showtimes, particularly in the, the like midday, um, but shorter too,
JVL00:16:50right? I mean, it's, and it's shorter. Oh yeah. It's an hour 50 and, and Mission Impossible is seven hours.
Sonny00:16:55Yeah. Lilo and Stitch is an hour. 47, I think. And Mission Impossible, the final reckoning is two 50. So you get, you get an extra, you get extra showtime with, uh, maybe two, depending on how you, how you stack them.
Mike00:17:07Uh, this is probably emerging of box office and dudes chatting, but, um, it did occur to me. So my kids did not go to the theater to see Lilo and Stitch this weekend, but we did do a screening at home of the Emperor's New Groove, um, which I've only seen once. And my oldest has maybe seen once. Uh, my wife really likes that movie. And so we watched it with, with all the kids. And, uh, that's one that they will not be making a, uh, live action remake of. It is not a classic, but I kind of love it. What's that? That and Hercules. Yeah, exactly. But I kind of like that period, especially the Emperor's New Groove, which I did not see contemporaneously. I've only seen it like as an adult, but they really lean into like almost Looney Tunes territory in. In the Emperor's New Groove, which I feel like was a good move after all of those kind of overly serious, good, great, you know, early nineties, Disney animated movies, but like it was a nice little zag, uh, for, for, for Disney and, um, and between, uh, putty from Seinfeld and, and David Spade, it's a great, it, it, it, it's enjoyable. So I, I'm guessing we're, there was no plans to do a live action remake of that, right? Sonny.
Sonny00:18:23Yeah, probably not.
Mike00:18:25Uh, all right, let's move on. Uh, to talk about the number two movie, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, the final Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible movie. Yes. Correct. Is that sure that we can expect, uh, Sonny, you want to give us a review of Mission Impossible,
Sonny00:18:40The Final Reckoning, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Um, you know, this is a very interesting movie because it's very, very different from the other Mission Impossible movies. Uh, and I, I, I have a lot of, I have a lot of like thoughts about this individual movie and we'll get to those in a second. But I. I, I, I want to, I want to contrast it to the rest of the series because every, every other movie in this franchise is, you know, kind of its own discreet standalone thing, right? With the, with the, there's some bleed between Ghost Protocol to Rogue Nation to Fallout. Um, and then of course, Final Reckoning, uh, was originally going to be Dead Reckoning part one and part two. So this was always kind of conceived as a, as a two-parter. Um, but the, but this is a very different movie for a different reason, not just because it's kind of calling back to past Mission Impossible movies. It's a very different movie because it is, unlike the rest of the Mission Impossible movies, a movie of ideas. It's a movie, it's a movie that has an idea at the core of it. You know, most of these films are a series of stunts strung together with like whatever plot Christopher McQuarrie kind of came up with to get from point A to point B, at least from, you know, numbers four through eight now. Uh, this is not... This is not that it is not, it is not, uh, it is not a movie about MacGuffins, right? It is a movie about an idea. And that idea is that the, that the internet is bad, that it is coming, that the social media and AI are coming to kill us. Um, and that the only thing that can save us is an analog hero who does his own stunts by the name of Tom Cruise. I mean, like that is, that is like the idea of the movie, the idea of the movie is we are experiencing the end of the world because truth has become too malleable because there is, there is no concrete physical thing anymore. Everything can be erased in the digital ether and, and made, made new, made fresh, made different. And you, and you, you know, they don't, they don't spend, they could have spent way more time on this than they did. And I say this and everyone's going to roll their eyes because everybody talks about the, uh, the critics hate the first hour of this movie because it is a series. It's a series of callbacks and flashbacks and, uh, there's not the big action kind of set pieces that everybody expects from a movie of this sort. But I loved the first hour of this movie. I loved the first hour as Ethan was trying to figure, Ethan was like grappling with his own, uh, accepting the destiny of becoming like the Jesus Christ of the Mission Impossible universe of like dying and being reborn, uh, and, and, you know, bathed in the holy Arctic waters. And being, you know, coming, coming back to life to save, uh, humanity from their sins.
JVL00:21:32Um, wait, where's the first hour end? I guess the first hour, the first hour, what, like, where do you cut that?
Sonny00:21:40I would say the first hour ends when he gets to the, the aircraft carrier is about, is about where the first hour ends is a, it's a bit, that's about right. Maybe that's a little more than an hour. Um, but when he gets to the aircraft carrier, then it becomes kind of a standard Mission Impossible movie where he does a series of stunts that are kind of stitched together to get us to the, to the, and the team is busy, you know, doing anyway. Um, no, I, like, I find the Mission Impossible franchise fascinating because it is the only, it is the, or it is the biggest franchise that has grown up with the internet in a very specific way. Like the first movie, right? Remember the first movie, the, the big... The big set piece in that movie is the wire drop down into Langley, right? And Tom Cruise, but why does Tom Cruise have to do that? Tom Cruise has to do that because the knock list is completely separated from the internet. You cannot, you cannot hack the knock list because the knock list is not online. And there are other kind of funny things about the internet in this movie, right? Like the email for Max, which is Max at Job colon 14, Job colon 14, a domain name we're all familiar with. That's how email addresses work. Um, you know, and, and like I say, you know, the series has grown up with the internet just like the rest of us. In 1996, when this movie came out, 20% of people were online. Basically 20% of Americans were online, a much smaller percentage around the world. 20% of Americans were online by the, by the time the sequel came out in 2000, that number was already up to 40% or something like that. Um, and by the time the final reckoning came out, we all walked into the movie theater with a fucking supercomputer in our pocket connected to the internet. To the entirety of the global information system, right? Like it's, it's a, it's, we literally live for my ticket with it.
Mike00:23:33I got logged in and paid for what? Yeah, exactly.
Sonny00:23:37We live in a different world. We live, we live in a different world. We live in the entity's world. And Tom Cruise looks at that and says, no, he looks, he looks at this and says, no, I don't, I don't want that. Um, and that is, that is like my, my enjoyment of this movie is at the very least is predicated at least in part on, uh, a sense of ideological agreement and arrangement with it. Like I am just in tune with the, the, the actual idea of the idea part of the movie. Um, for the, for the mission impossible of it, uh, you know, I, I like, I don't, I don't think that these, the stunts in this movie are as thrilling as some of the ones like from fallout where he's hanging off the helicopter or the Burj Khalif, uh, sequence, right? Um, I, I was, I, I want to get your guys take on the submarine sequence because part of me, I like, I couldn't tell if that was in real water or if they were in a tank in a studio, like I wasn't sure what was actually going on there, frankly, in terms of what was real and what wasn't, which kind of undercuts the whole rest of the, the, the, you know, theory of the movie. Um, but the, you know, the, the airplane sequence at the end is great. Uh, the, the stuff with Don Lowe in the Arctic circle is great. Uh, I love, love me a call back to Don Lowe, the, uh, the, the guy from mission impossible one who, uh, Ethan gives diarrhea and Kittredge, Kittredge has to send to, uh, Alaska as punishment. Um, but he's back. Um, I don't know. I, I, I found myself, I found myself both intrigued intellectually and moved emotionally and, uh, and, uh, kind and kind of loved it even while I recognize that it's probably like 30 minutes too long, even, even with all the flashbacks in that first hour, what should have happened is dead reckoning part one and the final reckoning should have been one, 180 minute movie. There's one very good 180 minute movie in, in those, in those, uh, two films. Um, and I don't, I don't, I think there's this struggles a little bit with, with some of the length and creakiness, but maybe I'm wrong. JBL, what do you think?
JVL00:25:53Yeah, I, uh, I mean, it's a mess. It's a, a glorious mess. And I don't know if I can, this is gonna sound maybe a little weird. It's, it's not a good movie, but it's a deeply satisfying movie. Like it, it, it just like it, and maybe that's just cuz I was like you, I was resonating on the same frequency as it was and like it just everything in it worked for me. Um, it is the most personal movie Tom Cruise has ever made. And I think that you can read this and Top Gun Maverick as Tom Cruise wrestling with his own mortality on screen. And I mean, down to Tom Cruise, having scenes in each of these movies where he is saying goodbye to a beloved co-star who he knows is going to die in real life. Right. Which is Val Kilmer and Ravik and Ving Rhames of this cuz Ving. I mean, I don't know, maybe there's public information about this, but he just has not looked well for years at this point. And like, clearly something's going on with Ving. Um, uh, and it's, I mean, everything about this movie is so weirdly personal. It feels like a Tom Cruise movie by way of James Cameron in, in that, in the way that Cameron makes these deeply personal, uh, movies about ideas that are done at an insane technical level and that are trying tent poles, uh, and the whole, again, we can, we can talk about different stuff. I mean, there is, I don't remember the last time Tom Cruise had a moment of like sincere sexuality in a movie. Um, in, in the way where he is saved by Haley Outwell's breasts, which is like one of the weirdest directorial choices I've ever seen, where in the scene where he is in the decompression chamber being brought back to life, we're given like 10 cuts to her deep cleavage, which again, like once you could feel like, yeah, okay. We're just Macquarie's throwing us a little cheesecake. That was over and over and over again. It was such a weird choice to keep like, you know, Hey, we're going to shove her tits in your face because this is part of like the second sex-death duality and again, there's just so much happening there. Yeah. I mean, go ahead. Go ahead.
Sonny00:28:34So none of us are gonna, you know, uh, turn that down.
JVL00:28:38That, that sequence, I'm, I'm not saying it's bad or good. I'm just saying like, that's a choice and it is a weird and telling choice. I think like nothing in this is accidental in the way that like nothing in Maverick. Once you start seeing it as Tom Cruise has died and this entire story takes place in the moment between where he, you know, loses consciousness and then moves on into the afterlife. Uh, the same is true with this movie. Like, you know, Macquarie and cruise are not stupid. They know what they're doing.
Sonny00:29:09I, I, well, look, I, as, as the heretic on this podcast, I, I, it, it, it does, it does fall upon me to make, uh, what I think is like, I, maybe, maybe this isn't an obvious point, but it felt very obvious once, uh, once you kind of notice it. Right? Like, so I rewatched dead reckoning recently and like, here's just what I wrote in my, I'm just gonna read my letterbox review, a recap of, of watching it again for, for the first time in a while, I'd forgotten that dead reckoning was about Ethan searching for grace so he could complete a cruciform key needed to defeat the entity and its representative Gabriel, the dark Messiah who sees death as a gift to share with the world, right? And then the, the, this one, uh, so here's some. This is somebody else's. These are two other people's describing what happens in, um, the final reckoning. Uh, one was Ethan hunt is reborn and cleansed in the water after stripping away everything that held him down, created by the world and saved by grace. The entire movie takes place over three days. The villain is the anti-God and the Lord of lies. There is an airborne battle with the messenger Gabriel. The key is two crucifixes. I mean, like, I don't like, again, I, uh, I am sometimes accused of doing bits in my reviews, but I, I, I, I, I do not think that there is a plausible case to be made about top gun Maverick, uh, and then, uh, dead reckoning part one in the final reckoning that does not involve like very clear and overt Christian and like Catholic symbolism. Right? Like, am I, am I like, am I going insane?
JVL00:30:55You're again, Chris McQuarrie is not stupid. He is not a hack, right? I mean, he is, he is a, a really sophisticated writer. He's been a sophisticated writer since the usual suspect. Uh, like none of this stuff is being done by accident. And, uh, the whole thing is, again, I, I, I do wonder, like, does it, does it work for you guys, because like I said, it is not tight. This is the other thing mission impossible movies are phenomenally tight and economical, even when they are big and even when they are long, they're really efficient. Yeah. And this one is not, this is the first one that feels like there's a lot of time being spent, uh, trying to deliver emotional payoffs about the series as a whole. Yes. Mm-hmm rather than about what is happening on screen, right? He delivered, we we've gotten that. We've gotten time spent on emotional payoffs for within the context of the single movie. I don't think we've had mission impossible movies that try to pay off the entire heritage aspect of the franchise.
Sonny00:32:02Oh, no, no, this is, this is very different. This again, this is what I'm saying. It's like, it is it for a mission impossible movie. It is a very different sort of movie. Yeah. Like it's just, it's just an entirely different beast than its predecessors. I will say even, even set, even setting that aside. This is a loose movie in terms of timing and structure, and there are like, there are jokes that play out over minutes that should play out over like two shots. Um, like I, not even maybe not minutes, but like, remember when, uh, remember when Haley Atwell meets the Inuit woman, uh, who was Donno's wife and there's like, they're doing like kind of sign language and that, that sequence goes on for like 60 seconds and it should be about two shots, you know, like, and it's, it, but it's not unpleasant or, you know, annoying. To be, it's just, it's just shaggy. The whole thing is very shaggy. Like they, it feels like they needed somebody to come in and like, kind of be a little more savage in the trims of like, we, we, we gotta, we gotta kill
Mike00:33:06some darlings here and, or, or is this reflective of like a kind of, well, it's the last one, um, we're gonna, we're gonna kind of let it all hang out and enjoy it a little more and, and let it, let it linger because we don't in a way, I know this is like all done in editing, but like, we don't want it to end. So like. Uh, you know, have that, have that little extra bit there because maybe
JVL00:33:32it does just want to go on. So we've, we have been having comedy in mission impossible movies since the Brad Bird movie. I forget what it was that rogue nations. That was, that's a ghost protocol.
Sonny00:33:42That's ghost protocol.
JVL00:33:44So ghost protocol is the first mission impossible movie that has a lot of comedy in it. And it starts from the very beginning when he is escaping the Russian prison and like that whole thing almost plays like Buster Keaton, you know, like it's, it's a deeply funny sequence. This movie has comedy, but it's like of a different sort. So when they cruise and grace are about to be tortured and they break out of this, we get an entire scene in which Tom Cruise is murdering two men with a butcher's cleaver and a meat hammer. And all of that is done simply with tight reaction. On Callie, Hallie, Hatwell's face. Yes. And then we actually get the pan to the bodies and Cruz is doing like some of his best comedic work where he's like, you know, in classic oblivious, Ethan. So like, yeah, don't worry. Don't worry.
Sonny00:34:42Don't worry.
JVL00:34:43Everything's fine. They were going to kill. We don't even know who they are and it's funny.
Mike00:34:47Like it's dark, but it's dark. She even gives like a little, little extra look like, like that, you know, that's not what I'm disturbed by. Like. It's like, it's, you know, it's, you were a savage.
JVL00:34:57Yeah. Yeah. So again, just different kinds of beats than we're used to in these movies. And, uh, Michael, I'm sorry.
Sonny00:35:03Is that also the sequence where he's, he's yelling, you spend too much time on the internet and each beat is like punctuated by him slamming the Cleaver. Yes. Basically. Yes. That's that moment, right?
Mike00:35:14Or no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's that's later in the submarine. That's in the summer. Oh, that's when he's fighting the, uh, okay.
Sonny00:35:21Yeah. Yeah. Same, but the same basic kind of comedic idea of like, you know, funny violence.
Mike00:35:27Michael, what did you think? Uh, I loved it. I was just, I let it all wash over me and just enjoyed it. I mean, it had everything. It had. Characters. Explaining and really over explaining the plot so that I didn't have to think too much about what was happening. Um, I don't know about you. I, I guess, I, I guess Sonny, you were maybe even a little underwhelmed by the submarine, uh, sequence. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was sitting next to, to two ladies in my, uh, in my theater. And all three of us were just like looking at each other and looking back at the screen and going, Oh. Like the whole time I, I, it was to, in a, in a way it was for me more thrilling even than let's say the Burj Khalifa stuff, because for me, uh, the claustrophobia was kicking in of being in this like a Russian submarine and it's about to fall and he, and like the orientation of where he is in space keeps getting turned around and the water is moving and water is rushing in. And all of that heightened the thrill for me in a way that, uh, I wasn't even expecting. I was just like, it was more thrilling to me than even the plane stuff for those reasons. And I know that's, I'm probably unique in that, but I was just on the edge of my seat for that. I mean the plane sequence, you know, which was making all the posters and it's sort of like that. That was all terrific, even ending spoiler alert with, with, uh, Simon Morales is like just kind of brutal, brutal death by biplane was just, I was just great.
Sonny00:37:19I mean, speaking, speaking of Looney Tunes though, that is an absolute Looney Tunes. That's like how, that's like, that's like how Elmer Fudd or a Daffy Duck would get taken off of that airplane.
JVL00:37:29Yeah, absolutely. But that's how, so, but the thing is like, so that character has to die, but Tom Cruise can't murder him.
Sonny00:37:37Yeah.
JVL00:37:38Like he can't murder him. He has to die some other way. And so. And so they did it in a way, like in a way that's darkly funny. It reminded me a little bit of like, uh, John Malkovich's death and Con Air almost like, you know, like it's a comedic death. Yeah. Like just very darkly comedic. That's right. Yeah.
Mike00:37:56Um, so I dunno, I, I loved it. I loved the, I really loved going back through all these moments in the past mission impossible movies. Um, I, it feels like they connected everything.
JVL00:38:12Um, without hardest hit, uh, I know. Well, yeah.
Sonny00:38:17Um, mission impossible to the only mission impossible movie to get, I think zero callbacks in that.
JVL00:38:23I think it's, I think it was fully erased from the camp.
Mike00:38:26Uh, wait, who was the bad guy in that one? Do grace got, yeah. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:38:32There's like a virus. There's like a biological, I remember the movie.
Mike00:38:35I just was trying to remember who the, I was trying to remember. Cause there was a sequence where, I mean, like you see the Philip Seymour Hoffman character from, from three and all that stuff. I was just trying to remember if I saw that. No. Okay. So, uh, but it didn't feel heavy handed. It didn't feel like it was like shoving in, you know, or dropping in member berries for the audience. It was, or if it was, it was done artfully. Um, and like the callbacks with the characters, uh, the, the, the CIA guy and even John Voight's son, like all of, all of that was just kind of felt natural. It felt like, okay, like this all happened in the same. World and over 30 years and now we're ending it and, and like Ethan is looking back on his life in this time and th it, it just, it had a for an insane spy movie where a guy drowns, uh, in frozen water, uh, and is, and gets a mobile decompression chamber, uh, so he can get out and then it is immediately like ready to go and run and do the next thing. Like there was some versatility to the, to the way. They treated the past ones. I just, I, I love that. I enjoyed it. I left the movie feeling like totally satisfied. Uh, all, all like action movies should be this great in, in that way. So, uh, loved it.
Sonny00:39:57Mike, you, you said that I was underwhelmed by the sub sequence and that's not precisely right because it is, it is gripping and like tense. What's that? Yeah. Oh yes. Very, very Hitchcockian, but I would say it. The, the, the issue was less being underwhelmed and more, um, for all of the talk, for all of the series is focused on like, we are doing real things in real places. That was the one sequence. And, and because, because it's underwater and because it's in a tight submarine space, I was, I was, I had no idea where it was actually taking place. Right. Is it taking place? Is, did they build a sub and are filling it with water in like a, in like a. Big studio somewhere and like turning it on its side, like the inception hallway. Like how, how was that?
JVL00:40:47That's what I thought it was.
Sonny00:40:48I assume there's some sort of featurette that will be released to, to show how they did all this. Like how much diving did he, did Tom Cruise actually, I like, I want to know, I want to know how close Tom Cruise came to death. That's what I, that's what, that's what attracts me to the stunts in these series. How likely was it that Tom Cruise was going to perish while doing it?
Mike00:41:10I guess my rejoinder to that is, um, wasn't the plane sequence enough for you? Can't, can't we just suspend some disbelief for the submarine and a sequence and just enjoy it for like, at a certain point, I, I know what you're saying, but like, you got to also let the movie magic work, you know? And like, it was like, it was done well enough for me that I didn't worry about that. I just enjoyed it for. The, again, the movie just carried me along. And so the moments where I was like, oh shit, he is dangling from that plane there and the wind and, uh, and the, and the, the, the, the, uh, propellers are blowing his face back and you can see it. And it's real. Um, like that was like icing on the cake. That was a little cherry on top, but, uh, I just, you know, just, just enjoy Sonny. Just enjoy it. That's my, that's my answer to you.
Guest00:42:07Okay.
Sonny00:42:08All right. Well, I, some of us have slightly higher standards. Some of us have slightly higher standards about Tom Cruise's mortality and, you know, we just want to see it. We want to, we want to see the death.
Mike00:42:18Can I also say a couple of things in here that would have annoyed me in a different movie? Um, but because it's Mission Impossible, because it's Tom Cruise, um, they literally have somebody say the line, he did it. The son of a bitch actually did it, which is just like, I, I love it. It's the most cliched like action movie line ever. And when he said it, I was like, ah, there it is. I love it. It's fantastic.
Sonny00:42:45All of that stuff in the war room is a very, very questionable, um, dramatic and comedic, like that, that whole sequence where Nick Offerman is like steals the gun and we think he's going to shoot the president and then he saves the president. And like, uh, again, the, there are like, I understand you want to have Angela Bassett in the movie and you want to give her something to do. And like, but that whole, like all of that subplot stuff was so extraneous or like, and then like her son and, and like, there's like one mention of him.
Mike00:43:21And then at the very end, why do we care about her son?
Sonny00:43:23I know, I know. We don't care.
Mike00:43:25Was there, was she, was the son mentioned it? What was the one she was in? We saw a picture of him. Okay. Yeah.
JVL00:43:33I think the only thing we get is we see a picture of him on her desk.
Mike00:43:36Yeah. When she's at the CIA director or something. No, here in this movie. Oh, oh, in this one. Yeah. Yeah. But then we see him at the end, but no. So I love that. I also love the, the cliche of, because they, they do it at the beginning when like UK is under martial law and then, and then at the end to show that martial law is no longer the case in the UK. We're like, where Ethan just like walks out of the London underground, like he's just like riding the subway, like a normie. Like, give me a break. It's just like, it's such a action movie cliche, like an establishing shot in the play. But I loved it. It was, it was, it, for all the ideas that it's dealing with. And I think you're right, Sonny. It's also just like having fun being kind of a dumb action movie too. So I love that.
JVL00:44:30Sonny, I have a question. You, you are funnily enough, you are quite anti-internet, but also far and away the most online of the three. The three of us?
Sonny00:44:41Yeah. Well, I don't, I don't think those two are unrelated.
JVL00:44:45No, I mean, I'm, I'm very anti-internet in myself. I think Michael is as well. Yeah. Were there complaints from the right about the amount of DEI in this movie? I don't think so.
Sonny00:44:59I don't, I didn't see, I didn't see too much of that.
JVL00:45:01Boy, the helicopter pilots or the Osprey pilots dropping them off are both women. Hannah Waddington. Hannah Waddingham in charge of the. The. I mean, there are, there are so many DEIs all over this place. And I just thought to myself as I was watching, oh, oh, I bet that some people are going to be very triggered by this.
Sonny00:45:20I assume that, I assume there are some people, but I will say that like the reason those sequences all work, particularly Hannah Waddingham and Trammell Tillman, who plays the submarine captain, is that they're both fantastic. Like Hannah Waddingham is fine, but Trammell Tillman got the biggest reactions of anybody in the movie. He was awesome.
JVL00:45:40He's so good.
Sonny00:45:41And you, you're, you're not a Severance guy, JBL. I know you didn't watch the whole show, but like I have watched the whole show and he is, he's like the MVP of that show. And he is the MVP of this movie, aside from Tom Cruise, of course, and aside from Hayley Atwell's Tank Top.
JVL00:45:56So Katie O'Brien, who plays the dive master on the sub, who has very little to do, but just has a great physical presence. So she's like Indonesian. I don't know, but she's got like, you know, she's this. She's this chick with giant biceps and she just sort of has this very quiet glower. Is that what she is? Well, she was great in this. And I get like, I don't know. She even gets a couple lines where she like a grace note line where she's like, you know, good luck. Don't mess up my suit. But it's great. Don't mess up my suit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's really, anyway, all the DEIs were there and they were almost all outstanding and very helpful. And I was just wondering if out in the internet, there are people angry about them.
Sonny00:46:40No, no. She was like the second lead in Love Lies Bleeding, which we didn't talk about on the show, which was pretty good. She was in Twisters for a bit. Twisters, that's where I saw her. Her whole like, again, she's like a stunt woman who is also like, you know, becoming an actress. But that whole sequence, that whole sequence is great. And it works because like you say she isn't given much to do and she still like pulls it off nicely. You know why? It's because like she is reflecting in Tom Cruise's glory. And Tom Cruise is like, I don't know. Tom Cruise does. A friend of mine made this point. I don't want to steal it from him. A guy named Akash. He made a very good point that like it is acting, big acting for a star like this is easy. And there are versions of this movie where Tom Cruise just like takes over that whole sequence. And he's the focal point of everything. And instead of doing that, he kind of lets everybody else. Like, again, it's like his glory reflects off of them. That's the only way I can put it. And it is movie.
JVL00:47:41It's real movie star shit.
Sonny00:47:42It's it's real movie star shit. And he is he is the last of that type and in a very real way. And this movie is all about being the last of that type and how it's going away. Yeah. All right, guys, I'm sorry. I got to we got to wrap it up.
Mike00:47:57Yep. We're going to wrap it up. Any other thoughts? I don't think so. So we're go check it out. Check out Subbeacon dot com. Tell your friends and family and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny00:48:10I'm sure it's fine.
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