00:00do do do do do do do do do do do do do do well welcome to this week's special edition of
00:13our cultural catch-up and we're concentrating on the massive franchise which is mission impossible
00:19joining me is my special covert spy david morricand you know i know what you've been
00:25doing behind you i know what you've been doing behind that desk you've been secretly looking
00:29at the history of this franchise which has been going on for now 30 years just you must have
00:34started like watching the first one with that thumb in your mouth david uh well not quite but
00:39nearly um so yeah no i've i've before the the release of uh final reckoning i did put myself
00:46through more than 900 minutes of the whole franchise i re-watched the whole thing from
00:501996 uh mission impossible by brian de palma all the way to 2023's uh dead reckoning part one
00:58and it is a special franchise to the extent that it has bucked the franchise trend it's one of these
01:06kind of series of films that is this almost blockbuster anomaly to the extent that ever
01:11since its beginning it's gone from strength to strength as opposed to several other series where
01:16there are dips now granted mission impossible 2 the john woo film was a little bit of a of a
01:22disappointment but if you hire john woo you get a john woo film certainly do lots of dubs yeah
01:27dubs flying everywhere where they should be singed pigeons instead but for some reason they're impervious
01:32to fire and and essentially this is like a franchise that has over the years over three decades really
01:39kind of not faced many diminishing returns except in 2023 with dead reckoning part one which we saw
01:48together and it was bloated it was weirdly underwhelming yeah and it represented a little
01:56bit of a for me at least a bit of a franchise load it was memorable for perhaps all the wrong reasons i
02:02would say yeah and and this is the thing now we come to the final reckoning it was originally supposed
02:07to be dead reckoning part two they've renamed it as the final reckoning and it has been billed as
02:13the final installment of mission impossible where ethan comes back and finishes off the story that
02:21started with dead reckoning part one so you know you've seen it and i know you've looked at all the
02:26french all each one in the franchise very very carefully so how does this one rate compared with the
02:34rest rock bottom
02:36i need you to trust me one last time it is all over the shop it's an absolute mess of the film and it
02:52gives me absolutely no pleasure to say that because like i said i really enjoy the way that directors
02:58over the years have put their individual stamp on the film so you had brian de palma doing an espionage
03:03film then you had john woo and it went all over the shop as well but it was deliriously entertaining
03:08it was a very kind of early 2000s films loads of shiny leather jackets shades you know explosions in
03:15the background and then then you had jj abrams coming in and kind of giving it a little bit of a
03:20of a reboot or a rejuvenation brad bird afterwards for ghost protocol which was a fantastic adventure
03:26and then you had christopher mcquarie 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
03:39high in 2018 and now you have the final reckoning which suffers from the same problems as dead
03:47reckoning which is very exposition heavy it's very clumsy the script is just all over the shop so
03:55essentially you you you pick up where it left off where there is the entity this um ai parasite
04:03which distorts the truth which sows seeds of division stokes fear if we want to bring the world
04:13back from the break we 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
05:06the world 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 states are completely ludicrous but you could suspend your disbelief
05:28because it was so deliriously entertaining
05:29there is a lunatic reliance on flashbacks you get these little snippets of the previous films
05:48because this film has been built of as it's all led up to this but it hasn't it almost retcons
05:56and and tries to kind of link the previous films to this one and you're just like why there's
06:02absolutely no need to do so but in doing that it really kind of puts the character of ethan hunt
06:09at the center and and mythologizes him there's there's dialogue cringeworthy dialogue that says
06:16you know oh it's been 35 years mr hunt you were always the best of men in the worst of times
06:22you you are the chosen one that is a line in the film and you're just like i'm not watching a mission
06:27impossible film it's it's it's i'm stuck in the matrix there's you know now ethan hunt is no longer
06:33a special agent for the imf it's it's a messianic figure and and it's so dull because the the first
06:42half of the film is like peddling through hummus because there is so much exposition it is it is so
06:49deadly just contrived and the worst part is with all these flashbacks and in the final reckoning
06:56is every time i saw like snippets from the previous film i was like that was good that was a really
07:02really good film that was fun and it just reminded me of films that i would rather watch as opposed to
07:08be stuck in the final reckoning and another problem that it it retains from dead reckoning part one
07:15is not only very very clumsy dialogue and a bloated script but also just characters i mean
07:22the cast do admirably well they are really really good they're giving it socks but there's there's a
07:28problem is that the villain played by a sign morales who plays a character called gabriel is so
07:33underwhelming he's he's a charisma vacuum in this and and he was that in dead reckoning part one and in
07:41the final reckoning it's the same thing and and a film especially an action thriller is only as good
07:46as its villain and when you've had in previous films philip seymour hoffman in mission impossible 3
07:52um sean harris in um rogue nation and fallout who were fantastic villains and and and you know gave
08:00the the the series a sense of menace here you're just like okay you're a silver fox in a plane
08:08good for you what exactly is your plan
08:13it 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
08:36it's got wooden beams it's got fantastic shelving there's books everywhere there's a little
08:42fireplace and this place because of the narrative i won't spoil it just well i will spoil it goes up
08:48in flames at one point and i was so just uninterested in this bloated narrative that i was just like what
08:56about the cabin what what what what what happens to the cabin these two people were living their lives
09:01you know their best lives in an absolute gorgeous chalet and you're just like you've ruined it for
09:06them what about the cabin tom cruise doing what he can for said designers around the world i mean it's
09:13not his fault he does he tom cruise as per usual is is great he does he does the stunts and there are
09:20plenty of really really good stunts in this as per the the rest of the franchise but even they feel
09:26bizarrely a little bit over underwhelming i i just i i was bored tokes to be bored in a mission
09:32impossible film i mean that it's unforgivable sounds incredible and you're making it sound like a real
09:38snore fest and where does this therefore if this is like at the bottom of the the mission impossible
09:44rankings you know what does this say about the future of the franchise you know tom cruise has you
09:49know it's been they've been questioned so many times about the future could could you see him
09:56coming back it's an interesting question i mean in recent interviews he said you know he's been a bit
10:01cagey obviously because because it's billed as the final reckoning it's a little bit of a marketing
10:05campaign to say this is the last one it's all been leading up to this if you enjoyed the previous ones
10:10you have to see this one and and really for me no you don't have to see this one you you for me
10:17the franchise high was 2018 fallout and even that had just a better ending to answer your question
10:24this feels like it could be the last one it is purely because it's it you can't top the stakes
10:32nuclear annihilation you again it felt like a michael bay film it felt at times like even a film directed
10:39by mcg which is possibly the lowest compliment i can pay anything because this has absolutely gone to
10:46a whole other level it's just no you you stop it there it's done but really realistically what
10:55they're going to do is wait a few years and reboot the franchise and the only way they they can do this
11:02is by going back to the espionage routes with you know a new team maybe tom cruise coming back as this
11:09kind of elder spy who who who plays the the the father figure to is there is there an heir apparent
11:16within the films well not really at first it was going to be uh jeremy renner uh who came i think
11:22in ghost protocol and who was uh in in in the latter films but here he's completely absent and and no
11:29there isn't and and in this case there shouldn't be it should be a brand new team tom cruise will
11:34probably come back as the jim phelps kind of character for this new team in a few years time
11:39so there is that but the the issue is and this is a mild spoiler it has to be said is that final
11:45reckoning just really lacks the conviction of its beliefs if it's all been leading up to this and we
11:52mentioned the bond franchise that under daniel craig it the the last bond film no time to die
11:59did this spectacular thing of let's kill off james bond it's never been done before a bold move a very
12:06bold move and it kind of worked and and the thing is is that here there is a sequence in this film
12:11again mild spoiler is that at one point a parachute malfunctions and you're just like ah this is it
12:18he's gonna fall to his death and his last moment is to put the flingamajig in the thingamibob
12:24and and and save the world you know just at the last moment and then splat but no he he shows up
12:32at the end everything's fine he's you know they've trapped the the the ai in a little glowing box and
12:39it's just like well yeah isn't tom cruise isn't ethan hunt great and and yeah so it does leave the
12:45door open a little bit depressingly so but it has to be said this series of films the the the mission
12:52impossible ip needs the pants down spanking that jason born and mission impossible ironically enough
12:59gave the bond franchise to basically just go you've gone over the deep end lads you can't just have you
13:06know pierce brosnan kind of kite surfing over a digital wave you can't have tom cruise just you
13:11know miraculously surviving being in the mariana trench and then you know no consequences at all here
13:17you need to go back to something that is rooted in something that is believable and then stretch
13:23credibility but because it is rooted in real stakes you feel something i felt nothing here okay well
13:31mission impossible seems to be a flop you've made that very clear david uh our super spy uh taking that
13:37mission on see us out right this video will self-destruct in five seconds
