‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning’ Is Here. How Will We Reckon With It?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Big Picture – Episode: ‘Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning’ Is Here. How Will We Reckon With It?

Release Date: May 23, 2025

Hosts: Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins
Guests: Rotating cast including Ringer colleagues like Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, and Bill Simmons

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1. Introduction

In this engaging episode of The Big Picture, hosts Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins delve deep into the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise—Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning. Released amidst a backdrop of personal anecdotes and recent sports events, the hosts set the stage for a comprehensive analysis of the film's strengths and shortcomings.

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2. Overview of Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning

Sean and Amanda begin by outlining the premise of the movie, highlighting its significance as potentially the final chapter in Tom Cruise's iconic series. Sean mentions the high expectations tied to Christopher McQuarrie's direction and the return of familiar characters such as Ethan Hunt, played by Cruise, alongside a stellar supporting cast including Halle Atwell, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg.

Sean Fennessy [24:03]: "When we last saw Ethan Hunt, he was on a...he had retained one half of the cruciform key."

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3. Deep Dive into the Movie’s Plot and Set Pieces

The hosts dissect the film's intricate plot, which revolves around Ethan Hunt's mission to prevent a global nuclear holocaust orchestrated by an AI entity. They discuss key plot devices like the cruciform key and the "entity," drawing parallels to classic AI narratives such as Skynet from Terminator.

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the movie's ambitious set pieces:

• Submarine Sequence: Sean praises the cinematography and the intense underwater scenes, though he notes its quiet, contemplative nature might divide audiences.

  Sean Fennessy [36:04]: "I have no notes. He's in his 60s, it's fine."

• Biplane Finale: Both hosts express awe at the stunt work involved in the film's climax, acknowledging Tom Cruise's dedication to performing his own stunts.

  Amanda Dobbins [42:41]: "They just don't do it any other way."

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4. Critique of the Movie's Structure and Pacing

Sean and Amanda critique the film's pacing, particularly the prolonged first act filled with exposition and flashbacks that revisit elements from previous installments. They argue that this approach hampers the movie's momentum and detracts from the high-octane action expected from the franchise.

Amanda Dobbins [25:19]: "Two hours of throat clearing, 35 minutes of exhilaration."

Sean likens the first hour to a "clip show," suggesting it feels disjointed and detracts from the overall cinematic experience.

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5. Character Analysis and Performances

The hosts analyze character development, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses:

• Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise): Admired for his commitment to the role and performing his stunts, but some plot choices, like unrealistic aspects of his mission, receive criticism.

  Sean Fennessy [40:26]: "This is a challenge of the movie because...it felt like watching a clip show of a sitcom."

• Supporting Characters: Emma Stone, Halle Atwell, and Tramell Tillman receive praise for their performances, though certain characters like Janet McTeague and Hannah Waddingham are noted for limited development.

• Villains: Amanda criticizes the portrayal of Gabriel (Esai Morales) as a "lunatic," questioning the depth and motivations behind the antagonist's actions.

  Amanda Dobbins [43:05]: "That sucked."

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6. Comparison to Previous Films in the Franchise

Sean and Amanda place The Final Reckoning within the broader context of the Mission: Impossible series, comparing its narrative structure, action sequences, and character arcs to earlier installments.

Sean Fennessy [84:06]: "Mission Impossible in 2 is still better than Final Reckoning."

They discuss how the latest film diverges from the franchise's winning formula by sacrificing humor and global espionage flair for a more self-serious and convoluted storyline.

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7. Discussion on the Franchise’s Future

The conversation shifts to the potential continuation of the franchise. Sean expresses skepticism about future installments, dubbing The Final Reckoning as the second-worst in the series and pondering whether Tom Cruise will pass the baton or conclude his role as Ethan Hunt.

Amanda Dobbins [85:15]: "We think Final Reckoning goes to seven."

They acknowledge Cruise's strong association with the role, making it unlikely for the character to be handed over easily, despite mounting critiques.

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8. Rankings of the Mission Impossible Films

Sean and Amanda conclude by ranking the Mission: Impossible movies based on their personal assessments:

1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
2. Mission: Impossible – Original (1996)
3. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
4. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
6. Mission: Impossible – Mission Impossible 3
7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
8. Mission: Impossible – Mission Impossible 2

They attribute the decline in quality to factors like poor pacing, lack of humor, and overcomplicated plot structures in the newer films.

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9. Conclusion

Despite its flaws, Sean and Amanda acknowledge that Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning offers spectacular action sequences and remains entertaining for fans of the franchise. They encourage listeners to experience the film in IMAX for its visually stunning moments while expressing hope for a potential revival or conclusion that honors the series' legacy.

Sean Fennessy [91:36]: "It is fun. It is."

They wrap up the episode with teasers about upcoming topics, including the release of Lilo and Stitch and other film discussions slated for future episodes.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sean Fennessy [25:17]: "Now, obviously interspersed in this there are fantastical Set pieces."
• Amanda Dobbins [38:27]: "And all these people are like, okay, so you just have to bomb everyone else and set up. Set off, like, hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons and also sacrifice one American city?"
• Sean Fennessy [51:12]: "But he is just on the plane."
• Amanda Dobbins [77:30]: "I actually think that he will accept it with his team."

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This detailed discussion provides listeners with an in-depth analysis of Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, offering critical insights and thoughtful reflections on its place within a beloved franchise.

Transcript

[Sean Fennessy]

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellamy. I'm founding partner at Puck and the.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter.

[Sean Fennessy]

And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We'll cover everything from why your favorite.

[Sean Fennessy]

Show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never e lunch in this town again? Follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Doom the Dark Ages ID Software presents Doom the Dark Ages. A dark fantasy sci fi shooter that delivers searing combat and over the top visuals in an epic cinematic story worthy of the Doom Slayer's legend. Dominate demon infested battlefields with bone crunching tools of mayhem. Take flight atop the fierce mecha dragon or pummel enemies in a 30 story Atlan mech. Stand and fight on Xbox series X&S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Available now. Rated M for Mature.

[Matt Bellany]

This episode is brought to you by Lionsgate. From the world of John Wick comes the movie Ballerina, only in theaters June 6th. The greatest action franchise of the past decade is back, starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves returning. That's John Wick. Everything youg Love is Here. The mythology, the characters, the high intensity action. But this time, the universe expands with new faces, new settings and even higher stakes. Ballerina, Only in theaters June 6th.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Dobbins.

[Sean Fennessy]

And this is the Big Picture. A conversation show about Impossible, the Final Reckoning. And boy, will we reckon with it today on the show. Before we get into Tom Cruise's eighth and maybe final Mission Impossible movie, we gotta talk about Cannes. Cannes Film Festival's happening. It's been happening for the last 10 days. We're not there.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We are not.

[Sean Fennessy]

We haven't seen any of the films that are playing there. We don't have any insider information. We've been following it along.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We went to no parties. We did not witness Jeff Bezos slapping Lauren Sanchez's ass on a yacht.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, no, I did see that in the tabloids there. It was, you know, love is love.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was playful. To be honest, I have many issues with them, sure, but that was not one of them.

[Sean Fennessy]

They were There for Ken?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, just all the yachts are in town.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did he direct any films that are there?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Does Amazon get to bring anything to Cannes? Probably not.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting that you mentioned that. I was just talking about who would and wouldn't go to Cannes in season two of the studio on the Prestige TV podcast. Nevertheless, let's talk about the actual Cannes Fair because there were a ton of films that played there this week that I think are of significant interest to us. I would guess maybe three or four of them will actually matter to us on the show for the next 12 months. Do you think more?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, probably a few more, but you can talk yourself down. It's fine.

[Sean Fennessy]

You think more than four movies?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're throwing yourself, you know, along on this take of, like, it was fine. I don't miss it. Like, okay, just to bring everyone behind the scenes. Sean, as you all know, went on a golf trip with Chris and with other people I'm related to. And that makes it sound like I'm not really. I'm related to Chris.

[Sean Fennessy]

Your long lost brother Jim.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And you guys had a lovely trip and the pictures were cute and I'm happy for you guys. But you're on the way back and I'm on day four solo with my kids. My mom came to help. Shout out to my mom. But, you know, it was like bedtime. Things were getting tense. And you have the temerity to text me. So far, nothing makes me wish I were a kid. Like. And then like, emoji, like, shrug emoji. Cute girl, shrug emoji. And I literally. I just texted you back. I was like, I'm not receptive to this right now.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who's doing it better than me? Honestly, when you look back on your life and you see the way that I live, is anyone doing it better than me? I. I haven't missed being a can. There are a few films there that I'm excited about and that I hope to see soon.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's because you wanted your nipples out on the red carpet and that wasn't going to be possible.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't, unfortunately. That's not something I would have pursued, but I wasn't really following the red carpet very closely because I was golfing. But I was looking at a lot of capsule reviews of these films. So I've organized the films into a series of categories that I've completely made up. Do you want to hear about them?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. The first category is the heavyweights. These are the films that were met with great anticipation. This is not necessarily a qualitative judgment on these movies. But I'll just start with Nouvelle Vague. This is arguably the signature film of the festival, in part because it is a film about French cinema made by an American. Richard Linklater's new movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was already like, hey, you're missing one. But you've put that in a different category.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have. I'm not saying it is the most important or the best movie, but because it is a movie about the making of Jean Luc Godard is Breathless, starring Guillaume Marbek as Godard and Zoe Deutsch as Gene Seberg. The movie got very, very good reviews, I guess not surprising relative to what we know about Richard Linklater. But every once in a while he'll miss.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, he tries something and you respect the effort and are also like that had a lot of Jack Black in it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't say that. That does not seem to be the case on Nouvelle Vague. It was met very warmly and particularly Guillaume Marbek's performance apparently is quite good. He looks strikingly like Godard. We will see. This movie still has no distribution. I'm quite curious to see who picks it up. I'm also quite curious to see if it is anything more than a sinnias object of affection.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you mean that in the award sense or the box office?

[Sean Fennessy]

Everything kind of like, will this be a widely seen film or will it be significantly smaller? It doesn't really matter to us because we'll probably enjoy it either way. But for the sake of this podcast, it does matter in some respects. One of the noisiest movies at the festival is Die My Love, which we have been talking up quite a bit. This is Lynne Ramsey's new movie, her first movie, I believe, in seven years. It is a postpartum psychological drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Welcome.

[Sean Fennessy]

AKA the Amanda Dobbins Story. And it got mostly positive reviews, but kind of mixed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's like Jennifer Lawrence is lights out, as she always is, and it is about her. So that doesn't. I don't mean to diminish the wonderful Robert Pattinson, who is also apparently like quite good. And then parts of it are really amazing. But it is. I don't even. I don't know if it seems like a tough hang, but it's just, it is about a tough time in someone's life. So I don't know if like it's all just joy and wonder.

[Sean Fennessy]

I wouldn't really describe the cinema of Lynne Ramsey as Barbie esque. You know, these are not like fun romps Historically. So it's not surprising that I think it's kind of a tough sit. There have been a handful of films at the festival that are a tough sit. But you're right, Lawrence has gotten rave reviews across the board. It seems like she's an Oscar contender already and I think is becoming increasingly respected, which is weird to say for somebody who won an Academy award at like 25.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is she becoming increasingly respected by you?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, the answer is yes. The answer, frankly is yes. Mubi acquired this movie for $23 million. I believe that's a record for Mubi in terms of acquisition. And the thing that I said after the Academy Awards was, here comes Mubi. They are really getting this. They're making it a three horse race with a 24.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And Neon buying or distributing a lot of things at Cannes because obviously they got the substance at Cannes last year and are running with it.

[Sean Fennessy]

And they recently were capitalized pretty significantly in recent weeks. And their founder, I believe, was on the COVID of Variety. Was it Variety or Hollywood Reporter? I can't recall.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I read about it in what I'm hearing, Matt Bellany's News.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, so, you know, so die my love. Look for that later this year. Another film that's getting huge rave reviews and was recently acquired by Neon, which is a big sign that perhaps this film will win the Palme d' or is a simple accident that is also known as it was just an accident. This is the new film from the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. It's a thriller. Like his last couple of movies. It was made illegally without licenses from the Iranian government. Panahi is a very transgressive filmmaker when it comes to the expectations of Iran and also widely celebrated. This film seems like perhaps it is. Accessible is not the right word, but maybe a little easier to latch onto, say, than no Bears. The movie that he made a few years ago that came out that was also very celebrated, but felt very art house. And I think there's an expectation, especially with Neon jumping on, that they're going to try to put this in front of as many people as possible. It's definitely a leading contender for the Palm. If it wins the Palm, then you can expect to hear about it. Yeah, for a really long time here. The next film is highest to lowest. Yeah, I got a little nervous because the first review I saw of it was very negative. And I was like, oh, no, everyone seems to be. And then everybody else seemed to really enjoy it. Which is new Spike Lee movie, Denzel Washington remake of the Kurosawa film. High and Low. In this film, Denzel Washington is a high powered record executive who becomes ensnared in a criminal situation. And that's all I really want to know about it at this point. Apple is distributing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it's out August 22nd. Pretty soon.

[Amanda Dobbins]

As of now, maybe they'll change that.

[Sean Fennessy]

I hope they put it in theaters for a little longer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Denzel got a surprise honorary Palme d' Or.

[Sean Fennessy]

He did.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I think that feels a little made up. And you got to respect Denzel and give him a real award. But that's just me.

[Sean Fennessy]

What would the real award have been? Because the film's not in competition. So you can't give him best actor. Right. Because normally you'd just be like, put that movie in competition, give him best actor. And then Denzel has this Cannes moment. They didn't do that. Did they not do it because. And is it not in competition? Because they weren't sure if he was gonna go? That seemed to be the. That seemed to be the issue.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. And so then they just, like, made a palm door out of construction paper and, like, presented it to him.

[Sean Fennessy]

Or is it because Apple is the. The distribution company and they don't like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The streamers and they aren't allowed to be in competition.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, you know the famous no Netflix at Cannes situation.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. I don't know. A$AP Rocky and Rihanna were there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, they were.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And attending events. And they looked great.

[Sean Fennessy]

A dollar AP Rocky innocent.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Rihanna pregnant again.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Announced at the Met Gala.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're hot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. They seem really into each other.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've always liked Rocky. I have always been a fan of his music. And it would be fascinating if he was able to pivot in his midlife to being Rihanna's baby daddy and the movie star. That would be a real, like, circle the square version of life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm really open to it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I am too. The last big heavyweight. Which is not to say that there weren't other notable films, but some other notable films will slide into other categories. I think. Is Eddington, which is, I would say, was received about the way that I expected. This is the new movie from Ari Aster, which is an angsty, quote, unquote, accurate portrayal of American madness in the face of the COVID 19 pandemic. Great stars. Joaquin Phoenix in the Stone. And people were like, this movie really pissed me off. And I found it kind of annoying. And it's too soon to be shown something like this. Of course, for myself. Beau is afraid fan that I am. I Say, bring it on.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler are also in this movie. And so red carpet. Just lights out for everyone involved. Rooney Mara was also there with her husband, Joaquin Phoenix. They looked great. Yeah, Everybody did a good job. Photo call. Yes. Red carpet. Yes. Emma Stone got stung by a bee, but they can't keep her down.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that a fact?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, yeah, the footage, it's very good. It's very good.

[Sean Fennessy]

She gets stung by a bee on the red carpet.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And she does, like, a full, like, no kidding, Stone cartoon, like, reaction and then, like, keeps posing. It's very good stuff. She's a treasure.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know how I feel about her.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, next category. The big bumps now. You and I, worst person in the world, super fans that we are, had expectations of sentimental value.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is the new Joachim Trier film, his follow up to that 2022 movie, which is so wonderful. A reunion with Renata Renzvi, Stellan Skarsgrd and Elle Fanning are also in this movie. And the reviews of this movie are rapturous.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They are.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, the standing ovation meter means nothing, but this was reported as 19 minutes, which is just really long.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's really long.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's like, really long.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's like the length of the finale of the studio.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I really appreciate. So Kristen Stewart debuted at Cannes that she directed. And so the camera on her while she's getting her standing ovation, and she just looks. It's so like, what am I supposed to do right now? In a way that I thought I already love Kristen Stewart, but I was like, what. What do you do for 19 minutes?

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think we should be doing pods in front of live audiences and then getting honest standing ovations?

[Amanda Dobbins]

They don't do standing ovations at Telluride.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not in the clocked sense.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Cause at Venice, they do. And it's.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's a lot of older people maybe don't wanna stand that long.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I would think so as well. The other thing is that it's not like, you know, at the opera or the ballet or something where these people are up, like, on some stage far away from you, and they're just like, in the middle of the movie theater, and everyone's just kind of like, checking their phone and then also, like, half applauding. It's very strange. And 19 minutes is very long.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is one of the silliest of all of the film festival vagaries, and I don't really care how long it is. That being said, sentimental values, like 2x the length of any other movie that played this week at the festival. So that's notable. This film is an interesting one. It splits the two halves of the big players at this festival. Neon is distributing the movie in the us Mubi has it in Europe and elsewhere.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, we'll see.

[Sean Fennessy]

We'll see. I'm very, very excited to see that film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So am I.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Secret Agent is another one that is notable, which we also earmarked when we talked about the preview. This is Kleber and Mendofa Filo's new film set in 1977 Brazil. It's a thriller. It stars Wagner Mora Neon just acquired it. They're working really hard right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This is their time, you know?

[Sean Fennessy]

It is. I've heard this film described as like, a more propulsive companion to I'm Still Here, the film from last year. I'm into it, which sounds interesting. Obviously set in a very similar time in history in that country. So looking forward to that. And then the Mastermind, I believe, is premiering today. Right. This is the new Kelly Reichardt film. Which movie is also distributing? An art heist thriller set against the events of the Vietnam War. They posted a clip of that film of Josh o' Connor stealing something from a museum in a very subtle way to a jazz score. I was very interested.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I'm really excited.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. It's very. I would say it's very big picture coded, that film. Okay. The underwhelmers.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. People are just very rude to Julia Ducournau.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Julia Ducournau returns not so triumphantly to the Cannes Film Festival with Alpha. This is her first film since Tatan. Neon is also distributing this movie. This movie's getting dunked on.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I heard the phrase, by far her worst movie, uttered a few times about this. She only made three. Four.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Where? Where did you hear that?

[Sean Fennessy]

Just on the Internet.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. I was like, you didn't hear it?

[Sean Fennessy]

I heard it with my ey. I didn't speak to anyone who was there, but I'll occasionally get a missive from a journalist or a critic.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know me. I'm sort of connected.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. I just. I wanted to clarify that at no point were you on the quasit.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or anywhere in the south of France.

[Sean Fennessy]

Julia Ducournau called me, and she said, this is by far my worst film. And I was like, wow, that's an odd thing for you to share with me. We don't even know each other. The History of Sound also premiered yesterday. This is Oliver Hermanis period romance about two men falling in love secretly. Mubi also distributing this film. It stars also Josh o' Connor and Paul Mescal. Reviews were pretty, eh?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I think that the people who want to see Josh o' Connor and Paul Mescal fall in love will not care.

[Sean Fennessy]

Seems like maybe not as much fucking. That seemed to be some of the concern was like this feels awfully stayed and sort of restrained.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, well, you know, I didn't make up how things were in 1811 or whatever.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that when the film takes place? It takes place in the year 37.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I think there was more fucking back then. Just across the board.

[Sean Fennessy]

Very good point. You know, Phoenician Scheme.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I saw Megalopolis.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wes Anderson's the Phoenician Scheme, which I've seen, got mixed reviews.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't care. I don't care what anyone but me thinks. And then also, no kidding. Also Muchia Prada hosted a screening of the Phoenician Scheme at the Prada foundation in Milan. So I care what I think and what Muchia thinks.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's a very weird.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Excuse me for pretending I'm on a first name basis.

[Sean Fennessy]

Your personal Venn diagram makes no sense. But that's fine. I have seen the film. It's very, very good. So I'm not too worried about it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No one got Asteroid City even like when we were like, this is revelatory and the best movie ever and that we didn't put it on our top 10 list.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would describe the Phoenician scheme as very different from Asteroid City in terms of its intentions and in terms of its scope. But that's all very purposeful and I think maybe that like the pullback and the tight focus on a small number of characters may be throwing people for a loop. Has been so expansive in the last two or three movies that he's made. The new Dardenne movie also kind of arrived quietly. Young Mothers. It's actually been a few years since they've had a big breakout at Cannes. But let's talk about breakouts. Handful of quick titles. We haven't seen these movies. We're not going to pretend to know what they're all about. Most of them are from filmmakers we haven't seen films from before. But Sound of Falling was probably the first big breakout. This is Masha Kalinsky's temporal exploration of four girls from different time periods experiencing their youth on a German farm. And then those time periods sort of blend together in interesting ways. This movie was very, very, very well received and Mubi also acquired this one. We've said Mubi 300 times in the story.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, they're also. They're showing up.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're really in the mix. A lot of strong reviews for the Little Sister, which is Hafsia Herzi's new film, particularly the performance of Nadia Maliti. It's a French Algerian coming of age story about a young woman realizing who she is in the world. Seurat has been divisive, but has gotten some very strong reviews from Spanish filmmaker Oliver Lacks. It's about a father and a son trekking into the Moroccan desert to retrieve the daughter, who apparently is getting involved in some desert raves and some hard drugs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then there's been, you know, you mentioned Kristen Stewart's the Chronology of Water that premiered in certain regard. Your boy, Harris Dickinson.

[Amanda Dobbins]

If only he were my boy. It's apparently good. Urchin.

[Sean Fennessy]

Urchin got very strong reviews. His directorial debut, Pillion. Harry Lytton's BDSM drama starring Alexander Skarsgrd, feels very in your zone.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Did you see any of his red carpet looks?

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's going for it. He was wearing thigh high. I believe they were YSL for sale, them Wrong leather boots with his tux.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What a gig.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. And then Eleanor the Great. Not as great reviews for Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, which is starting. June Squibb.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like June Squibb.

[Sean Fennessy]

As do I. Of all of the movies that we've talked about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anything that you're like, I need this in my eyeballs right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sentimental value and highest to lowest.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, That's. Not much has changed. So this to my.

[Amanda Dobbins]

My point is, did we need to go to Cannes? Well, I think the Phoenician scheme.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, well, that'll be. I mean, the movie. That movie's out in a week. No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We have it on the calendar to go see it.

[Sean Fennessy]

We do.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I want to see Nouvelle Vague.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do, too. I'm very excited about that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The other film, that Mastermind, I'm excited.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. There's good stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm open to the experience of Eddington also.

[Sean Fennessy]

I should hope so. With the exception of Sentimental Value, though I would not say that there's a film that has premiered there that people have been like, wow, this is. This has really changed the way I see it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But last year, many of the people who attended Cannes were like, wow, I saw Amelia Perez.

[Sean Fennessy]

So. Very good point. It's a very good point. Should we be suspicious of sentimental Value? I don't know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, it can Be the anora.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, it can be the. It certainly feels like the anora and in some ways has some similarities. All right, enough throat clearing on this episode. Let's talk about Impossible, the Final Reckoning.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. You've seen it once.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've seen it once. You've just returned from the second season.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I have seen it twice.

[Sean Fennessy]

I wanted to see it a second time. We made plans with Jack Sanders to see it a second time. And then I lost power in my home, and I could not leave my home.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I also wanted to reflect on the circumstances in which you saw the film, which was in the afterglow of a Nick's win that you watched on Playcast on your phone very tensely in the front row of the IMAX theater.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And the game concluded right as the movie started. So you're as high a high as you could be.

[Sean Fennessy]

This was game four of the Knicks Celtics series, a game that I did not think that they would win and that they won in incredibly dramatic comeback fashion.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And we are recording this Thursday evening, one day after maybe one of the lowest lows in Knicks. I'm not an expert on Knicks history, but I did watch the last shot and then that overtime, and that was excruciating.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was one of the single worst sports experiences of my life. I've been appearing on many sports podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. What is happening with the Knicks broadly has been very exciting for me. What happened yesterday genuinely sucked out my soul. I felt really, really bad.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I would just say that you have some complicated associations with this film.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And your. And your emotions and the state that you're in when you're receiving Mission Impossible.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I'll. You know, we've talked about Mission quite a bit recently because we had fallout on our 25 for 25 list. We just did the Tom Cruise movie draft where Mission Impossible was a category. You and I are huge fans of this series, and it's honestly a big part of the show. And so this movie was very, very high on my anticipation list, which makes it a little bit of a challenge. I was just chatting with Jack before we started recording. The early word on the film was not super positive. And so I think that that has lowered the expectations of a lot of people who went in. But when I saw it and when you saw it, we were like, could this be the movie of the year? I don't know. We hadn't seen a single review.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's not the movie of the year.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not the movie of the year. I'll provide a few data points and then we'll get into our feelings about it. So it is Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. This is his fourth feature as Mission Impossible director. It's co written with Eric Gendriesen, of course. It stars Tom Cruise, Halley Atwell's back, Ving Rhames and Simon Peggar there, Henry Czerny and Angela Bassetter here, along with a rogues gallery of that guys and those gals and very notable performers and.

[Amanda Dobbins]

A couple scene stealers.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. And we will talk about the good works of Tramill Tillman very soon. So you know, he was wonderful in this movie. We'll talk about him. The major crew from Dead Reckoning is returning to this movie. This is of course a sequel. The dp, Fraser Taggart and the editor, Eddie Hamilton, who's edited a bunch of these movies. Production designer Gary Freeman, notably the composer Lorne Balfe did not work on this movie. And I will say within the first five minutes, I noticed because it is a different vibe. And Balfe's what Balfe kind of figured out, I think with McQuarrie played a part in my appreciation of the films that they've done together. So, you know, the story is it picks up more or less where the previous film left off. More or less.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sort of more or less. About three to four months later, it would seem.

[Sean Fennessy]

When we last saw Ethan Hunt, he was on a. What's that thing called? The what wing? The jet wing, the bi wing, the fly wing. That thing he jumps out of and like that sort of parachute out of the train.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Oh sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

He was sort of escaping. He had retained one half of the cruciform key.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, they don't. He had for the moment defeated Gabriel Esai Morales character who was trying to get the key which would then unlock access to control of the entity, the AI superpower that was sort of buried in a submarine at the bottom of which sea? The Bering Sea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Though I don't know if they know that at the end, at the time.

[Sean Fennessy]

They do not know where it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They don't. They just know that the keys were found in frozen ice.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And so this film is all about how Ethan Hunt is the only man that can retain the other half of the key, get to the bottom of the submarine, unlock it, grab control somehow of the entity and save the world from true nuclear holocaust. Yeah, that's the whole. That's the whole thing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now, obviously interspersed in this there are fantastical Set pieces. There is tremendous amount of self serious Tom Cruise dialogue. And then there are some other things. So with all that throat clearing, what did you think of Mission Impossible? The final reckoning?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Two hours of throat clearing, 35 minutes of exhilaration. And it's a real shame that they had to split the two movies up. It's very, very clear now that they had a story arc for and a villain and a beginning, middle and end for one movie. And then life happens, especially when you're jumping out of planes all the time. It got split into two. And so they find themselves at a real disadvantage. They've essentially. They've written themselves into a corner and have to set up a whole new set of stakes in the second movie that are preposterous, that take too much time. And I say that preposterous even in the context of a Mission Impossible film, which is supposed to be preposterous. But these are like. I mean, there's just like a lot of nuclear codes talk in this in a way that isn't fun. And so by the time you get to a truly stunning set piece, I mean, I've seen it twice. It's the biplane, you guys. You've seen the trailer, you know, but like, I cannot, like, Jack, am I wrong?

[Sean Fennessy]

You are not wrong at all.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We're going to be doing it. What is going on? Sean, you said to me yesterday that you don't want to see the making of the featurette of that because you just want it to be magic. And I think I agree. But I am also like, how. What? How did they do it? So it's in like, it's. And it's beautiful, by the way. They filmed it somewhere in South Africa. That is very beautiful. And it's like the red plane, the yellow plane, it's soaring, like, great stuff. I just had to sit through two and a half, two hours and 15 minutes of like, not super rewarding content to get to it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, we're more or less on the same page. I think this film in particular features arguably the highest highs of the franchise and pretty clearly the lowest lows. The first hour of the movie I found really, really unfortunate. There were a couple of choices that were made that you could tell in the first film, obviously reintroducing the Kittredge character in Dead Reckoning, that there was gonna be a focus on the entirety of this franchise. The history of the Ethan Hunt character.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, it's not that they haven't done that previously. Julia pops up in Fallout after, you know, Moving on from Ethan's life. So keeping the ball rolling on characters who mattered in previous films is not entirely new, but you could sense that they were trying to sync up 30 years of this franchise together in this film. In the first hour, it's not just that characters are coming back who we'd previously seen, it's that we're seeing sequences from those older films interspersed intercut in a kind of frenetic fashion that reminded me of almost. It felt almost at times like it was an hour long version of the now very familiar Impossible title sequence.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, which is a cool thing that I think McQuarrie in particular has done, where he shows you events that are coming in the movie during the credits. But this movie, while it's trying to move the plot forward. For example, there's a prison break sequence early in the movie, which is also a callback to something that happens in an earlier Impossible movie. And there's a series of these callbacks all throughout the film. But after this prison break sequence, which is pretty cool. It's kind of like a.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And there's like.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's a mask rip off.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And there's like a moment of humor when Cruz is, like, trying to, you know, handle the standoff. Like, it's not. It's not. Not funny. It's not the best opening set piece or the best set piece in the franchise history. But it's not bad.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's kind of familiar territory in a good way. You're like, yeah, we're back with our friends. And that to me is like the last time that the film is having any fun.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, so I. I remembered that as well. And so I looked at my watch this time. And that happens within the first 15 minutes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then the next action sequence, you know, give or take some. Some fighting.

[Sean Fennessy]

Some hand to hand.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, some hand to hand. Where even that is like, there's a choice for a lot of it to be shown off screen. That's like a little funny. But there's not that much action. The next action sequence is 70 minutes into the movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's a long way to go. And that first hour is extremely challenging, in my opinion, in part because there was a whole other movie that came before this movie that introduced to us the stakes. So I genuinely don't know whether or not that idea of showing us, reminding us of everything that had happened in the previous film and then also front loading that with the history of the franchise in that first hour was a studio note or something specifically that McQuarrie and Cruz wanted to do or felt was necessary, but it felt to me like watching a clip show of a sitcom. You know, when they would be like, ah, well, we didn't have time to make one for episode 22 this year. So it's near the end of the season and we'll have one character come out and start looking at a yearbook and then they'll remind you of all the great moments you had with this show over the years, which is just not cinematic. It's the opposite of what these movies are supposed to be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It really doesn't work. To me. It did feel like filler in the sense of they have a second act and they have. Which is the submarine and they have a third act which is convoluted but leads to the chase. Basically the movie. The part one or dead reckoning. Sorry, not part one.

[Sean Fennessy]

How dare you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Excuse me, I really. Mr. Cruz, I apologize. Dead Reckoning ends with like almost like with a shot of the submarine underwater in a way that I've. I was, I don't love submarine sequences, so. And like underwater things. So I was like, oh God, the next one's going to be all about. But so if, if the next. If you only have like two acts in your like story wise you got to figure out something to do if you have to make a whole other movie. I. Not great choices.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not going to tell this movie what it should be, but it's 2 hours and 49 minutes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

The previous film was a little bit shorter than that. These are by far the longest Mission Impossible movies. Why did the first act need to be 70 minutes and then the second act needed to be 70, you know what I'm saying? Like there, there was something in the design of the story and I don't know if that it's because the production was complicated and it keeps. Kept getting expanded or characters were getting added.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think we do understand that they, they do the stunts first and they build around. That they build around and they write like, you know, things on set. And so my husband did a piece with Macquarie for gq and it's great piece about how these things get made and there's a lot of good fallout stuff in there. I mean I'm biased, but whatever. And, but there is one scene where it's like they're just. They pull up like a reaction trove of just like Tom Cruise doing reactions in front of the mission screen and they're like no, we need something else. And it's just they have like hours of Tom Just filming his face in different ways so that they have the range of options now. Like, that is what movie stars do, and that is how franchises get made, and that is, you know, smart. But it also does speak to the fact that they are sometimes searching for the images or the plot pieces that will help smooth the thing together after the fact.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I recently made reference to. To something that Macquarie wrote about Close Encounters on the Rewatchables last week. And I had him on this show back in 2018 for Fallout. I've read a lot of interviews with him over the years, including Zach's. I think of him, really as, like, a samurai of movie construction. I think he's incredibly good at understanding great classical adventure films. That's like. That's his thing. He's like. He knows how. He has really admiration for, like, the Magnificent Seven and Bridge on the River Kwai and films like that that are in the mold of the Tom Cruise hero vehicles. And this movie just feels like it breaks so many of his rules, you know, especially in the first hour where he. And I'm. I genuinely was surprised and disappointed. And I can say on the flip side of that, the second act submarine sequence, which I definitely liked more than you did, and we can talk about it in some more detail. And then that biplane sequence that you're citing is as jaw dropping and as, like, worth your money as anything you'll see in a movie this year. Like, it is spectacular what they accomplish. And you can almost sort of forgive them writing the movie around those events, but not totally.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's just it. I found myself losing focus a few times when they were, you know, when they're. When they're doing all the, like, the nonsense exposition there still is that a little bit of, like, in jokeyness. And there are several like. So, like, that's the plan. Like, wait, you're telling me that this is the plan and they, like, kind of know, but it's never as funny as in Fallout when, like, Henry Cavill's like, what is it? Like, Hope is a plan.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You must be new here.

[Sean Fennessy]

You must be new here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah. But then even some of the filler is the only word that I can use for it where, like, I. And they're cutting between people hitting each other in different circumstances. And I was kind of like, oh, okay, this feels real shaggy. I still wish. It just is so clear to me. It was one movie. And it could have been a tightly McQuarrie structured movie. Or maybe not tightly, but at least more of the shit we like, well.

[Sean Fennessy]

It'S ultimately a five and a half hour movie. And in that way, it kind of makes it feel a little bit more like episodic TV with the biggest budget of all time. And it's just a drag. It doesn't mean that there's not. It's not worth seeing. It doesn't mean that it's not significantly better than most action movies. It's just that the bar for this franchise is very high and it does not meet the bar.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, it is still fun. I saw it with a paying crowd as opposed to the press screening, and people were hooting and hollering and laughing at the jokes and some of the absurdity and the things that are played a little bit for laughs, they were more willing to give into than the critics. So I had a good time. It's fun. If you're gonna go see it, go see it on the biggest screen possible.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. It is worth seeing in the IMAX format.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But I have a lot of nitpicks. I know this isn't the rewatchables, but I just. I have some questions I would like answered.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do as well. I mean, I think the set pieces are the things that are easy to say. This is what makes this movie special. There are a handful of moments. Particularly, the biggest gasp that the movie got out of me was the transition from the aircraft carrier to the helicopter to jumping into the Bering Sea, which comes in the second act of the movie after Cruz's character convinces the President of the United States.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Angela Bassett.

[Sean Fennessy]

Angela Bassett.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Congratulations, Madam President.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who was formerly the director of the CIA. So I guess George H.W. bush was as well. But I was like, in 2025, would the director of the CIA be the president? I'm not sure if I could see that, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The aircraft carrier was the George H.W. bush that he very much was.

[Sean Fennessy]

Very much. I just think there's a little bit more skepticism of those institutions.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I completely agree with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Just a small note, I mean, we're.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Also introduced to her cabinet, for lack of a better term, and really, like, her Defense Department. Sure. It's like, I haven't seen their credentials, you know, but I have some questions about their strategy.

[Sean Fennessy]

A lot of. A lot of hitters in there, though.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Colton McCallany, Nick Offerman, Janet McPheer, Charles.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In the last one.

[Sean Fennessy]

But yeah, it's like there's some real strong actors given 1.7 lines of dialogue in this movie. So anyway, he convinces them that he's the only One who can accomplish this extraordinary feat, which, when described in the movie, you're like, this plan makes no sense. It makes an Avengers movie look insane.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It does, because it's all about, they just have to outthink the entity. But only Ethan understands how to outthink the entity.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they just keep being like, no, the entity wants us to do this, so I have to do that. And the entity just wants to do exactly what Ethan thinks that they should do. And if they don't, then all of the world's nuclear missiles are going to be set up simultaneously.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. I don't know if you were a Seinfeld fan, but, you know, Costanza ing is a thing where George Costanza realizes one day, if he just does the opposite of every impulse he has, that he will have a great life. And in fact, it does go amazingly well for him for a stretch of time. And he kind of pulls a Costanza in the movie by outthinking the entity. But the things that he has to do to accomplish this Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are ludicrous. And this is fresher in my mind. I'm sorry, but. So he only has three days to do it because somehow we don't know how they know, but we know that exactly in exactly three days is how long it will take the entity to take control of the entire world's nuclear stockpile if Ethan doesn't get there first. So there's a giant countdown clock to three days because they understand enough about the entity to know its timelines, but not enough how to stop it all. Also, last thing, when he is giving.

[Sean Fennessy]

This speech, really bad writing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

When he is giving this speech before he jumps into the sea, when he's like, this is our only option. And there are three days left. Half of the world's nuclear stockpiles are already under control by the entity. The other half, including the U.S. which is the largest, are TBD. We are still only at DEFCON 3. And I got to tell you, like, and they. Everyone but the US is down by, like, day two, and it's still only DEFCON 2. And it is only when the US missiles are no longer available that we are a DEFCON one. And I don't think that's an accurate representation of the DEFCON system. I lived through the 2000s, you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't have enough data on hand to confirm that supposition, but I think you're probably right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, thanks.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, obviously, it's an action movie. It's ridiculous. We can, you know, say, ah, well, this is an Event, movie, whatever. Like, the rules are always a little bit ridiculous. Even in Mission Impossible, there are all of these bold proclamations made about what could happen, but they're so specific and.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They spend so much time and they. They want you to take this seriously. And also, once you're, you know, once you're showing us pictures of the nuclear missiles of every country that, you know, has them there, there's a tonal thing that's like, not quite funny enough for me to just be like, oh, okay, well, that you guys are just being ridiculous. So then I'm worried about defcons.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I. To me, this is a challenge of the movie because on the one hand, when he does jump into the ocean and is miraculously. I was like, woo. Like, this is like literally in the.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You were just like, yo.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was like, that was awesome. The way they shoot it, the way that Cruz is clearly shooting himself flying into the ocean. The just the energy of the action filmmaking that they can accomplish in this movie is fucking awesome. And we're going to nitpick the movie to death, but there are a few things that they pull off that are. That just like, get me so jazzed about movies, but everything leading up to it and then everything in the aftermath of it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, not everything in the aftermath of it, because then you wind up on the USS Ohio with one Trammel Tillman.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I think the way that he's saved is extremely unlikely. The frogmen on the submarine, like, float up just in time before he freezes to death in the Bering Sea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Even that I don't care. Because even. Even that's a cool shot where they like show up one by one and.

[Sean Fennessy]

You don't know if they're fairly, you know, there's some cool. Are they. They're Navy officers in the submarine, correct?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I would think so.

[Sean Fennessy]

So the naval officers say them. One of which is Katie o' Brien, last seen in Love Lies Bleeding. She's awesome in this movie. And Tramell Tillman is the commander of the submarine. I know you don't watch Severance, but he is, in my opinion, the best part of Severance. And when he showed up in this movie, I was like, this is gonna be good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Several people in our screening also cheered as soon as he showed up.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's just a terrific actor and somebody who can like, immediate. He reminds me of like, old school. Not in the same way, but like when Joe Pantoliano would show up in a movie and you'd be like, we're about to have a Fun scene here. Like, it's the same thing with Tillman. And he's. He's one of the only characters in the whole film, in my opinion, that has that old Mission Impossible feeling of like, what's this fucking Ethan Hunt guy doing? You know, like that thing of like, everyone's like, what's this. What's this guy's deal? Yeah, but it's funny and his delivery is very arch and amusing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Somehow has. He has chemistry with Cruz. So does Katie o' Brien. Like, they are actually interacting with each other and he's. He gets to both, like, be in on it. You know, he says, like, if you want to poke the bear, then you came to the right place. While also just like, absolutely casting doubt on every single thing. In a funny way. Like, he's funny. He has comedic timing.

[Sean Fennessy]

He really does. And he is on that submarine so that he can basically get like insta training to deep sea dive so that he can, now that he's in possession of the cruciform key, unlock the power of the entity. And then I guess the idea is to destroy it. Right. To make it inoperable for anyone so that no one can have.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Because Luther made him a poison pill. We didn't even talk about.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, this is a. Okay, I'm sorry. We went too far. This was a huge sin, in my opinion.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The way that they edited the storyline of Luther and Luther's death and the way that Gabriel set Luther up to be killed and drew Ethan Hunt into this, which happens in the first act. I forgot about this. I apologize. But they edited it in a way where they show you an aspect of it and then they go back to what really happens and then they go forward again to Luther's death. And I don't know why that was better than just showing it to us in a linear fashion. I don't know why that sequence was chopped up, because this is complicated in the world of Mission Impossible. But the most meaningful emotional relationship that Ethan Hunt has in his life is with Luthor. That is his best friend. That is the guy who has been his road dog in all of these movies. Ving Rhames is Team TC for life. And they kill his character, which I think is honestly a good choice. I have no problem with it. I wanted Chewbacca killed in the Last Jedi or the Last Skywalker.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You said it, not me.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I think that those making choices like that in movies can be very powerful because it shows you real stakes. And if you're like, this is the last one we're making big choices. We're not letting people survive this stuff. It could be done well. It just wasn't done well in this movie. But before he dies, he does make this poison pill, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which then Gabriel steals so that getting to Gabriel can be part of the tension of the movie as well. And then Tom Cruise has to like run through London really fast. I guess he has to run through London really fast to get to Ving Rhames. When I said that there was no action for the first 70 minutes besides.

[Sean Fennessy]

The prison break, there was some running.

[Amanda Dobbins]

If you count running, which it's not a sports thing. Maybe it's action to you. I did get a little emotional when he ran under the. Under Big Ben, but yeah, that sucks. So he has a poison pill, Gabriel.

[Sean Fennessy]

Has a poison pill. And Cruz needs to retrieve the access to the entity and then draw out Gabriel so that he can get the poison pill from him. That's essentially the plan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So here's another thing. The keys, it turns out, are useless. I mean, that's fine, a MacGuffin's a MacGuffin, but like, come on guys, what are we doing?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, what do you mean by it being useless?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it turns out that the Russians also have one, right? So whatever. I mean, I guess Ethan still needs it to open the place.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's like it wasn't this rare object that we thought it was. I don't think it's useless. I think it has value in that for Ethan when he eventually gets to the submarine and he does get to this submarine. And this is the second biggest of the dramatic set pieces in the movie, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's some shooting in between.

[Sean Fennessy]

There is some shooting and some sled dogs. Yeah. I mean, the other thing we should mention is like there's an attempt on Ethan's life when he's on the submarine by a zealot who believes that the entity should take power and that we see on news reports that there are people around the world who have turned their lives over in a kind of QAnon or Jim Jones fashion to the all seeing power of the entity.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The other thing to note about that sequence is that Tom Cruise defends himself and does the hand to hand fight in boxer briefs. Which is not the only time he will do an action sequence in boxer briefs in this film. I would say it's at least 15% of the movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm just going to be honest. He looks good. Like I don't. I have no notes. He's in his 60s, it's fine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And as long as I'm sure a.

[Sean Fennessy]

Lot went into that or whatever he.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Looks, it's just pure costuming choice that it is just like his boxer breeze for like a very long period of time.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's the same thing as him being shirtless and Jack Reacher for like six minutes and you're like why is this happening? But. But now it's 10 years later and he's still doing the same thing.

[Matt Bellany]

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[Sean Fennessy]

He typically looks very, very real inside of these fight sequences inside of these action sequences. Like obviously he is notorious for doing a lot of his own stunts or at least partially a lot of his own stunts. But he it's just very credible. For as a man in his 60s, I'm in my I'm 20 years younger than him and I'm dying. So I give him credit for that. The whole Subsequence. When he does actually become a deep sea diver, there's a couple of incredible moments where a submarine flies past him. That is quite scary and really, really well done. And then the film moves into, like a different kind of state where the music stops and we are submerged literally inside of this flooded submarine which is sliding down the shelf of the sea, the bottom of the sea. I really enjoyed this. I think. I think this may be a slightly divisive sequence because it is quite quiet and it lacks the kind of like derring do thrum of the best of Mission Impossible. This is a film and a series that is very indebted to James Cameron and a movie about AI a la Skynet from Terminator and then submarines and the world under the world of the abyss. It's just a lot of camera Ronnie. Absolutely influence going on. Maybe a little bit too much for my liking. But I did think that the way that they orchestrated the scene, it's another thing where I'm just like, I don't know how they did this. I have no idea what they shot inside of how they made that tank look the way that it did. How Cruz spent all of that time underwater is very obviously him doing all.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Of the swimming through the sea. He's definitely diving. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's something kind of extraordinary about it. But the quiet approach will lead to some people, I think, thinking it's boring.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it is also wordless. And I obviously, because he's just by himself underwater and he's focused on breathing. And then I think it's almost. It's over 10 minutes. It might be close to 15 minutes long. I found it a little boring. I am not a fan of the underwater sequences. I just kind of always feel like I'm watching someone get their scuba diving license. And that's. That's great for them. But there are parts of it that, like you. I'm like, how did you do this? It does look very real, but it's long. I mean, that's just the thing. It's a little too long.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is very long. Eventually, he is successful.

[Amanda Dobbins]

How deep do you think the ocean is, by the way? I have no idea, because they say he's going 500ft, which is like going to kill him. But 500ft doesn't seem that deep to me. So I just googled. It's 12,000ft is how deep the ocean is.

[Sean Fennessy]

But he's only going five feet.

[Amanda Dobbins]

500Ft, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

So the bottom of the bering sea is 500ft that he's at.

[Amanda Dobbins]

500Ft. Don't they say that Jack back me up? They do, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, that explains how he's able to survive because that's the one thing that I found quite confusing is if you were at the bottom of the ocean and your suit has been torn from your body as it is near the end of this sequence.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Again, that's boxer briefs number two. The boxer briefs stay on though.

[Sean Fennessy]

Google also says the bering Sea is 12,000 thousand feet deep. So.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I mean it's. It is on the ledge, as Sean noted. Like, it hit one part and like is going to keep sliding further. But they say he's just on a sandbar there.

[Sean Fennessy]

500Ft deep.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they're like, you can't at that depth. And they're saying this is like extraordinarily low for a diver. And you go any lower, your survival chances decrease by the second. The other thing they say is that. And this was just a good life tip. When you are going, when you're ascending back to the water, you have to breathe out continuously or else your lungs will explode. So that is one thing we learned from Mission Impossible Final reckoning that will.

[Sean Fennessy]

Be helpful when you are deep sea diving in the Bering Sea in the near future. Obviously it's extraordinarily cold there and most of it is also covered in sheets of ice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so they've got a chainsaw.

[Sean Fennessy]

The suit is torn. He somehow finds a space where he can be saved via chainsaw and then is CPR'd back to life in a. What is the tent called that he needs to enter?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's a hyperbaric chamber, right, or something like that. That's the pressurization, yeah. Oh, I'm getting thumbs up from Jack. Yeah, there we go. I know all about C technology.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's super dumb to be like, this is not realistic in a Mission Impossible movie. But I'm like, what the fuck?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It does look like a tent that you buy at rei. Like kind of a fashion one. You know, it is. It's chicer than you know, it's.

[Sean Fennessy]

But where did they get that? Simon Pegg just made that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, he has it in a box and he's like, our plan is that we have to get this box to wherever Tom Cruise tells us these coordinates to these coordinates. And then when Haley Atwell and her and her friend pull up the. The dog sled, they show it. They're like the. But it really does look like some sort of device that you order on Amazon to help your toddler get through A five hour flight, you know it does.

[Sean Fennessy]

You've just reminded me of the concurrent action happening alongside of the subsequence, which is that the rest of the team, which includes Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell's character Grace, and Paris Pom Klementeeves character who's very funny in this she retains some of the humor that is otherwise missing from the movie. She also arrives at the home of a man named Donlo who people will recognize as the original kind of quant designer of the security system at Langley from the very first film. And that space that Hunt is able to breach. Which then leads to Don Lo being reassigned to this arctic nowhere.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And he is to a listening station.

[Sean Fennessy]

A listening station, yes. Which is what many people are doing at home right now. They're sitting in their listening station quietly listening to us speak about the film. And Donlo's up there and he fell in love. He met a gal and a woman native to the area. And they spent some time falling in love and they built a life together.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sorry, just local woman falls in love.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty much how they pitch it to you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But they seem to have a nice connection and their house is lovely.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, it is. They've made a nice little life for themselves. Good rugs in the middle of goddamn nowhere. And he seems very happy about it. And.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And he of course is too many dogs.

[Sean Fennessy]

A lot of dogs. A lot of dogs. He's been keeping up on the technologies of the world. He's got a lot of info on floppy disks hidden in his house. This movie is fucking weird. But he has information that everyone wants.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And also the Russians are there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, the Russians want this information. The Americans want this information. We do have this potential nuclear holocaust that coming. And so access to the entity and power over this circumstances much desired. And so there's a big fight, that home catches fire. There's some hand to hand combat, some people throwing bookshelves on each other. Eventually Grace is able to escape thanks to Danlo's wife and his sled dogs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Grace and Donlo's wife are sent out separately with the codes. Because he memorized them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, the coordinates for where? For where?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Cruise. Yeah, but they're actually not the coordinates. They're the coordinates. Exactly. Halfway across the ocean.

[Sean Fennessy]

180 degrees.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In case the Russians were listening. That was.

[Sean Fennessy]

Which is fine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know what I realized that we also didn't even talk about Hannah Waddingham.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, not my favorite performance in the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think that I could have done that. You know, and like next time you Need a steely American. Consider casting someone who knows how to do an American accent.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's all. And I do.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you saying that you don't feel that women should be commanders of aircraft carriers?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think I should be.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. That would probably go really well for all of us. Eventually, Grace does meet up and she revives Hunt. And then the plan continues to pace where Hunt draws in Gabriel and they have a confrontation in South Africa. And then they go on a chase and then that leads to the biplane finale.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, but there's all this other stuff about another bomb that Gabriel's gonna set off that then everybody else has to defuse. Cause they gotta give them something to do. And then, like, Pom's gotta do surgery on Simon Pegg and, you know, on Benji. Excuse me. So it still is incredibly complicated. And I'm not sure I understand everything. Also, Angela Bassett has to decide to save the world in her own way.

[Sean Fennessy]

She does. She also has a son who is in the military. And whatever decision she makes will also affect him and the entire world. We're trying to get a little bit of emotional gravity around the President, which I don't think we needed necessarily in this movie. But it's nice that Angela Bassett's character has a son. The big finale is extraordinary, as you said. It is like top tier stunt filmmaking. The final 20 minutes of the movie. I just sat beside you, my mouth wide open.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So was I. And it was. Honestly, the reaction is like, what are they doing? How is he doing that? And now, you know, I still wish the hair were shorter, but I do understand why his hair is longer now. It's so that when Tom Cruise is literally hanging off a biplane as the plane is flying, the wind rushing flatten his. Flattens his hair in such a way that, you know, oh, he really is actually flying.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's on the plane. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

His skin is moving in a way that suggests they timed whatever treatments just so so they would be flexible enough to be moved by the wind. He is just on the plane.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's funny in a movie where we have a hundred nitpicks about our inability to suspend disbelief during this sequence. I was like, I think he might die. I think he might die. I think maybe they're gonna show us the film. Everything we've been seeing of him in the last two weeks must be recorded because this seems impossible to me. Pardon the pun.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know that there's that Matt Damon anecdote about, like, having dinner with Tom Cruise. And they talk about, you know, the insurance guys said no. And so Matt Damon said, like, oh, well, like, so what'd you do? And Tom Cruise goes, well, I found other insurance guys. But, like, who is saying, like, is it insured? It can't be. Like, how are they. How are they guaranteeing his safety? Like, what is.

[Sean Fennessy]

When you get to the end of the movie, when in fact he does survive, when in fact he does defeat Gabriel, he literally punches him out while holding onto the side of the plane and pulls him out of the plane and he dies a very grisly death. And he successfully lands the plane.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, he doesn't land the plane. He jumps out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, you're right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

With the parachute. And then the parachute bursts into flames. And that got a real gasp. Like, oh, my God. In our.

[Sean Fennessy]

So did he just land hard or was there a backup shoot?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Uh, Jack, it's kind of a backup shoot.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was a backup shoot. They don't really show you much of the backup shoot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They also don't really show you him finding the original shoot. And that's one of the last things Gabriel says to him is like, I have the parachute. Haha. And then, you know, he meets his end and then. Then the next time you see Tom Cruise, he's managed to find the chute.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a little rickety in the storytelling. Anyhow, he does land. He does encounter Briggs, the Shea Wiggum character. We have not mentioned who.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, my God. That was the. That's the worst part of the. Not Shea Wiggum. He's wonderful.

[Sean Fennessy]

The reveal of Briggs, which is that, in fact, his name is Phelps. Jim Phelps, maybe. Perhaps Jim Phelps Jr. He is the son, just like your dad, of the Jon Voight character from the original Mission Impossible. A man who betrays Ethan in that film. And it feels like a completely unnecessary callback to the first film because it's not really carried through in any meaningful way. We don't really see Phelps other than in South Africa a bit later in the movie. He's not, you know, he's presented as the potential, you know, the sort of like the. The bad guy's good guy, you know, sort of like the. The. The. The military operation, the FBI, the CIA, the person who is working to bring in Hunt from the American side. But he doesn't play a significant role in the movie until you get to the end where he pulls a gun on Ethan at the very end and you think, oh, my God, are they gonna shoot Ethan Hunt in the last two minutes of this movie?

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then he extends it and extends a handshake. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Could have Used more Shea Wiggum in the movie, if I'm being honest, he.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Was good in the beginning. I felt bad that he got saddled into that plot stuff. I still don't know what I was supposed to learn from it. Can we talk about Angel Bassett's plan to save most of the world? Sure. And all these people are like, okay, so you just have to bomb everyone else and set up. Set off, like, hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons and also sacrifice one American city?

[Sean Fennessy]

That's the one. That is the.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And in order. In order. Like, that's our only plan.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then when she finally, you know, bless Angela Bassett, Madam President, she says at the last moment, she covers the button. She's not doing it. And then she makes one phone call. They take all the missiles offline, and then everything's okay. I don't know. I just. I don't understand. I would get some new advisors.

[Sean Fennessy]

They all want her to. Well, let's just. Let's just talk it out. What city do you think they were going to target there?

[Amanda Dobbins]

They never say.

[Sean Fennessy]

Kansas City.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I think Salt Lake. No, I think it has to be like a major.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like a. Like a. Like a. A Tier two city in America.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Too bad. Sorry. Yeah, tough.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's what the Knicks did. Well, I mean, what. El is on the board here. Seattle. Is that on the board? Dallas.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, Dallas.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, that's a hugely populous area. Isn't Dallas the fourth biggest city in America? Like, are we talking that big but less strategically valuable? That seems to be what's. What's notable about this. I'm sure the people of Dallas right now are like, well, you shut the fuck up.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's really fucked up. But, like, no one even ever explains. There's no discussion. There's no. Like, there's like. Well, clearly, you'll just have to bomb everyone up. You'll have to, like, just bomb. Annihilate the world, clear all the other nuclear arsenals. Like, why.

[Sean Fennessy]

How would the entity not know that was happening?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, that. Well, because he hasn't gotten to the end of the third day yet, you know, so they. They know their timeline.

[Sean Fennessy]

You remember in Dead Reckoning when the entity is at that club and he's just like, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp, warp. You know, like, he's hanging out at that party. Like, he's there or she's there.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Frankly, we didn't talk about the entity coffin.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. You know another thing that was, like, clearly written at the last minute where it was like, don't go inside of this chamber.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Which is how he communicates with the entity.

[Sean Fennessy]

It will change you. By the way, I meant to tell you that I was the voice of the entity in that sequence. I'm really proud of my work in that film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That sucked.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was really not good. And I think what it was meant to do in part was not just to be an exposition delivery system to Ethan in the movie, but also to explain how Gabriel had gone completely mad. Because Esai Morales character in this movie is not this kind of steely, all knowing agent of fortune as he is in the first film. He is a lunatic. It's a completely different character. The way that he's playing it, especially in the final sequence. It's like, this guy's nuts. And I guess what Pom Clementye's character tells, what Paris tells Ethan is like, don't go in there. It will change you. And I guess maybe forced exposure to the entity has made Gabriel go nuts.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, that seems to be true of all the followers, you know, that there's something. But Gabriel does also think that he's going to control the entity. He does, because that's the other thing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Stupid man. Very stupid men. Okay, here's some things that are missing from this movie that are not really missing from other Mission Impossible movies. This movie is not sexy at all.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No. Well, I think they're trying to have like a little like cpr, like when it comes back to life.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's romantic.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it's like very hazy also. And there's like a deep breath that if you would like to, you know. You know. What do they call an orgasm in French? Like a little death. So, yes, there you go.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sure, that's a rather elegant.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But it's not sexy.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree. It's not sexy.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, this is a. This is a franchise that. That has hosted like Paula Patton exploding into that gala or Lea Seydoux in that hotel room. You know, this is the White Widow and Vanessa Kirby removing the knife from the side of her garter. Like, this is like one of the sexiest franchises. This is Ilsa Faust emerging from the pool in the One Piece and you're like, oh, my God, Rebecca Ferguson.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Tom Cruise is in his boxer briefs for at least 15% of this movie. I do agree. I thought that Hayley Atwell's ski parka was very fetching and the apreski looks were great. But, like, she is completely bundled up because they're in the tundra.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't mind saying Hayley Atwell, Smoking hot. Why is she in a parka this whole movie?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Listen, she is like my wife. If I had a wife. I'm with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's an unusual choice for a franchise that is sort of, you know, and the original TV series too, that there's something. It's a spy show. It's in a sort of post Bondian storytelling. So to remove a lot of those factors, obviously the stakes of the story are high. That shouldn't interfere with that. And the other thing which is just that the sense of humor is just not there. Even in Dead Reckoning, which is a little bit more serious and has all this AI stuff that you weren't crazy about the first time around, has the.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Submarine stuff, but it has the Rome sequence.

[Sean Fennessy]

It has Rome, it has the car chase, it has that Buster Keaton style slapstick comedy that Cruise really excels at. We forget that Grace's character is a pickpocket and they have that great handcuff sequence where they're switching arms and switching seats. There's all this kind of the close up magic and the flirting. There's none of that in this movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it's a mistake. I think. I think it is actually against the brand of what has made these films so successful. So I find that very disappointing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Agree.

[Sean Fennessy]

The other thing that I found was kind of missing ultimately is a very unusual sense of self awareness. In the last couple of Macquarie films with Cruise, we'd been hearing increasingly about the messianic nature of Ethan Hunt. That he is, quote, the living manifestation of destiny. Which felt ridiculous, but very knowing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sort of. Maybe not tongue in cheek, but with a sense of like, we're doing something with this guy here. Come along on the ride with us. Because this is going to be a crazy story. And in this movie it has kind of curdled fully into self serious messiah complex. And it's happening at a time when Cruz has fully become the avatar of movie savior. He's the guy who brought the theaters back with Top Gun Maverick. He's the guy who goes to see Sinners and goes to see Tenet in the movie theater and takes a selfie afterwards and says, I want everyone to succeed at the movie theater. The entity is clearly in some ways a metaphor for the algorithmic streaming revolution and the difference between human experience and communal experience of the movies. And sitting at home alone and letting a machine dictate to you what you should enjoy. These two things are mapped so hard onto each other that it's a little hard to enjoy it. Now, for me, yeah. And I know I'm like, really deep in the tank on the Cruise mythology as you are, but the balance was off on this one when it came to all that stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

For me, personally, I completely agree. It just the movie's seriousness in general and self seriousness and belief that we need to see lots of pictures of all of the different missiles. Like a lot of times getting ready to go. And even, like, there are a few kind of premonitions of disaster to come where McQuarrie and I thought they were very upsetting and effective. But they filmed and included random sequences of the world ending just to kind of bum you out. So it's not light on its feet. It's not like, this is silly. There is no sense of the ridiculousness about the movie generally. And so then that does mean that it can't like, wink to you or it doesn't really give Tom Cruise an opportunity to be funny also, which brings out some of. Or counterbalances some of the messianic stuff, I think. Also, again, it just really uniquely doesn't make sense in a way that you start asking questions rather than just being like, yeah, yeah, well, Ethan has. Has to do it. I mean, this movie, he's just been, like, hiding out in a hotel room for four months with the key.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a great note.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like, what? Like, okay, because that's.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's the most wanted man on earth.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it just bit and. But also, like, he got the key and then he's just like, well, I'll just chill out. I'm not really sure what to do about it, you know? Cause, like, on the one hand, you know, the destruction of the entire world. On the other hand, people say we really need the Internet. So I'll just. I'm going to be a neutral party. Like, what are we, the devil's bargain?

[Sean Fennessy]

And, you know, sometimes I got to look at Instagram. I don't know what to say. If we need to be annihilated because of that, so be it. So there's just a lot of Blu Ray boutique sellers on Instagram that I need to look at if it's doing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Too much and being too earnest. But there isn't any, like, escape valve of. Of humor or, you know, absurdity. They're just. There's one mask thing in this movie, as opposed to, like 4,000. Even the ridiculous gadgets are all about different ways to use AI to end the world or save the world. And really, like, they're not gadgets, they're just like a bunch of like laser, you know, what are the drives? What are they called?

[Sean Fennessy]

The floppy disks?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, no. The ones that you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, the one where they capture the entity in.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, sure, but like what is the USB sticks?

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh yeah. Well, there's one where it's like. It's a hyper terabyte mega drive. I didn't even know this could exist, but Luther created one. I actually love that stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's.

[Sean Fennessy]

To me, that's Mission Impossible. I like it and I like the idea of like Haley Atwell, the world's Greatest pickpocket, has 0.0001 seconds to grab it out.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She grabbed it.

[Sean Fennessy]

That shit is great to me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's great. Yeah, that's great. But even like the Luther making like the special device that will capture that whatever is shrouded in him also, you know, dismantling a nuclear bomb that's going to ruin London but is going to kill him. It's just like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Only the underground tunnels though will be destroyed. Not the entirety of London because of his dismantling. Yeah, yeah. This is. This is a flawed movie with. With incredible moments and it's really fun to frustrating lows. It is, it is. There's just a lot to it. And you know, like first, mission impossible is 1 hour and 50 minutes. 2 is 2 hours and 3 minutes. 3 is 2 hours and 6 minutes. 4 is 2 hours and 13 minutes. 5 is 2 hours and 11 minutes. 6 is 2 hours and 27 minutes. 7 is 2 hours and 43 minutes. And 8 is 2 hours and 49 minutes. This is something that is happening at movies, that this kind of length bloat is happening. Now. I love a good long movie. A movie that is. I love Killers of the Flower Moon. I wanted that movie to be as fulsome as possible. I think if you need that much space to tell a grand story, I completely respect that. This is not that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because of the shambolic nature of construction. You can kind of just feel them tacking 8, 7, 4 minutes into sequences that have no flow and no rhythm. And so that pacing that you were talking about just. Just hamstrings this movie or are clearly.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Filmed after the fact, you know, in one.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Reshoot city.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right? Yes. And you can almost pick out like, oh, interesting. Okay, this one, this one. Like I wondered this scene where early on in the first act when Erica, Madame President. I'm not on a first name. Braces with her is like she ultimately decides in this movie to send Ethan off on its way. But the way that it's shot is like, they're in the war room with her defense department of great TV actors. And.

[Sean Fennessy]

How dare you call Janet McTeague.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know. I'm sorry. I was just. It's all the boys is. You know, you got your Nick Offerman. You got your hold McElhinney. You've got your Charles Holt is.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, this is an icon of masculine cinema.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They're all just.

[Sean Fennessy]

We've just seen the man in the amateur.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They're great. Okay. But you understand my point.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so this scene ends with her being like, you know, lock him up or whatever. And then it cuts to two soldiers leading him outside, and it's revealed that she's, like, on a helicopter waiting for him. But I was like, oh, there was definitely a version of this movie where she puts him in prison. And he, like, actually isn't. Because of the way it's shot and the way that. You know what I mean? And when you can see that level.

[Sean Fennessy]

It'S possible that that was an alternative.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Route for the story of PC Ness.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I think that's a good call. Yeah. I had another issue I wanted to chat with you about, which is Greg Tarzan, Davis's character, Degas, who was Briggs's partner in the first film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But joins Ethan's side, throws away his career in the CIA to join the Impossible Mission Force, which I don't know what their benefits are. Like. Like, I don't know if that was a good call. Does it come with a vehicle? Like, I'm really not sure. But he is now joined up with. With this ragtag group of international criminals and fugitives because he believes Ethan is right. Like, I know this keeps happening in these movies where people are like, I'm on your team, but at least they're all imf, and, like, they seemingly went through a training program of some kind. This guy is just like, absolutely. I'm a hired gun for you, Ethan. Whatever you need. I will definitely put my life in danger over and over again, and I'll.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Just stay back here and help the couple dismantle yet another random bomb that we gotta pull out and cut the right strings on at the right time.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've befriended Donlo, and we will die together if nest necessary. And then they did. Very curious movie. What else haven't we covered off on?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I've brought a lot of my takes to you. They don't let Hayley Atwell cook enough.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not at all.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They don't really use locations that. I mean, I understand that the water tank is A location or whatever. But the first hour, give or take some running through London is just people in rooms or in bunkers, really. Or in helicopters.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're right. In summary, that this is a lot of TV actors, which I really have nothing against. Tramiel Tillman or Henry Czerny or Holt or Hannah Waddingham. I think they're all talented, but they're not Rebecca Ferguson. You know what I mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's true.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're not Vanessa Kirby.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The movie's missing some juice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it's. And it is missing all, like, the grand locations and, like, you know, the Burj Khalifa or the Palais Royale, which I never really got confirmation on what happens there.

[Sean Fennessy]

The center of Rome.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is like we're in a cave in South Africa. We're at the bottom of the Bering Sea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And we're in, you know, an underground bunker in London.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And the biplane exterior stuff is all outside. And In Zack's piece, McQuarrie says that they had trouble finding, like, governments that would let them do the biplane in their actual country. I think they got turned down a couple times. So that is beautiful. But otherwise, it is just. It doesn't have that kind of globe trotting vibe that is a fun part of Mission Impossible.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not saying that we should be the czars of Mission Impossible because we don't really know what we're talking about, but, like, we do know what we're talking about. And there's just a few checkpoints that I feel like you kind of need to hit with these films. And this one very curiously avoids or evades them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Let me ask you one more question.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. So the entity which is AI that, you know, can ruin all of us.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Just winds up in a little glow box.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. That's right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they just hang on to it, and then they just, like, bring it to the center of London.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. And, like, it's like when they caught Jafar in the. In the. In the lamp at the end of Aladdin, and it's just like, somebody's gonna rub that lamp, and then Jafar's gonna come back.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We have not.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then Jafar returned in Aladdin 2.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, we have not had enough fishing training as a society to, like, someone is gonna put that little drive in their computer. You know, it's.

[Sean Fennessy]

But that's leading me to my next conversation, which is, is this the last Mission Impossible movie?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I said, the minute they actually announced the stunt Oscar, I was like, they gotta do another one to get Cruise's Oscar. And I know you think he'll be like, no, it's just the guys. But I actually think that he will accept it with his team.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, there obviously is a remarkable stunt design team that works on all these movies. And Cruise, more so than most stars, maybe more so than any star, is at the forefront of participating in helping the design and obviously participating at a high level in the execution of it. The story. You know, he doesn't die. So it is not final in that way. Say the way that no Time to Die was. But it does feel like the end. And I'm cynical enough to know that if there's money there, that they'll come back. But the movies that he has been talking about in the press recently that he is looking to explore again, obviously he's got this new film coming with Inaritu next year. I think Top Gun 3 is very much on the table. There's another critical sequel that he was talking about. I can't recall what it was. Do you remember this?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Tom Cruise sequels. No. I was too focused on him eating two buckets of popcorn at every movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now some people have been mocking his popcorn eating style because he kind of tends to throw it. I support that. I think a violent popcorn consumption is fine by me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Days of Thunder.

[Sean Fennessy]

Days of Thunder.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. I just hot on the heels of the. So it's F1, but that's fine. I do feel that two buckets is a lot of popcorn.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, agreed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And doesn't correspond to the physique that we saw displayed prominently in Mission Impossible.

[Sean Fennessy]

Final Reckoning Popcorn unbuttered and unsalted.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. It's not that bad for you. That's true. But like at the. You know, I don't know if you can get the calorie control you're looking for at your local cineplex.

[Sean Fennessy]

I like to get a little Molly Water on mine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, really?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. That's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then you and the editor are just like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Such a strange movie. It's such a. It's such an interesting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But it's fun. I don't care.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is fun. It is. I just. You mentioned the high and the low of my experience.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Coming off that Knicks win of game four. And it was. There was also a Mets walk off win that night. And it was when the Mets were sort of peaking and they've actually had a bit of a downturn since that moment. They got swept in the Subway Series against the Yankees. They lost two of three. That's not true. They won one game. They won one of three. Sorry, Jack. Jack just woke up. And they also just lost two of three in Boston. They're on the downslope. Knicks obviously getting crucified publicly, which is painful to watch.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

It would have been hard for a movie to live up to the high that I felt watching that Knicks game. So I want to see the movie again. I said it to you as soon as we went out. I was like, I need to see that again. I kind of need to see it in advance. Different headspace. And it does seem like the second time that you saw it, that you enjoyed it more in part because of the crowd that you saw it with.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Definitely. And.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it did still have you scratching your head.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I mean, I was definitely confused, but, like, I. I think it's fun to talk about why the entity is just, like, trapped in a little Tamagotchi, you know, and then. Did you have Tamagotchis growing up?

[Sean Fennessy]

I was getting a little old.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Jack Tamagotchi. Yes. No.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nope.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Do you know what that is?

[Sean Fennessy]

Nope.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. It was a little creature. So it was like. Help me. Help me describe. Was like.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was a little electronic device.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was like. It was like. Yeah. Sort of like golf ball. Just for those of you that don't have a visual, Jack's just, like, nodding at us. I can only see his eyes, C.J. eckleberg style.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, deranged 40s talking about their youth.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, so it was a little electric electronic Tamagotchi thing, right, Jack? No, it's just like toy thing. And I guess it was like a tiny video game where you had to keep the. Being, the little animal, alien, robot being. Not really sure on Tamagotchi lore alive. And it would poop a lot, and you had to clean up its poop, but you were just, like, pressing two or three buttons, and it went with you wherever you were. And so if you were six, you were quite devoted to it. And it beeped at annoying times. And then there was a whole thing of, could you take your Tamagotchi to school? But then your Tamagotchi, which. No. But then your Tamagotchi was going to die. Real phenomenon. So now you guys just have real video games. Congratulations.

[Sean Fennessy]

This has been Amanda's Toy Corner. So, yeah, the entity is in a Tamagotchi. When we saw Dead Reckoning, you were more down on it than I was. I liked it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

In fact, I gave it four stars out of five.

[Amanda Dobbins]

On letterboxd.

[Sean Fennessy]

On letterboxd. Yeah. I had a lot of fun with.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is genuinely really Fun, but I like AI.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's what I was gonna say. That was. Your issue was ultimately like, I don't think the entity is a good villain for this franchise. We had a discussion about the quality of the villains on the Tom Cruise movie draft.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's a lot of Owen Davion, I think, came out the winner, the Philip Seymour Hoffman character. But, you know, Sean Harris character, Simon Lane, you know, much admired for his thoughts on anarchy. And I don't know if the White Widow ultimately nets out as a villain. It kind of seems like she does. Her absence was felt deeply in this film for me, in part because I knew that she filmed stuff for it and they didn't put it in. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What? I don't remember what happens to the White Widow at the end of.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's on the train and she makes the deal with Kittredge, and then she's just gone.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because she's been doubled by Hayley Atwell.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And she's also a CIA agent. Operative.

[Sean Fennessy]

Operative. Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

So now having seen the film, I actually think the entity is still a good idea. I don't actually think that's the problem. I think everything with the entity in this movie is overwrought. But it is like a. It is a good way to threaten the world, you know?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But again, they, like, the stakes are like, just unplug it, you know, and that's like, literally what they do. They just. They unplug it.

[Sean Fennessy]

And unfortunately, that's not how AI works, because I've seen the Terminator.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They unplug both the. The vault that's in. Under where is like the. The protect all the servers.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, another thing where I'm like, where's. What is this place? This is a real place.

[Amanda Dobbins]

These servers that can never, never be destructed, that are ruining our environment, but then they also just unplug. Unplug the US's missiles and, like, it's fine.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not ideal. Okay, well, as we get to the end of this discussion. Okay, we need to update our Mission Impossible rankings. Now, I've revisited some of these movies in the year and in two years since Dead Reckoning. Not all of them. We, I think, quite famously had Mission Impossible 2 as our least favorite.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now many of the real heads are putting Final Reckoning near the bottom.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think that's probably the case.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think so, too. So I would keep. I still prefer this movie to two.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I do as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

There is stuff in two that I quite enjoy, obviously, the throwing motorcycles at each other. Stuff is pretty extraordinary. John Woo stuff. There's, you know, we've got doves flying in the air.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And there is something hanging from the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Cliff in the opening sequence, which is awesome. Yeah. It's sick, but it's very flawed. Now is the Final Reckoning the second worst Mission Impossible movie. It might be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Bob's not here for Mission Impossible 3.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nor Chris.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Nor Chris. Nor Bill.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, that was. He was just jumping on the bat. He doesn't really believe that. He hasn't seen Mission Impossible 3 in 15 years.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He was really funny, though. I love Bill.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So what? Well, three has Philip Seymour Hoffman and this has a Tamagotchi.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I think. I'm with you. I think. I think Final Reckoning goes to seven.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think you all, all of the three heads need to look yourself and your visual standards in the mirror.

[Sean Fennessy]

But shame on these people trying to tell me that it doesn't look like tv. Come on, guys, get the fuck out of here. So then Mission Impossible 3 would be 6.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now, does that mean that Dead reckoning goes to 5? A film you just drafted in the Tom Cruise movie draft?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Well, that was. That was strategy, my guy. That was desperation.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm aware. I'm aware.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

News flash. I don't think either of us won that draft.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So that's. Yeah, that's five.

[Sean Fennessy]

So then. And I would say that three and Dead Reckoning. I prefer Dead Reckoning, personally. I think it's superior. I think the scale, the scope, the sense of humor, the Nelly at.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, the Rome. Yeah, I do as well. So then, Vanessa Kirby.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. We're down pretty clearly to the top four.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, even though what they did to Rebecca Ferguson in Venice is unspeakable.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, there's something really, really, really great, though, about that scene.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's. I understand. I was rewatching it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's really. It's very good. But again, we've really felt her absence in this.

[Sean Fennessy]

I just want to go back to it really quickly, though. It's the alleyway fight between Paris and Hunt, where he doesn't kill her and he bangs the lead pipe against the brick wall and lets her live. Which then was a good storytelling choice. Cause it lets Paris kind of glide through the story in a meaningful way. And then that leads to that bridge sequence when they fight and they have that knife battle, which is just incredibly elegant action filmmaking. Now, obviously, a lot of people were not happy with Rebecca Ferguson's death. Some deemed it fridging. I'm not sure. If it can be fridging when, like, the character is not even. Her name is not uttered in this film. She's not even. Neither she nor the White Widow come up at all in this new movie. Nevertheless, you're right. She was missed. Number four. There's been some discussion about whether Ghost Protocol's underrated in the aftermath of our draft. Because it went so late, Bill got to get it pretty late.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But that's.

[Sean Fennessy]

We obviously did him a big favor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. That's people kissing up to Bill, which is fine. So Rogue Nation. I realize I don't really remember very much about Rogue Nation, even though I've seen it recently.

[Sean Fennessy]

Chris kept asking me, is that the one Rogue Nation, the one where they bombed the Kremlin? It's not. That is actually in Ghost Protocol.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay. And then Ghost Protocol. I mean, Rogue Nation. He's hanging on the plane. Is that where there is also, like, an extended underwater sequence?

[Sean Fennessy]

There is, yeah. It's a big circular.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. See, and I like. I don't. I find that boring. So I. I'm okay with.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, you're going to. So you want to put.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I'm just for, like, Burj Khalifa.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Rogue Nation's introduction of Ilsa Faust. Well.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, yeah. When she's, like, in the desert and just. I mean, that's good. I was just doing some fake punches. That's how I fight. I don't think I feel very strongly, honestly.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll let you make the call. You want Rogue Nation to be 4?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, so Ghost Protocol is Burj Khalifa, Jeremy Renner bombing the Kremlin, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, and Lea Seydoux. So that's powerful.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's Brad Bird as the director. I find the plotting of that movie not great. And Burj Khalifa a little overrated. It is iconic, but the scene itself is fine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Blue is glue, Red is dead. Is really good.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is good. Okay, I'll let you have that. That means Ghost Protocol goes to three. I believe last time we landed on the original Mission Impossible is two behind Fallout.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We did.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that still true? I have not rewatched the original in some time, even though it is a very. It's a big one for me. And you did get it in our draft.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did. I do think it's still true. I mean, we. We also just kind of have to stand by our own internal logic of, like.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, but knowing what you know now about Don Low, I thought that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The download is the only callback that I actually didn't really mind.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't mind it either.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I thought there was a whole thing where they tried to retrofit 3 in where apparently what Ethan was stealing, the rabbit's foot, was actually this code that created the entity, which, like, whatever, you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Know, that was kind of a low for me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That, plus the, you know, Shea Wiggum stuff. Shea Wiggum, innocent. Makes me. I don't know. It didn't work. Mission Impossible 1 and all of the download stuff I liked and they, like, use effectively, but I still just think in terms of, like, pure action.

[Sean Fennessy]

Fallout.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Well, here are our official rankings before we wrap up this conversation. Number eight is Mission Impossible 2. I'm sorry to John Wu. It's just a fact. Mission Impossible, the final reckoning is 7. Mission Impossible 3 is 6. Mission Impossible dead reckoning no longer part one is 5. Mission Impossible rogue nation is 4. Mission Impossible ghost protocol is 3. Mission Impossible from 1996 is 2. Mission Impossible fallout is number one. So this series won't be back, so they say. Paramount is now owned by Skydance and David Ellison.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That finally went through because they saved. They caved and everything.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it seems like it's gonna happen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, it definitely seems like they're gonna. It feels like we're recording this on Thursday night before Memorial Day, and it seems like we'll find out tomorrow.

[Sean Fennessy]

Certainly feels in play. Now, obviously, Skydance is a participant in the Mission Impossible movies. In fact, this is among the most successful things that they've ever done. Is kind of like bringing this series back in a big way and McQuarrie being a big part of that. So I'm not ruling out nine happening. Do you think he would ever pass the baton? There was the aborted baton pass with Renner.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

So we dodged a bulletin, in my opinion. In that one, I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Listen, I'm. I'm glad that we got fallout, you know, I'm glad that we have this moment with Tom Cruise. I don't think it was, like, his proudest moment in snatching it back. Yeah, so I was like. It was a little. Oh, boy, this is. This is desperate. I don't think he will.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Maybe he just recruits in the same way with Maverick. I guess he'll hand it off. Maybe he'll hand it off to several people. It never works. But it doesn't work.

[Sean Fennessy]

It never works.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So, no, he's not going to let another guy be the guy. Come on.

[Sean Fennessy]

The extraordinary balance of giving credit to everyone else and the psychotic, wonderful ego that powers these movies, it's very, very unique. Anything else you want to share?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I had fun.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, then.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This was fun. Do you think that the people listening at home enjoyed this, or do you think they just didn't like the movie? And it was, near as I can.

[Sean Fennessy]

Tell, they never do.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And yet the show continues apace. So I appreciate those, the silent majority of listeners who really love this show and don't share any feedback about that. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. I hope people have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We have not said the words Lilo and Stitch yet on this episode. That is the other major film that is opening this weekend, and I suspect it will absolutely destroy Impossible at the box office based on the early projections. Next week on the show, on Memorial Day, we will unveil our latest 25 for 25 installment. No clues for that one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then on Wednesday, we will have seen Lilo and Stitch. I'm not sure if I have a whole episode on Lilo and Stitch in me, but I wonder if there is something to be said about the children's entertainment right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, we can do that. But also, what about friendship?

[Sean Fennessy]

And friendship, of course. So do you think people are going to see it? This is the new Tim Robinson Paul Rudd comedy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We have been seeing it in very small doses, but it does go wider. Did you see it? I did see it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I'm ready. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, then we'll talk about friendship. So if people can see friendship, they should see it. Do you think friendship and Lilo and Stitch were well matched?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I haven't seen Lilo and Stitch yet, but in a way, I guess it is about.

[Sean Fennessy]

You have an animated film?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I have, and I was just about to say it's about unlikely friends who are perhaps struggling to fit in in the world around them and find each other. And then.

[Sean Fennessy]

Does that remind you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Anyone get up stuff? Yeah. I mean, I see. I saw Friendship while you were on your golf trip, so that's. I have thought a lot about that.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's the pinnacle of male loneliness amidst the pinnacle of male loneliness.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you for listening to the show. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for trusting us one last time. Sam.