Stuff I’ve Read, Watched, Done #29 – December 27th, 2021

What did I do lately? Well, a whole lot of Christmas!

That’s right, it’s been the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you be of good cheer!

Mission Impossible Fallout (Light Spoilers)

The Mission Impossible films started off as standalone stories that didn’t really have anything to do with one another, aside from the fact that they were all modern day approaches to the 1960’s TV series.  They all starred Tom Cruise, and they all featured Ving Rhames in a supporting role, they all had self-destructing messages and lifelike rubber masks, but aside from that there was barely any connective tissue between them.

That all began to change with the fourth movie, which had to deal with the fact that main character actually got married in the previous one.  After that, the sense of ongoing development continued to develop so that in the latest entry, Mission Impossible Fallout, there are no less then seven returning characters, including for the first time, the movie’s female lead and the main villain.

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (and a look back at the franchise as a whole)

I will get to my thoughts on the new film Mission Impossible Rogue Nation in just a moment, but first, a bit of context…

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Mission Impossible franchise. For example, I love the original TV series from the 1960’s. (Do you guys even know that it’s based on a TV series? So many people I talk to haven’t got any idea). I loved characters played by the likes of Steven Hill and Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. I loved the weirdly repetitive formula with the self-destructing tape bit, the needless dossiers, the apartment scene, the really complicated scams, the brazenly confident drive away at the end of each job completed…