There's an episode of 'The IT Crowd' where Chris O'Dowd's Roy and Richard Ayoade's Moss go to the theatre with their boss Katherine Parkinson's Jen when she is meant to be on a date.
The very camp musical they go to is terrible.
However Moss is so impressed, he declares at the interval that the show is "insanely brilliant!"
Watching 'Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning,' the last instalment of Tom Cruise's blockbuster espionage franchise, I felt like Moss.
The plot is preposterous.
The pacing in the first hour is leaden.
The dialogue is, at times, ear scraping.
And yet,.. I found myself grinning throughout and relishing every frame.
The eighth and supposedly last instalment of a franchise that began with Brian de Palma's first 'Mission Impossible' film in 1996, the movie directed by Christopher McQuarrie knows exactly what its audience wants.
The fanbase expects big, death defying stunts performed by Tom Cruise, edge of your seat gun battles, lots of action taking place in tunnels, villains plotting the end of the world, fist fights galore, plenty of exotic locations, hi tech gadgets, smart arse quips from Simon Pegg, the occasional surprise death and loads of scenes of Ethan Hunt running or dangling from things - lots of running.
And that's exactly what we get in 'Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning' - although Cruise and McQuarrie don't just deliver all these elements, they really go for broke.
Picking up from the seventh film, 'Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning,' Tom Cruise's agent Ethan Hunt has gone underground once more after taking control of the cruciform -a key to the source code to a malevolent AI program known as The Entity which is threatening mankind.
Contacted by the US President Angela Bassett's Erika Sloane, a former CIA boss from his past, she appeals to him to surrender the key to prevent The Entity from seizing control of the world superpowers' nuclear arsenals and triggering Armageddon.
Hunt is reluctant to do so and instead plots a way to disable The Entity with his old Impossible Mission Force comrades, Ving Rhames' computer technician Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg's field agent Benji Dunn and a recent recruit to the IMF cause, Hayley Atwell's Posh Spice lookalike Grace who is an expert pickpocket.
However an old nemesis, Esai Morales' Gabriel has designs on controlling The Entity too.
He captures Ethan and Grace after they infiltrate a US Embassy reception in London.
Instead of torturing them, he tries to coerce Ethan into doing his dirty work by tracking down a submerged Russian submarine at the bottom of the ocean in the Arctic Circle which has a device known as the Podovka that will give him access to The Entity's source code.
Realising Luther is developing malware known as "the Poison Pill" to take control of The Entity, Gabriel sets off to retrieve it and leaves Ethan a message when he succeeds.
Our hero is informed that he is to bring the Podovka to South Africa and hand it over to Gabriel once he has retrieved it from the submarine.
As The Entity seizes control of nuclear weapons in France, Pakistan and Israel, with the UK, Russia, China and US in its sights, President Sloane dispatches Henry Czerny's former IMF director Eugene Kittridge and his right hand man, Shea Whigham's Jasper Briggs to deliver Ethan to the US.
They manage to do that after Ethan and Benji recruit one of Briggs' team, Greg Tarzan Davis' Theo Degas and one of Gabriel's old associates, Pom Klementieff's French assassin Paris to their team.
Summoned before the President, Janet McTeer's US Secretary of State Walters, Nick Offerman's Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Sidney, Holt McCallany's Secretary of Defense Serling Bernstein and Mark Gatiss's National Security Agency chief Angstrom, Hunt stuns them by boldly demanding access to a US air carrier in the North Pacific to undertake one more mission.
He plans to retrieve the Podovka and thwart Gabriel and The Entity's devious machinations but the chances of him succeeding seem a long shot.
But even with the odds massively stacked against him, surely President Sloane knows Ethan is the right man for the job?
If we are being honest, we must admit that there are many things about 'Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning' that are laughable and they really ought to undermine the film.
The first hour is a bit like wading through treacle, with characters spending time telling us what a great man Ethan is.
In fact, it is so effusive it feels like they building him up like he's a Messiah.
There's really no need to tell us, though, about all the wonderful things Hunt and his IMF comrades have done in previous films but they do it anyway.
McQuarrie and his co-screenwriter Erik Jendreson should know better.
We don't need to hear all this. Many of us know what happened in previous films. After all, we paid to see them.
There's lots of action sequences too of Cruise fighting or performing stunts in his underpants - I'm not sure what that's all about.
There's a bizarre fight sequence offscreen early on as well, where we are reduced to watching Atwell's facial expressions as it unfolds unseen.
This is oddly reminiscent of the bizarre final face off in Michael Flatley's ridiculous espionage action movie 'Blackbird'.
Its so odd you can't help but feel it's an in joke.
And yet.. somehow the final installment in the franchise works despite its bloated two hours and 50 minutes running time.
A lot of that is down to its breathtaking action set pieces, with the underwater search for the Podovka and the final face off between Morales and Cruise on a biplane the big tentpole moments.
Audiences will be stunned and it is even more remarkable that a 62 year old movie star risks life and limb performing death defying stunts like these.
The sequences are superbly shot by cinematographer Fraser Taggart and also brilliantly edited by Eddie Hamilton.
As for the cast, Pegg, Rhames, Atwell, Klementieff and Davis gel perfectly as the members of Hunt's team - relishing every morsel of their ridiculous dialogue.
Bassett, Offerman, McTeer, Gatiss, McCallany, Czerny and Whigham do exactly what is expected of them - butting up against the IMF and getting in their way.
Morales provides the snarl you'd expect from an evil 'Mission Impossible' villain.
'Ted Lasso' star Hannah Waddingham has a lot of fun appearing as an American naval commander Rear Admiral Neely, while Trammell Tillman is a good addition as the commander of a rescue sub Captain Jack Bledsoe.
In a nice callback to the first movie, Rolf Saxon makes an unexpected return as CIA analyst William Donloe.
The film, however, belongs to Cruise and while he is beginning to look his age, his physicality remains impressive and his charisma is undimmed.
McQuarrie's film, though, shouldn't be taken seriously.
It is a piece of escapism that is simply there to be enjoyed and that's exactly what happens.
This installment may not sit in the top tier of the 'Mission Impossible' films but it's still one hell of a ride.
However let it really be the last one.
Better to go out on a high than wheeze and splutter about the place like 'Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny'.
Let's hope that the final mission Cruise's agent actually accepts is retirement.
Ethan Hunt has earned the right to put on his slippers, drink cocoa and snooze in front of the telly after a taxing day pruning the roses in the garden.
Let's keep that off our screens, though and hope he is wearing more than just his underpants.
('Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on May 21, 2025)
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