Your (Guide To) Mission…

(On the road in the minivan. Kids are in the back of the van watching the dvd player.  My wife and I are in the front.  I’m driving.  Wife riding shotgun looking at her phone. She turns to me and says:)

“Ugh. I just read that they’re making ANOTHER Mission Impossible movie?”

“Yeah, I saw that.” I say.

“How many are there?”

“Five.  This will be the sixth.”

“I remember marrying you for your math.  (Pauses) I cannot remember what happens in any of them.  Like I couldn’t tell you which is which.”

“Oh it’s easy to tell them apart.  They go short hair, long hair, short hair, long hair, medium hair.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“His hair.  Tom Cruise’s hair length in each movie.  That’s how I tell them apart.”

“By his hair?  You’re a psycho.”

“Well not just by his hair.  I can recall like, bullet points about each one.  Like I can pick one or two things out in each one that makes me recall which one it is.”

“Like what?”

“Well the first one is the best one.  It’s the one where he’s dangling like a Sound of Music puppet checking his email in that real quiet room?”

“I’ve never regretted asking you something more in my life.”

“I know.  It was directed by Brian DePalma.  Yeah, God DePalma is killing it with his God DePalma single take stedicam scenes and split screens like a boss.  Weird zooms and focus shots.  It’s amazing. It’s all 90’s with 90’s big thick ass laptops and 90’s generic prehistoric internet graphics and terms about hacking.  They talk a lot about hacking.  And there’s Max The Arms Dealer and the NOC list and Kittridge and bubble gum bombs and Ving Rhames hacking. And Cruise is doing crazy stunts and gags like jumping fish tanks and jumping on wires and jumping on trains.  It’s like the most jumping a movie had done up until that point.  And he’s got short hair. That one rules.”

“You going to keep going?”

“Yep.  So then there’s the second one and it’s the one that has Limp Bizkit doing the classic Mission Impossible theme but with Limp Bizkit lyrics.  Like, (Fred Durst voice) ‘why you wanna hate me?!!!’.  And it has this like motorcycle karate dance fight that goes on for about twenty minutes.  It’s a bit much.  And it’s so macho.  Like the Limp Bizkit and the motorcycles and there’s lots of black and leather jackets and muscles and fire.  And it’s all slow motion.  Like the last action movie that used slow motion before Mr. Jason Bourne came on the scene and made up the rule that all action had to be shot and shown faster than the human eye can process.  And Tom Cruise is totally showing off all these dumb skills he has. Like, watch me climb a mountain free hand and ride this motorcycle upside down and all kinds of cocky self masturbation thrown in for absolutely no reason. And his hair is long.”

“You do watch the kids during the day and not just sit around thinking about this stuff right?”

“Sometimes.  So then we get to the third movie.  And the only things I can remember about that one are it has this super scary suspenseful opening where Phillip Seymour Hoffman is like freaking screaming at Tom Cruise and his girlfriend.  Like just going ballistic. And it’s terrifying and crazy intense and when it’s over you’re like what the hell was that?  This movie is going to be amazing!  And then after the credits it cuts to this like super awkward boring engagement party scene.  And you’re watching it and you’re like what happened to the scary and the screaming? What is this like cocktail party shit? And Tom Cruise is being all awkward charming and all his girlfriend’s friends are like (Valley girl voice) ‘he’s so perfect’. Which is a lie because we all know Tom Cruise is a robot and does not understand human behavior.  And at the party they’re playing those old songs We Are Family and You’ve Got The Best Of My Love. Which are songs that are ONLY ever played at parties in the movies.  No actual real life party has ever played those songs.  And he has short hair and I can not remember another single thing about that movie.”

“Oh good that’s all the movies. You don’t have to explain any more. You’re all done now.”

“Nope. Now the fourth movie.  He wears a jacket sweatshirt combo with the hood up a lot and has long hair.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.  I can literally remember nothing about that movie but for good chunk of it he dresses like a trustfund skateboarder who’s looks like he’s going to hook up with Banksy to go tag some walls. It’s ridiculous he’s like 60 years old. I’m sure Tom Cruise saw some kids hanging out at Hot Topic in the mall and was like, ‘that’s how I should dress for the new movie’ and no one told him how ridiculous that looks.”

“Nothing else?  At all?”

“Nope. There’s maybe a building and a desert and some iPads but I cannot say for sure.  But he’s got long hair again.  Oh!  And it’s got the dumb name.  Starts that whole nonsense subtitle trend.  Like Ghost Protocol or some other nonsense words.  Like take two words that sound vaguely secret agent-y and slap them together and you have your title.”

“I get it.  Like ‘Chaos Recruit’.”

“Yeah exactly or ‘Stealth Recon’.”

“Shadow Burger.”

“Oh man that is amazing. I pray the next movie is called Mission Impossible: Shadow Burger.  Where was I?”

“Thank Christ we are on the last movie.”

“Oh yeah. Number five. Rogue Nation is its dumb title.  Because he or somebody has gone rogue apparently.  Which makes sense because you know what bothers me?  In every single one of these movies he’s gone rogue or been fired or disavowed or is a target or is an enemy of the agency he works for.  Like every one.  He’s the worst employee. And he’s always welcome back with no repercussions. ‘Thanks for breaking up that spy ring man even though you blew up the statue of liberty to do it and got a bunch of your fellow agents killed, same time on Monday right?’  He would probably actually go to prison for life.  But no it’s cool he goes rogue, everyone is cool with it.  Because it’s Rogue Nation bro. Okay so that one is the one where he for real hangs off the side of an airplane and I don’t know I think the woman in it is more badass and interesting than he is.  Or something.  That one is also tough to recall anything about as well.  But he has like medium hair in that one.  Not too short but not too long either.”

“Good gravy.  Okay so to recap: Number one is the best one, number two is the Limp Bizkit motorcycle one, number three is the scary villain and awkward party one, number four is the Hot Topic hoodie one, and number five is the airplane hang and badass female companion one.”

“Those are the Mission Impossible movies yes.”

 

(Wife unbuckles seat belt.)

“Where are you going”

“I’m going in the back to sit with my children where there are no insane people and watch Toy Story 3 with them.”

“It’s not Toy Story 3 it’s Toy Story 2.”

“How do you know which one?  (Looks at me)  Oh shit.”