Mission:Impossible – Fallout is stupendously silly but quite good fun, with entertaining action sequences, a bonkers plot about nuclear destruction and trademark stiff-armed running and helmetless motorcycle riding from Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt.
As we came out of the cinema, a possible sequel popped into my mind: Mission:Impossible – Brexit Batshit Edition.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to untangle the poisonous coil of Brexit before next March. You will face many devious villains who are meant to be on your side but turn out to be double agents working for their own egos. Your real opponent sometimes seems to be helping you, but you are not sure what he is up to. No one is, to be honest.”
Ethan Hunt: “Do I get to ride motorbikes round the middle of Paris and then London – without wearing a helmet and while defying the laws of gravity?”
Mysterious Batshit Controller: “No, but you do have to put up with Boris Johnson and his gravity-defying ego. And you must constantly endure Jacob Rees Mogg whining away all the time – like a James Bond villain as written by PG Wodehouse on an off day.”
EH: “Right, but do I get to leap in the air and climb a rope dangling from a helicopter?”
MBC: “No, but you may end up sitting in an empty room in Brussels with only four pot plants to talk to – and at least one of those plants is better at holding a conversation than you are.”
EH: “But do I have a punch-up in the gents in Paris that ends up demolishing half the place?”
MBC: “Well, you might do if bump into Boris while you’re in there…”
EH: “But do I get to free-climb a vertical rockface in Kashmir and save the world at the very last second after a gravity-insulting helicopter chase?”
MBC: “Well, we’ll just see about that, shall we? Anyway, your mission is far trickier than that. For you must unite a bunch of squabbling right-wingers who haven’t stopped arguing about Europe since Jacob was in plus-four nappies. And you must negotiate with 27 other countries by March, having made zilch progress so far…”
EH: “27? That’s tough odds…”
MBC: “Well, yes – and all those other countries think Brexit is as mad as the plot in your latest film.”
EH: “There’s a countdown, you say? I like a countdown. But what happens if we don’t disarm the nuclear option in time?”
MBC: “That is very much open to debate. Jacob Rees Mogg said the other day on Channel 4 News that we wouldn’t see the benefits of Brexit for 50 years – and he’s supposed to be a lover of the whole stupid business.”
EH: (Makes sucking teeth sound but says nothing).
MBC: “So what do you think, Ethan?”
EH: “Gosh, those odds don’t sound too good…”
MBC: “This message will self-destruct in two seconds. One, two…”
Smoke fills the screen.
Unsurprising plot spoiler: Tom Cruise just manages to save he world in the latest Mission:Impossible film.
Unsurprising plot spoiler No 2: The Brexit clock is ticking. No one has a bloody clue what to do, including the woman in charge – who may well be a double agent as she didn’t want Brexit anyway, but has spent two years uttering that weary frog croak line that it’s ‘what the British people want’.” Well, nearly half of them didn’t want it at the time, and many would now like the whole thing to just disappear.
Where’s Tom Cruise when you need him?