Hot off the success of 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise is back on the big screen to wow audiences with his newest blockbuster, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.
This time around Cruise and the gang are on a mission to hunt down a rogue AI and stop it before it falls into the wrong hands.
It's Cruise's seventh outing as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, a character he's been playing since way back in 1996. In true Cruise fashion, the actor goes out of his way to perform his own stunts in the series — each more outrageous than the last.
"The challenge when you are making any action film is normally hiding the fact that your actor is not actually doing the stunt and that his stuntman is performing it for them," director Christopher McQuarrie said in an interview. "The opposite is true for Mission: Impossible, where we have an actor who does his own stunts."
Despite turning 61 earlier this month, Cruise shows no signs of slowing down.
In this latest adventure, Cruise takes on speed flying, drifting cars through the streets of Rome and performing one of the most dangerous stunts ever filmed — riding a motorbike off a cliff then doing a base jump from it.
"I remember the first time when I let go of the bike - if I look straight down there's a concern that I might go into a tumble," he told reporters at the New York City premiere of the film.
"If I go into a tumble, it would be very difficult to recover even if I get a little unstable."
Cruise was seemingly unfazed by the death-defying stunt.
"I just work to become very competent at it and I train in ways that are in a manner that is very extreme, and I build up to it. I don't just jump on and do it — I'm constantly building up to it."
And build up to it he did. Undertaking more than 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps to prepare for the scene, Cruise's stunt made a lasting impression on his co-stars, particularly newcomer Hayley Atwell.
"The first day of filming we were all standing on the platform watching him jump over the cliff on his motorbike in absolute awe," she said at the New York City premiere.
"It was a bit like his way of going 'Hayley, welcome to Mission. This is what you can expect, and this is how we're going to kick off this journey.'”
Based on the 1960s TV show, the Mission: Impossible movies have been a hit with filmgoers and made billions at the box office.
The next instalment, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two is tipped to be Cruise’s last in the franchise. And while that movie won’t hit cinemas for another year, Cruise already has his eye on a future film project that could quite literally be out of this world — he hopes to film a movie in space.
"We’re working on that, definitely," Cruise said at the film's premiere. "I’ve always wanted to do that."
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is in cinemas now.
By Wayne Chettleburgh
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