For a dude who has thrown his lot in with Scientology, this Tom Cruise bloke sure seems to want to meet God face to face.
For nearly thirty years, Cruise has been pushing himself beyond all reasonable limits to make the Mission: Impossible series the envy of all other action franchises by sticking himself in all matter of hairy predicaments that defy belief. Graduating from hanging from wires a dizzying height above a green screen floor, we soon started seeing him hanging from far greater heights as he started doing those crazy stunts for real. From that moment on, each subsequent Mission: Impossible entry has been a showcase for Cruise to confidently cheat death more times than a compilation of Final Destination premonitions.
But which of Ethan Hunt’s defiant middle fingers to death is the most harrowing; hardly an impossible mission…
5) Holy Shit! He Just Drove A Motorbike Off A Cliff! (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning 2023)
Arguably let down by the fact that Dead Reckoning was advertising its most show stopping stunt a full year before it’s release and played ad nauseam in every subsequent trailer, the sight of Ethan Hunt launching himself off a cliff on a motorbike is still jaw dropping cinema at its most epic.
As Hunt is trying desperately to board the Orient Express to give thief-turned-spy, Grace, the backup she sorely needs, the out of control AI keeps preventing him to make his rendezvous but with the ever-faithful Benji guiding him, the only shot he has is getting as high as he can, driving full speed into the void and hoping he can get enough distance from the mountain to successfully open his chute without becoming a red stain for mountain goats to piss on on the rocks below.
And leap he does and in one glorious shot, Cruise goes from a full sized human to the size of a pin head as he falls so farvand so fast, not even an IMAX screen can pick him out. While anyone with vertigo is trying to desperately hold it together, it probably won’t help to mention that Cruise did the stunt six fucking times overall.
4) Jesus Christ, Someone Nearly Stabbed Him In The Eye! (Misson: Impossible II 2000)
While I have to agree that M:I II is arguably the weak link in the Mission: Impossible chain, there’s still no doubting that Mr. Cruise still certainly puts the work in. But while most people would assume that it’s the opening cliff climbing scene or even the bike jousting that occurs during the insane climax that’s secured this slot, it’s actually something way more subtle.
During the final fight against rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose, Ethan finds that his rival has decided to bring a knife to a fist fight and during an opportune moment, the Scottish bastard leaps at his downed enemy, putting the full force of his weight behind his thrust. What occurs is a real treat for ommetaphobes as the blade stops worryingly close to Ethan’s eyeball; in fact it stops so close, you can clearly see the tip of the knife tickle his eyelashes in excruciating detail. Of course it will no doubt horrify you to discover that Cruise was perfectly OK getting the shot without any visual effects whatsoever and we get to watch as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars almost his his peeper punctured for our entertainment.
3) Surely He’s Not Going To Fly A Sodding Helicopter Himself, Is He? (Mission: Impossible – Fallout 2018)
A lot of Cruise’s stunts involve a fair amount of hanging or dangling and be fair, the big, showstopper from the sixth movie certainly starts with him swinging precariously in the air as cardio obsessed super spy Ethan Hunt grabs onto the payload attached to the underside of one of two helicopters heading for the minimum safe distance from the nuclear endgame of calculating nutjob, Solomon Lane. After an appropriate amount of non-green screen climbing, Ethan makes it into the vehicle, takes out the passengers and starts figuring out exactly how to fly this whirlybird – however, this is only half the problem because they nuclear off-swich just happens to be in the other chopper located on the person of human moustache, Agent Walker.
From here a desperate chase begins that sees a lethal game of tag occur, but what truly steals the show and seals the deal is that it’s plainly obvious that Cruise himself is actually piloting his flying machine as he zips and dips through the air. While it could be argued that anyone – especially Cruise – could be trained to fly a helicopter, the fact no one would have minded if it wasn’t actually him wrestling with a joystick somehow makes the whole thing more impressive and certainly more breathtaking.
2) Why Would This Idiot Want To Hang On The Side Of An Airplane? (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation 2015)
You have to admire the sheer boldness of both Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie to take the fifth Mission: Impossible’s most audacious showstopping stunt and throw it into a pre-credits sequence that almost has nothing to do with the main plot. Of all the death defying lunacy attempted by the entire franchise, this is the one that looks the most dangerous by a country mile. In-film, Ethan Hunt is clinging to the side of a Flying Airbus A400M as it takes off for some spy related business or another, but in reality, Cruise was strapped to the side of the aircraft as the camera holds on him as we leave terra firma in the dust and his g-force strained features tell the tale far better than any green screen could.
But while our shock-stricken faces mirror that of an incredulous Benji Dunn, what makes the art even more humbling is that Cruise had to wear special lenses in his eyes to stop the spray of jet fuel blinding him and just hope that no tiny pieces of debris punched through his skull like a sniper bullet delivered by fate. But again, the fact that this scene has been and gone within the first ten minutes of the movie makes you wonder just how far the daredevil actor will go to provide a show…
1) Oh Fuck Me, He’s Only Gone And Climbed The Burj Khalifa! (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 2011)
This is it. This is the one. This is the moment when the franchise went from an overachieving action franchise into obtaining true legendary status. Up to this point, Cruise had been doing the majority of his own stunts (not to mention a shit load of running), but nothing has been overly grandstanding. Sure, the rock climbing in M:I II was cool, but is was rather downplayed to show that this is what Hunt does when he’s on vacation (what, a lounger by the pool to slow for you?); however, with Brad Bird’s hyper enjoyable Ghost Protocol, the franchise finally cemented it’s footing far more confidently than a malfunctioning set of glue-gloves.
Due to the typical, convoluted fuckery the IMF usually face, Ethan has to travel from the 123th floor of the Burj Khalifa to the 130th on the outside of the building in order to gain access to an impenetrable server room before a clandestine Texas switch has to take place. But even though Hunt is equipped with high tech sticky gloves to help him scale the building, every bit of machinery featured in the film so far has proven to be as reliable and full proof as a chocolate teapot. Midway through his climb, shit goes south…
In one scene, Cruise delivered a groundbreaking stunt sequence that not only harkened back to the fear-free, all or nothing days of Howard Lloyd and Buster Keaton, but it sold the entire film off the back of a single, jaw-dropping image that not only put puckered bums on seats, but made the purchase of an IMAX ticket an absolute must. It’s breathtaking, it’s pure cinema, it has a cracking punchline and at numerous times you nearly loose control of your toiletry functions as Tom Cruise makes history right in front of your eyes. Hunt may have accepted the mission, but your eyes won’t and If that’s not an impossible mission accomplished, I don’t know what is.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning should be in cinemas 21st May
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