Tom Cruise’s Death-Defying Stunts in ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ – No CGI Tricks!

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Tom Cruise discusses the increasing peril of performing stunts for the Mission: Impossible series, as it’s been disclosed that one such daredevil act in Mission: Impossible – Fallout occurred on a 1930s airplane at an altitude of 10,000 feet. Cruise shared with Empire magazine his experiences during this high-flying stunt.

If you protrude your head while traveling at speeds between 120 and 130 miles per hour, you won’t be able to inhale sufficient oxygen. As a result, I had to learn how to breathe properly under those conditions. On certain occasions, I would lose consciousness entirely, making it impossible for me to regain access to the cockpit.

Cruise shared behind-the-scenes footage from the sequence:

In each Mission: Impossible film, the action sequences are consistently aimed at surpassing the ones from the previous movies. As Christopher McQuarrie shared with Empire, “There are stunts in this movie that will leave your mind boggled. There was a day in Africa where Tom would do something that outdid anything he had ever done before.” Given the death-defying stunts already displayed in past Mission: Impossible movies, such as the HALO jump from 25,000 feet for Fallout and hanging off a huge airbus while it was flying, as shown in Rogue Nation, one might wonder if these risky feats could eventually persuade Tom Cruise to hang up his Ethan Hunt persona.

It’s really impressive that Cruise performs many of his own stunts, considering he’s 62 years old, an age when some actors might opt for their stunt doubles instead. For instance, Roger Moore played James Bond seven times, starting with “Live and Let Die” at around mid-40s. However, Moore often relied on the expertise of his well-known stunt double and coordinator, Martin Grace, who began working with Moore on “The Spy Who Loved Me.” By the time his final Bond film, “A View to a Kill,” premiered in 1985, Moore was 58.

‘Mission: Impossible’s Stunts are a Breath of Fresh Air in an Era of Too Much CGI

In this time when it feels like nearly every blockbuster movie and TV series is overflowing with computer-generated imagery (CGI) and visual effects (VFX), the death-defying stunts in the Mission: Impossible movies are a welcome change. A recent film that was criticized for excessive CGI was Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans’ $250 million holiday film, “Red One,” where even a fight at a beach bar was filmed in a studio rather than on an actual beach due to the abundance of VFX shots.

In the Mission: Impossible series, the risky stunts are undeniably life-threatening, as a significant amount of what you see on screen is genuine rather than digitally enhanced with CGI or VFX. A team known as The Corridor Crew, who specialize in visual effects and have a YouTube channel, scrutinized Tom Cruise’s stunts from recent Mission: Impossible movies and revealed that a substantial portion of those stunts are authentic, with computer graphics used only to conceal safety equipment or, as in the case of the “motorcycle stunt off the cliff” in Dead Reckoning – Part One, to add rocks where the ramp for the stunt was located. In most cases, the stunts themselves are not CGI but rather genuine feats performed by Cruise.

When “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is released on May 23, 2025, you’ll get a chance to witness some mind-blowing and daring stunts.

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2025-02-07 22:02