The first trailer for the final Mission: Impossible film – ‘The Final Reckoning’ – came out this week, and seeing Tom Cruise sprinting, climbing, flying, jumping and diving all over the place as he does was a more poignant experience than I’d have expected of an action film trailer.
I suspect that’s because his age is showing at long last, and the day he steps off the silver screen will be a dark day for the movie industry indeed. That is because, as far as I’m concerned, the name Tom Cruise has become synonymous with Excellence, Effort, Timelessness and Entertainment. This is only heightened in the age of the Marvel movie.
Only passingly familiar with the Mission: Impossible movies until the release of the last installment, ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’, I wasn’t so much struck by the storyline, which was fine, as by the experience. I had a really good time sitting in the cinema for the two and a half hour runtime or so, which stood in stark contrast to the bang-average majority of cinema trips I’ve undertaken in recent years.
It wasn’t a standalone experience either. One of the most enjoyable trips to the cinema of all time must have been Father’s Day 2022, when my family and I went to see Top Gun: Maverick, which was rightfully recognised at the time, and only more since, as a modern masterpiece. It was, genuinely, action-packed and exciting, while handling sentimentality and nostalgia with an unrivalled deftness. And once again, Cruise was right at the centre of it.
I don’t take that as being a coincidence, not with the insane lengths he goes to for his films, coupled with the moviemaking philosophy he’s put out on the record in his many interviews.
After watching that initial instalment of the final Mission: Impossible story, I walked home with the friend that I had gone to the cinema with and we watched a brief featurette about one of the stunts in the movie, which saw Cruise ride a motorbike off a towering cliff, a manoeuvre only possibly because of the solitary, thin parachute strapped to his back.
Of course, Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise, he did the stunt himself. He rode that motorbike off the cliff edge again. And again. And again. Until they got it just right. Watching the film, you’d have to say the effort is worth it, and it exposes the understandable laziness of much of the rest of the movie industry that would rather sub in some computer-generated imagery or the like.
You’ve really just seen a man ride a motorbike off a cliff edge into a parachute jump, and they’ve caught it on camera. It’s exciting because it’s real, despite the fictitious story.
He has done this time and again. After watching that initial Mission:Impossible, I went back and watched some of the others, and found them equally authentic. In one, he honest-to-God clings to a plane as it surges off the earth and into the air. In another, he undertakes a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jump over the sparkling spectacle of Paris at Dusk. The trailer for the latest movie promises equally insane undertakings.
You have to give it to the man, he’s committed to perfecting his craft; there is none other like him. And he does this out of a clear respect for the audience.
He’s said previously that he’s always “thought of the audience”.
“I just want to entertain the audience. That’s what it’s about: what’s good for the movie, what’s best for the movie, what’s best for the audience.”
“Where’s the lie,” as the kids say?
On other occasions, he’s voiced his belief that performing his own stunts adds an otherwise irreplaceable element of realism and immersion, which he understands as being good for the movie, and good for those going to see it.
In an age of lazy cash-grabs and preachy products, Cruise’s commitment to entertainment and to achieving excellence in his chosen line of work is genuinely inspiring. You don’t notice it until you become aware of its widespread absence, but the pursuit of perfection is itself a perfection of sorts. The ideal we each ought to be aspiring to in the various corners of the world and its workings that we’ve been given to tend to.