Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One's Big Stunt Perfectly Sums up the Franchise
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One massive motorcycle stunt not only sends shivers down the spine but also sums up the whole franchise.
Even after so many memorable stunts throughout the franchise's six movies, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One accomplishes the feat of delivering a new bigger, even more ambitious stunt, with Tom Cruise once again springing into action himself. It consists of an anxiety-inducing sequence in which Ethan Hunt drives off a cliff with a motorcycle, leading up to the film's final and most thrilling moments.
Huge, ambitious stunts are something viewers can expect in every Mission: Impossible movie. They not only suck the audience right into the action but also capture a unique sense of immediate danger that only Tom Cruise can convey by putting his soul, quite literally, into it.
Mission: Impossible 7 Delivers the Franchise's Best Stunt
At this point, there's little left for Cruise to do. Over six movies, he climbed the world's tallest building, jumped onto a plane in motion while hung by a rope, and did a HALO jump from 25,000 feet. Yet somehow, director Christopher McQuarrie had a new fascinating card up his sleeve, and Cruise was more than willing to take it: in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt rides a motorcycle off a cliff and dives in a free fall. Unsurprisingly, Cruise did the whole thing himself, ensuring his place among the oldest actors that do their own stunts.
To accomplish the franchise's biggest stunt, Cruise had to go through lots of practice on stability in free fall, train his motocross skills, and track his movements. In addition, the equipment needed to properly film such a feat in cinematic fashion had to be the best of the best. Even with all the practice and preparation, cinema isn't a precise art; what doesn't look good on screen doesn't make it to the movie. To achieve not only the perfect stunt but also the perfect scene, Cruise had to ride off a cliff six times in the same day. The result is one of the best movie stunts of all time, which works even better in the context of the film.
Luck Has Always Been a Decisive Factor in Mission: Impossible
One of the things that makes the Mission: Impossible movies so unique is how they never shied away from distinctive conventions established in the very first film. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One knows exactly where it stands in terms of sense of humor, slacker noir conventions, and, most notoriously, unimaginable stunts that cross the barriers of reality and fiction. While one could argue that face masks are a distinctive element of each Mission: Impossible movie, the film's big stunt reminds the audience of a decisive factor that is often overlooked in the franchise: luck.
While the big motorcycle stunt works incredibly as a standalone sequence (unsurprisingly, it was a crucial part of the film's great marketing achievement), it can only reach its maximum potential when seen with context, summing up the whole franchise with both a thrilling and playful undertone. The absurdity of Ethan's plan to get into a moving train by jumping off a cliff immediately throws back to the countless times he heard Benji, Luther, or literally anyone else doubt his unimaginable ideas. This time, however, Benji understands what Ethan is capable of before Ethan himself thinks of it: luck has been too good of a friend all this time to simply fail him now. The icing on the cake: Ethan not only gets into the train but also lands right on top of the man who was about to kill Grace, reminding viewers that Mission: Impossible might be Hollywood's best franchise.
To see the full stunt for yourself, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is now playing in theaters.