Tom Cruise bids farewell to the saga that catapulted him: the final 'Mission: Impossible' premieres: 'It takes your breath away'
Tom Cruise suffered a double ankle fracture while jumping between two buildings in London while filming an action scene in Mission: Impossible: Fallout; he also broke his foot while doing the same in the second installment of the same saga. He is one of the few actors who doesn't use stunt doubles and performs his own fight choreography and stunts. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 2 (The Final Reckoning), which opens on May 22 (it already had a preview in some theaters across the country), is no exception.
And although nothing was broken here, the film represents his farewell to Agent Ethan Hunt and closes one of Hollywood's most profitable action film sagas.
"I remember seeing old footage of people walking on the wings of airplanes. Those planes were only going, I don't know, 40 or 50 miles per hour. This plane goes over 120 miles per hour. When I got out there, I realized it really takes your breath away," Cruise said in an interview with People magazine.
Tom Cruise is famous for performing his own stunts. Photo: Universal Pictures
Starring and produced by Tom Cruise himself and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the eighth and final installment of this franchise runs for 2 hours and 50 minutes. Agent Hunt and his team continue their hunt for the Entity, the dangerous AI that has infiltrated the intelligence networks of the world's governments and threatens to change everything forever.
The film had a resounding premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation from the audience.
What you need to know about 'Mission: Impossible,' the TV series that became a money-making hit in the movies.- The global saga is the heir to the famous American television series, which aired between 1966 and 1973. The attempt to revive the television success, between 1988 and 1990, failed, and in 1996 Tom Cruise revived the saga for the big screen, with great success. While in the series, the character of Jim Phelps, head of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force), was played by Peter Graves, in the film version, actor Jon Voight embodies him, in an open duel with Tom Cruise, who plays agent Ethan Hunt.
- Lalo Schifrin's music is one of the most recognizable elements of the series and the film. Two lines from the saga have also gone down in history: "Your mission, should you choose to accept it" and "This message will self-destruct in five seconds," expressions as familiar as "My name is Bond, James Bond" for 007.
- Between 1996 and 2025, Tom Cruise played this hero in the eight films in the saga, almost without a wrinkle in 30 years. While the television series is based on teamwork, the big-screen version relies almost solely on the exploits of Ethan Hunt. For the actor, who captains "Mission: Impossible" with an iron fist, the saga marks the beginning of total control over his image and his career. The first film, directed by Brian de Palma, is the debut of his production company Cruise/Wagner.
The 'Mission: Impossible' saga has been going on for three decades. Photo: Universal Pictures
- The story takes the cues of spy films but takes them to the next level. Each of the filmmakers leaves their mark. In the first chapter, Brian de Palma creates a work full of suspense and adrenaline. Then John Woo makes the only film considered a flop by critics, even though it was a box office success. JJ Abrams, Brad Bird, and finally Christopher McQuarrie, screenwriter of The Suspects of Always, who has directed four chapters since 2015, will follow. De Palma, who considers "Mission: Impossible" to be the pinnacle of his career, refuses to shoot another chapter. Continuing the saga for so long "is about money," he laments.
- The story is based primarily on spectacular and highly visual sequences. The films are a chain of dangerous scenes, where Cruise runs at full speed, rides a motorcycle, jumps between buildings, performs stunts on a train in a tunnel between Paris and London, clings to an Airbus A440 during takeoff, scales a cliff... The safe scene in the first film remains one of the most famous moments.
- "Mission: Impossible" is also a saga of globalization, taking viewers to the United States and Europe (from France to Ukraine, via the United Kingdom, Hungary, the Vatican, etc.), but also to Australia, Cuba, China, India, Morocco, etc.
- Billions at the box office: The saga, a commercial and critical success, cost a lot of money, but it's also very profitable. Total budget: around $1.5 billion. If the first film in the series "only" cost $80 million, the last one cost over $400 million! Before the release of the final episode, "Mission: Impossible" had already grossed nearly $4 billion at the box office in three decades.
eltiempo
