9) Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
This is, admittedly, a very obvious choice. But there is one simple reason for including this particular opening sequence, in which Tom Cruise hangs off the side of an A400M Airbus as it takes off – and that’s that Tom Cruise hangs off the side of an A400M Airbus as it takes off.
The continued production of Mission: Impossible movies has started to become a bit like the relentless appearance of Stephen King novels. We’re not entirely sure how we feel about it, but it’s been going on for a while now, and if it ended it may well be one of the surest signs of an impending apocalypse. And credit where it’s due, Cruise has clung on (sorry) as the franchise’s most reliable asset. Now, aged 53, he more than ever deserves recognition for performing the increasingly ridiculous stunts himself, and with as little aid as possible.
Apparently, Rogue Nation director Christopher McQuarrie first presented the idea of the Airbus stunt to Cruise as a joke. He held up a model of the cargo plane he wanted for the first scene, and laughed about what it would be like if Cruise hung off the side of it as it took off. Without even blinking apparently, Cruise stated, “I could do that.” The response of chief stunt co-ordinator Wade Eastwood when McQuarrie and Cruise presented the idea to him however? “Oh f**k.”
The first problem was that the filmmakers needed permission to use the Airbus itself. It was a brand new plane, and only two had been built in the world. The answer from the military, in short, was no (the polite code for the longer answer of ‘have you lost your f***ing minds??) But finally they agreed, and the plane and film-crew were brought to RAF Wittering in the UK.
The next, slightly more pressing matter, was how to secure Cruise to the plane. Eastwood designed a safety harness that could be worn under Cruise’s suit, but Cruise rejected it, claiming that it restricted his movements so much that he wouldn’t “be able to sell the fear.” So, Eastwood added slack to the line to lessen the pressure. This also meant that if Cruise had fallen from the plane, he would have fallen several feet before being stopped by the line, and would likely suffer some serious whiplash.
Cruise was also opposed to wearing goggles (it is true that even Ethan Hunt wouldn’t have been able to pull off donning a pair of goggles as he accidentally falls off the wing of a plane), so he was fitted with a type of thick contact lens, that sits directly over the eyeball.
Then there came the issue of actually filming the sequence. The camera crew worked closely with Airbus engineers themselves to ensure that the cameras stayed in place during take off – and that they were at such an angle that the ground could be seen receding rapidly below Cruise throughout the shot. It was an immensely complicated and time-consuming rig. Once the cameras were in place, Eastwood checked repeatedly for metal fatigue, and anything else that might cause something to tear away under the massive force of the drag. Moving at that speed, even the smallest particle could have been fatal had it hit Cruise. During one take, Cruise was actually hit by something he described as less than the size of a fingernail, which he thought at the time had broken his rib. The pain was lessened however by the happy fact that it hadn’t hit him in the face.
Finally, there was nothing left to do but to actually shoot the scene. The runway was cleaned several times, to remove the risk of flying debris, but there were still terrifying unknowns. Bird strikes, jet fuel, the power of the G-force pulling on Cruises’ body – disaster was frighteningly possible.
Cruise couldn’t sleep the night before. Instead, he actually went down to the set and faced off with the plane, Western style. He remembers it looming enormous and forbidding in the rain and the fog: “It was just sitting there,” Cruise said. “It was like, ‘yeah!’”
On the day, it was expected that the sequence would be captured in just one take. In the end, it took eight.
The take-off speed alone of the plane is over 62 miles an hour, and the wind-speed while airborne over 185mph. The plane – with Cruise on the outside – sometimes rose to 5000 ft.
Let’s put that into some (very distant) perspective shall we? The highest viewing platform in the Eiffel Tower is 984 feet. For anyone who has been there, try to remember what it was like standing on the platform, looking down. Now imagine yourself another 4000 ft up. Then, remove all but one wall from your surroundings. Hang off the wall, taking all your body weight on your arms. Now imagine travelling through the air, in that position, at approaching 100mph. Then do it 8 times over.
Once the filming of this quite frankly insane sequence had finished, most of the crew were celebrating an enormous accomplishment (it is mildly concerning how delightedly surprised they all were that it had worked, given that there was really only one other alternative…) Eastwood, however, knew that it was ‘time to start panicking about the next one’ [insert ‘Mission: Impossible’ joke of choice here.]
In the case of Rogue Nation, the next highly dangerous stunt was to be the underwater sequence, which involved Cruise being able to hold his breath for six minutes. In terms of future movies ,however, where on earth are they going to go next? What else could Cruise, who remains committed to performing all his own stunts, possibly do? Jump from the plane without a parachute? Swim the Atlantic? Shoot himself?
It’s a shame Stanley Kubrick isn’t still with us – Cruise could have wrestled with a live leopard on the African savannah.
