It was the set video seen around the world: Tom Cruise, leaping between rooftops for a Mission: Impossible 6 stunt, and slamming into the side of the building at high speed. In the weeks since the accident was officially confirmed — it turns out that Cruise had broken his ankle in the fall — the entire production has been trying to put a positive spin on the news, with director Christopher McQuarrie saying Cruise’s injury actually offered the crew an ‘opportunity’ to tinker a bit with the edit mid-production. Still, the injury shows the downside of Cruise’s legendary attention to detail for movie stunts, and at least one fellow actor had a few unkind words to say about the whole process.
After years of taunting us with the possibility of a (super) late-coming sequel to Top Gun, it’s actually happening. Tom Cruise is back, which guarantees our butts will be in those seats on opening day, no matter what. If you thought they were going to go with a basic title like Top Gun 2 for this major movie event, you were sadly mistaken.
Every year, when the bottom drops out of the summer movie season and audiences decide to stay home and watch television instead, some well-meaning critic will publish an article asking if cinema is dead. And every year, I pose the same question in response: “Is Tom Cruise still an action star?” As long as Tom Cruise is running across multiplex screens — fighting rogue nations, government consiparcies, and even the occasional mummy — there is still hope for cinema. Then, when Cruise’s career is done and Hollywood is in ashes, then, cinema, you have my permission to die.