Reflecting on Tom Cruise’s Stunt Work ⇥ nytimes.com

Ryan Francis Bradley, New York Times Magazine:

Only — what if we did know exactly how he did the thing, and why? Before the previous installment of the franchise, “Dead Reckoning,” Paramount released a nine-minute featurette titled “The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History.” It was a behind-the-scenes look at that midair-motorbike moment, tracking how Cruise and his crew pulled it off. We saw a huge ramp running off the edge of a Norwegian fjord. We heard about Cruise doing endless motocross jumps as preparation (13,000 of them, the featurette claims) and skydiving repeatedly (more than 500 dives). We saw him touching down from a jump, his parachute still airborne above him, and giving the director Christopher McQuarrie a dap and a casual “Hey, McQ.” We heard a chorus of stunt trainers telling us how fantastic Cruise is (“an amazing individual,” his base-jumping coach says). And we hear from Cruise himself, asking his driving question: “How can we involve the audience?”

The featurette was an excellent bit of Tom Cruise propaganda and a compelling look at his dedication to (or obsession with) his own mythology (or pathology). But for the movie itself, the advance release of this featurette was completely undermining. When the jump scene finally arrived, it was impossible to ignore what you already knew about it. […]

Not only was the stunt compromised by the featurette, the way it was shot and edited did not help matters. Something about it does not look quite right — maybe it is the perpetual late afternoon light — and the whole sequence feels unbelievable. That is, I know Cruise is the one performing the stunt, but if I found out each shot contained a computer-generated replacement for Cruise, it would not surprise me.

I am as excited for this instalment as anyone. I hope it looks as good as a $300 million blockbuster should. But the way this franchise has been shot since “Fallout” has been a sore spot for me and, with the same director, cinematographer, and editor as “Dead Reckoning”, I cannot imagine why it would be much different.

Update: Of course, the practical stunts are only part of the story.