In the latest edition of Role Call, we explore how Artificial Intelligence made for an apt villain to Tom Cruise, who thrives on pushing human boundaries.
At a time when there’s an active discourse around Artificial Intelligence displacing most human utilities, Tom Cruise shows why AI can never recreate the adrenaline rush of death-defying adventures. He performs many of those and comes out with flying colours in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
It makes complete sense that The Entity, a faceless villain stemming from AI, is the chief antagonist in the latest instalment of Mission: Impossible and Dead Reckoning. This has allowed director Christopher McQuarrie to up the game by pitting Tom Cruise against everything he’s not: lifeless, logical and intangible.
Tom Cruise stands out as an anomaly in the summer blockbuster template. When every big studio is churning out projects dominated by VFX and dictated by algorithms, Tom Cruise, even while building a franchise, populates it with stunts that are performed instead of manufactured.
For instance, watch the BTS of him jumping off the cliff on a bike in Norway. He attempts as many as 500 sky dives and 36 bike stunts in preparation for the D-Day, on which he performs the big stunt six times just to get that perfect shot. Even when McQuarrie okays the first take, Tom insists that he “should’ve held on to the bike for longer” while jumping. Precision is something not even the best of recent AI pop culture recreations can boast of.
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