Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning may be the last outing for Tom Cruise but it has some amazing set pieces – but do the stunts compare to the best in history?
It could be his last ever Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise is back in action with new film The Final Reckoning – the eighth in the blockbuster series – and taking on terrorists as super spy Ethan Hunt.
And the pint-sized powerhouse, 62, is still doing all his own stunts. His new movie features a death-defying sequence that sees him hanging off the wings of a biplane, 8,000ft in the air.
But does it come close to the craziest stunts in cinema history? Here MEG JORSH takes a walk on the wild side…
What was the best stunt ever? Have your say in the comment below
Laying down the law
Martial arts legend Jackie Chan is famous for his acrobatic performances. But his antics came close to ending his career on 1985 film Police Story.
The movie’s climax sees Chan, playing cop Ka-Kui, launch himself from a sixth-floor guardrail in a shopping mall and slide down a pole. He smashes through lights and a glass kiosk ceiling in a desperate attempt to catch mob boss Chu Tao, played by Chor Yuen.
Chan filmed the sequence in one take, then launched into a killer fight scene – despite having injured his spine and dislocated his pelvis. He also suffered second degree burns from the pole, which was roasting hot due to a lighting error.
Falling off the wagon
Stuntman Joe Canutt was almost trampled to death in front of his dad while filming 1959 epic Ben-Hur. The 21-year-old, who was the son of co-director Yakima Canutt, was standing in for Charlton Heston in the movie’s climactic chariot race.
Joe was driving a chariot when he was thrown from the driver’s seat while rounding a corner at more than 35 miles an hour. He was left in the path of the uncontrolled vehicle – but incredibly, all four horses leapt over him.
The stuntman was left almost totally unharmed, with just a cut to his chin that required four stitches.
Earning his wings
Move over, Tom Cruise – stuntman Simon Crane still holds the Guinness World Record for the most expensive film feat performed in the air. He was paid a cool $1million for his high-altitude hijinks in 1993’s Cliffhanger.
And the filmmakers certainly got bang for their bucks. Standing in for Rex Linn as crooked US Treasury agent Richard Travers, Chris put his life in their hands when he ziplined between two cruising planes at a height of 15,000ft.
He carried out the stunt in -32C temperatures with only a mask and a couple of concealed parachutes for protection. And they wouldn’t have helped much when the second plane hit turbulence, throwing him off-course. He came within six feet of being sucked into a jet engine.
Safe as houses?
Comedy legend Buster Keaton really brought the house down in 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. In fact, he stood calmly by as the very real, two-tonne façade of a building collapsed on top of him.
The actor was saved from certain death by an open attic window, which landed at just the right spot to protect him from the impact. But with just two inches of clearance on each side, the trick was never guaranteed to work.
Keaton, who died in 1966, said: “Cameramen, electricians and extras prayed as we shot that scene, and I don’t mind saying I did a little praying myself.”
Flying off the handle
Fans of 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgement day might have wondered how they shot the scene where a helicopter apparently flies under a motorway bridge. And director James Cameron has the answer.
Speaking in the DVD commentary, he says: “See this helicopter going under a freeway overpass? That’s a helicopter going under a freeway overpass.”
The $1million stunt saw former military pilot Charles A. “Chuck” Tamburro piloting the Bell JetRanger chopper at 70mph, with just five feet of clearance vertically and four feet at either side.
When the camera crew refused to shoot such a dangerous manoeuvre, Cameron filmed it himself – not once, but twice.
Twist in the tale
For history’s most iconic feat of stunt driving, look no further than 1974 Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun. Viewers were gobsmacked when Roger Moore’s superspy executed a perfect corkscrew jump over a river in an AMC Hornet X hatchback.
Filmed on the banks of Thailand’s Klong Ransit canal, the sequence was the work of stuntman Loren “Bumps” Willerts. He’d never even driven the car before, but pulled off the dizzying 360° leap in a single take.
He hit his mark at a perfect 48mph, in the first ever computer-modelled stunt in movie history.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
