It’s Tom Cruise, so obviously the train is moving. Fast.

Having saved cinema with the high-flying Top Gun: Maverick, that man Tom Cruise is refusing to rest on his laurels as it looks like another mega-hit movie is steaming down the tracks. Cruise is packing in as much action as possible before his career hits the buffers, and the next stop on his journey is Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Of course, the Mission films, which have now become Cruise’s go-to franchise – every big star needs to be a superhero, it’s just that Cruise started playing Ethan Hunt before superhero movies were really a thing – have always had one thing in common: the big stunt. But, as the movies have gone on, the big stunt has become many big stunts. Cruise hangs off the Burj Khalifa. Cruise clings on to the side of a plane as it takes off. Cruise jumps out of a plane over 100 times. Cruise hangs off the side of a cliff.

And this edition of the Mission series is no different, as this exclusive image from Empire Magazine shows. In an epic set-piece, Cruise battles Esai Morales’ villain on top of a moving steam train. And this isn’t your little village steam train – the sucker is really moving fast. Which makes shooting things complicated, according to franchise helmer Christopher McQuarrie. Obviously, the stunts are impressive, but for McQuarrie the key has always been writing the story to make sure you’re there to see the character do the stunt, not the actor.

“We’re making a movie that involves sequence that they just don’t shoot practically anymore, and haven’t in a long, long time. The sequence that we’re shooting right now is no exception. And like most things on Mission: Impossible, if we had known what the challenges were when we started, we would never have done it.

There’s a whole class of action movies centred around awe. For me, awe is a condiment, not a course. I have an actor who will drive a motorcycle off a cliff. Now the hard part is, I gotta make the audience care about that.”

What Else Do We Know About Dead Reckoning Part One?

The film, directed by McQuarrie, stars Cruise and Morales, alongside Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff and Henry Czerny, who returns to the franchise for the first time in nearly 30 years. Oh, and Cruise drives a motorbike off a mountain in “the biggest stunt in cinema history”.

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Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 12, 2023. Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two comes on June 28, 2024. You can check out the teaser trailer for Part One down below:

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