Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One: Why synthetic AI is the perfect foe for the palpable Tom Cruise
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. This has allowed director Christopher McQuarrie to up the game by pitting Tom Cruise against everything he's not: lifeless, logical and intangible.
Stunts over VFX
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.
Forget jumping off the cliff or fighting on a moving train (yes, an actual one that they created just for the climax), even when Tom Cruise runs, he legitimises a franchise that's been primarily operating only on his horse power. His sprinting across the franchise lends it its beating heart and makes it feel more tangible than most tentpole films that come across as rather clinical.
Masks over Deepfake
When the first instalment of Mission: Impossible dropped way back in 1996, unmasking yourself — literally — to reveal your disguise turned out to be quite a novelty. But even in the latest one, when Tom Cruise unmasks himself or Hayley Atwell puts on a Vanessa Kirby mask, it doesn't come across as a Scooby Doo parody. The masking and unmasking still sells as convincingly as a Mystique shapeshifting or Hermoine's Polyjuice Portion working its magic. The precision of this very basic human skill or craft still surpasses the tardiness of the Deepfake technology that took the filmmaking world by storm in recent years.
Pickpocketing over hacking
Tom Cruise's spirit also reflects in the choice of his action partner in the new film. Grace (Hayley Atwell) could've been a hacker who infiltrates the most cryptic of AI systems around the world. But she's merely a pickpocketer, a street thief. The forgotten ‘art’ of pickpocketing is brought back to the big screen and it scores brownie points over the more technologically advanced tools of deception like hacking and cybercrime through the virtue of being an acquired skill, instead of an assisted one. A pickpocketer needs no devices, technological or otherwise, to steal. They just need a keen eye and a swift play of hands.
Risk over logic
It's not just the skills they've cultivated over years that make the likes of Ethan Hunt and Grace human. It's also their doubts and fears. Grace initially appears very sure of herself in the scenes at the airport. She knows how to move stealthily among swathes of people. But when she takes over the wheel, her nerves take the forefront. She rams the car into shops and walls, unlike an Ethan who rides a bike fairly smoothly. When the two land handcuffed next to each other in a Fiat 600, they stumble and struggle, only to work their way around all those who are chasing them.
Technology fails Ethan by throwing a Fiat 600 at him when he tries to book a ride. But Ethan pierces through the hurdle just like he does when Benji's two-dimensional navigation instructions land him at the edge of a hill for his attempt to dive into a moving train. If he were to follow AI-assisted navigation again, he would have to wade a long way back and would miss the train by miles. But he does what a Tom Cruise knows best — take the longest leap. He rides off the cliff on a bike and parachutes his way into the train, like only an Ethan Hunt can. Sure, the risk of following your gut, against all logic, often costs you a friend's life, but it also allows you to save many others.
Ageing gracefully over de-ageing
Tom Cruise may be performing death-defying stunts by himself at 61, but he also doesn't shy away from wrinkles popping up on his face. He doesn't rely on AI to de-age him, like superstars of his stature would. These signs of ageing further elevate the indomitable spirit behind his stunts. We see that the man sprinting, leaping and crashing isn't an immortal superhero, but the most human of all heroes.
No entity, real or artificial, can stir the adrenaline as palpably as a Tom Cruise can. And no ChatGPT tool can spell out the thrilling experience of watching Tom Cruise run against technological advancement as vividly as a writer in flesh-and-blood.
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