You may be wondering why the Varsity Cinema — your favorite neighborhood arthouse theater — is playing a movie as mainstream as “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” Well, we contend that the film’s high-stakes action (and its star’s life-threatening theatrics) have more in common with one of cinema’s earliest innovators than you might realize.
Early on in the sixth installment of “Mission: Impossible,” franchise favorite Benji (played by Simon Pegg) utters what could be considered a throwaway line of comic relief.
“It’s entirely possible to be relaxed and extremely uneasy at the same time,” Benji says to series star Tom Cruise. “You do it all the time.”
Funny? Sure. But a throwaway? Absolutely not. Upon closer inspection, this single line of dialogue perfectly sums up the unexpected evolution of one of our most enduring movie stars.
From Matinee Idol to Megastar
First emerging in the 1980s as a matinee idol in films like “Risky Business,” Cruise refused to be pigeonholed as just another male sex symbol. He soon pivoted to serious dramas, working with some of the most legendary directors in the industry, from Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese to Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg.
Twenty-plus years and several Oscar nominations later, Cruise’s transformation from heartthrob to critically acclaimed actor was well established.
But ever since the turn of the last century, Cruise has undergone a more peculiar transformation, modeling his on-screen persona after none other than one of cinema’s earliest action innovators: Buster Keaton.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. On paper, it may seem absurd to compare a megastar like Tom Cruise to a silent-era comic. But the fact is that Cruise has far more in common with Keaton than with any other film actor, past or present.
The “Great Stone Face”
Buster Keaton, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is widely considered one of the three great comics of the silent era, along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. While all three stars were famous for their physical gags, Keaton brought a rare level of dexterity — and danger — to his performances.
Keaton was willing to put not just his career but his life on the line for his audience’s enjoyment. In a flurry of now-legendary silent comedies that included “Our Hospitality,” “The General” and “The Camerman,” Keaton continually upped the action with increasingly dangerous stunts that risked life and limb (he broke his neck in one particularly hazardous gag in his 1924 masterpiece “Sherlock, Jr.”).
Through it all, Keaton’s characters rarely expressed any emotion. He would famously juxtapose his jaw-dropping antics with a deadpan demeanor that earned him the moniker “The Great Stone Face.”
Wowing the Audience
Cruise, while not exactly possessing a “stone face,” has developed a similar persona in recent years. His signature facial expression in many of his latest action movies has been one of self-effacing surprise — a look of “I can’t believe that actually worked” — that underscores the real-life danger on screen.
Throughout the “Mission: Impossible” film series, for example, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has evolved from a cocksure hero in the first installment to an overwhelmed and underprepared gambler who continues to bet his own body against the most insurmountable odds.
From scaling the world’s tallest building in “Ghost Protocol” to hanging off the side of a plane in “Rogue Nation” to breaking his ankle (for real) in a rooftop leap in “Fallout,” Cruise has arguably put his body on the line more than any other American movie star since, well, Keaton.
A Little Movie Magic
For Cruise, it’s not enough to just “wow” an audience with a well-composed shot or intricately choreographed stunt. He knows, for the movie magic to fire on all cylinders, there needs to be an element of danger — a knowledge that what’s happening on screen is really happening.
We often forget, but that suspension of disbelief was central to cinema’s origins. Why else project hundreds of images in quick succession (24 frames per second, to be exact) other than to make an audience believe, if only for a moment, that what they’re seeing is actually taking place in front of them?
The Lumière brothers understood this when their film of a moving train allegedly caused an audience to leap out of their seats in terror. Keaton understood this when he narrowly evaded the front of a two-story building that collapsed around him in “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”
And Cruise sure as hell understands it now.
In an age where AI and deepfakes have us questioning the veracity of what we see now more than ever, perhaps the most important mission of “Mission: Impossible” is suspending our disbelief — to bring back a little movie magic, 24 frames at a time.
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” opens at the Varsity Cinema Thursday, May 22.
— Clinton Olsasky