10 Best Mission: Impossible Stunts
9. Rock Jumping: Mission: Impossible II (2000)
What a wonderfully ridiculous way to start a film.
Set on location at the encompassing Moab cliffs in Utah, the similarity between this and many of the other stunts on this list is that the only thing missing from the final cut is the safety harness. The rest is really there- the actor, the cliff, and the sphincter-widening drop to the surface below.
Cruise is genuinely climbing the rocks at 2000 feet, and in the blistering sunlight. After a bewildering disregard for his own personal safety, our hero Ethan Hunt performs a hazardous 15 feet dive from one foothold, towards a lower cliff edge below.
Suffice to say that the precarious cliff jump was performed by Tom Cruise himself, over and over until he was happy with the shot. For these fleeting seconds during the movie, everything you see on camera is real, with a only a bit of safety gear brushed out.
It's a swift moment which leaves a big impact. Ethan Hunt is nuts and so, it seems, is the actor playing him.