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BY FRANK LOVECESpecial to Newsday

In the previous Mission:Impossible espionagethriller, Tom CruisesEthan Hunt scales theBurj Khalifa, the worldstallest building, withCruise himself doing the

stunt work more than a half-mile in the air. Now, inMission: Impossible RogueNation, opening Friday,Cruise likewise in a digitallyerased safety harness, but still hangs from an AirbusA400M four-engine turboprop5,000 feet in the air.What is he, nuts? Whats

wrong with, say, 50 feet in theair? Or maybe five. Heck,hanging even five feet off theground from an airborne planewould be pretty good.Iwas actually there on the

day, recalls Simon Pegg, whoreturns as Benji Dunn, anImpossibleMissions Forcetechnician-turned-field-agent.Whatever altitude they hit, hesays, calling from theVancouver set of Star TrekBeyond,where hes reprisinghis role as engineerMontgom-ery Scott, it was the lowest itcould be, the legal requirement.

AN EFFECTIVE SHOTBesides, notes screenwriter-

director ChristopherMcQuarrie cheerfully, callingfrom London, The smaller theobjects look on the ground, themore effective the shots goingto be! And having Cruise fallfrom the plane actually wasnta worry, he insists.That was really never the

danger for the strapped-instar, presuming all went ac-cording to a meticulous plan.There were three things thatcould really have been muchworse. The first was debris onthe runway: The plane was

traveling at such high speedbefore it took off, with thepropellers sucking up every-thing in their path, that if asmall object hit Tom, it wouldhave been like a bullet. Thesecond danger was birdstrikes. And finally, the takeoffis extremely [steep], becausewe wanted to get the Earthfalling away from the cameraat its most optimum angle. Butwe didnt want to go too fastbecause then Tom would havebeen ripped off the plane.Following a test run with a

mannequin, they ran the stunteight times. For all of uswatching, says Pegg, it was

far more nerve-racking than itwill be for people who experi-ence it in the cinema becausewe didnt know if he was goingto survive.

CIADIRECTORALECBALDWINThe franchise itself is

surviving just fine, with itsfifth installment finding theIMF confronting essentially itsevil twin, a group of renegadespies threatening to destabilizecivilization. Returning along-side Pegg are Ving Rhames ascomputer expert LutherStickell, and Jeremy Renner,introduced in the previousmovie as IMF agent William

Brandt. The new film also starsRebecca Ferguson, Sean Harrisand, as the CIA director, AlecBaldwin.Massapequa native Baldwin

even inspired the films end-ing, in a way, says McQuarrie.Alec had scenes at the

beginning and at the end of themovie, so we had to write thebeginning and the postscript,but we didnt know what moti-vated his character in thepostscript since the moviesclimactic scene hadnt yet beenwritten by the time Baldwinsscenes needed to shoot. Atthe end of the movie Im notgiving anything away hes

sitting in a Senate hearing andhes deep in thought. So I toldhim, I just want you to sit hereand be lost in the story. AndAlec said, Well, what is thestory?' And I said, I dontknow yet. And Alec was sowonderful in the scene thatTom and I looked at it andsaid, Now we have to make amovie that justifies what Alechas given us. And thats howthe movie came together:while we were shooting it!Thatsmore or less also the

wayMcQuarriewho givesprops to uncredited script doc-torsWill Staples, LaetaKalogri-dis, Patrick Lussier andDylanKussman,who touched upscenesgot the directing gig.Best known as a screenwriterwhowon the 1995 original-screenplayOscar for TheUsualSuspects, hemade his directingdebutwith TheWayof theGun (2000), a low-budgetproduction that did poorly at thebox office but has since becomea cult film.He eventually gotanother shot withCruises JackReacher (2012), forwhich hewrote the adapted screenplay.That film earned respectable

worldwide grosses andmixed-to-positive reviews. And sowhileMcQuarriewasworkingon the screenplay for CruisesEdge of Tomorrow (2014), thestar,McQuarrie remembers,mentioned in passing, Youknow, you should direct thenext Mission: Impossible. And I said, Well, sure, all right,and thoughtwewere going toget back to the conversation athand. So he picked up thephone, left the room and cameback about 10minutes later . . .and said, OK, youre directingthe next Mission: Impossible. And thatwas sort of it.He couldnt have suspected

which star would have thereally dangerous stunt. I gotpunched in the face, Peggrecounts. I was doing a fightscene [with a German stunt-man], and we mistimed apunch, and he just caught me.But fortunately he caught meon the cheek and spared myeye, my nose and my teeth. Aninch either way, and I wouldhave been in trouble. Ofcourse, I was acting all cool,like, Yeah, whatever, and thecrew were all worried Ikind of liked that!

Toms back forhis fifth Mission,this timewith astunt thats justplane terrifying

CRUISEALTITUDE

Alec Baldwin and Simon Pegg join Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.

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Even though this is thefifth Mission: Impossi-blemovie, followingthemissions isnt impossible.Hereswhatwent on before.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE(1996) An ill-fatedassignment leaves EthanHunt (Tom Cruise) the solesurvivor of the ImpossibleMissions Force. Suspectedof being a mole trying tosteal classified secrets, hegoes underground to clearhis name. Hes helped bycomputer expert LutherStickell (Ving Rhames),who later joins him in therevived IMF.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II(2000)Ethan, Luther andother teammates battle arogue IMF agent (DougrayScott)who has hijacked abiologicalweapon, intendingtomake a fortune by control-ling the only known antidote.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III(2006) Ethan, retired fromfieldwork and living quietlywith his fiancee, Julia(MichelleMonaghan), iscalled back in to find an armsdealerwhos seeking amysterious object. Joined byLuther and two other agents,Ethan and his team arehelped by IMF technicianBenji Dunn (SimonPegg).

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLEGHOSTPROTOCOL (2011)Disavowed by theU.S.government but actually deepundercover, a team includingnewlypromoted field agentBenji and IMFchief analystWilliamBrandt (JeremyRenner)must stop a nuclearstrategist (MichaelNyqvist)fromnuking San Francisco.Luther appears briefly at theend. FRANK LOVECE

Many otherMissions

Tom Cruise, as EthanHunt, does ever moreimprobable stunts inMission: Impossible Rogue Nation,opening on Friday.

Cruise in 2006sMission: Impossible III.

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