Synopsis

Relaxing in the mountains, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) receives a call from headquarters: his new mission - should he decide to accept - is to hunt down the whereabouts of a dangerous virus stolen by terrorists. To aid him on this mission, he must seek out the help of Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), notorious jewel thief and and old acquaintance of Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), the terrorists' head man. She is to infiltrate into the criminal group in exchange for a clean slate.

Cruise "Woos" Paris Press

As It’s reasonable to assume that Tom Cruise has access to the best research, the coolest gizmos and the niftiest expertise money can buy. Which is why it gives me enormous pleasure to reveal Cruise’s elite technique for eradicating jet-lag and fatigue on the promotional trail, a trade secret he revealed to reporters at the Ritz in Paris on June 29: “When I get tired,” says Tom, “I go to sleep.”

This -- unlike the rock climbing and motorcycle riding stunts in Mission: Impossible 2 -- is something viewers are welcome to try at home. Audiences are in no danger of falling asleep during M:I-2 in which Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, the Impossible Missions Force agent whose mission “should [he] decide to accept it” is to entertain audiences for two hours while cheating certain death and courting an exotic damsel (Thandie Newton) in even more exotic locations.

Cruise, who also produced the film, hired Hong Kong action maestro John Woo to direct the elaborate tale of unscrupulous villains determined to exploit a deadly man-made virus and its ultra-rare antidote. The result is nearly non-stop activity with a big budget gloss and a fate-of-the-free-world undertow calculated to make movie-house popcorn taste better.

Much as it’s the IMF’s objective to make the world safe for democracy, so is it the mission of some journalists to make the world less hospitable for gossip. Asked if there’s any truth to the rumors that he’ll soon be leaving the Church of Scientology, Cruise demonstrated that he’s as secure in his faith as he is in his public persona.

“That’s not true,” Cruise replied calmly and cordially. “I am a Scientologist. I’m sure everyone here knows that. It’s been very powerful for me. But I generally don’t talk about religion or politics at a press conference. Let’s talk about Mission today. But that [rumor] is not true.”

Consider it settled: For the immediate future, Cruise seems as likely to abandon Scientology as the Pope is to repudiate Catholicism. While Cruise speaks fewer languages than Jean-Paul II does, he shares with the Supreme Pontiff a commitment to travel to spread his message. His promotional message, that is.

Far from being blasé or put out, Cruise seems to relish the lure of the road. After admitting he’s only been away from them for two days and is already homesick for his family, Cruise reels off his itinerary: “We went to Asia: Sydney, Auckland, Taipei, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan. We started in L.A. We were in Madrid 2 days ago. Then to Rome and London. Then I go to Cologne, Germany. Then from London back to Australia. I’ve done this for almost all of my pictures.

“When I was growing up, in Canada, in the U.S., I used to travel all the time and I still travel. I’ve never been in the same place for more than a year my entire life. Never in the same home. But I used to dream about coming to these places. I’d see movies and look at images of different places and hear the languages and it was a dream. So I enjoy this travel.”

Cruise is quick to credit the entire production team from screenwriter Bob Towne to the folks responsible for hair and make-up, but emphasizes, “This is John Woo’s movie -- It’s John Woo’s Mission: Impossible. John wanted to make a very suspenseful action picture that was romantic.” The China-born, Hong Kong-raised Woo films his elaborate action set pieces with such verve and clarity that even the holes in the plot seem stylish.

“We just tried to make it different from the first one,” says Woo, a fan of redemption and peace although his movies are marbled with startling, balleticly-rendered violence. “Actually, it was Tom’s idea to make it a triangle love story, and that really excited me. One of the things I really appreciate about Tom is that he gave me great freedom. I was able to maintain my own style.” Trying to eliminate Woo’s style from any picture he directs is probably about as easy as eliminating wetness from the ocean, but it’s not difficult to imagine some misguided Hollywood committee giving it a try.

Rumor has it the script was written around stunt events that appealed to Cruise: your standard emergency exit through a wall of flames, a split-second descent through the unforgiving blades of a rooftop grate, some gravity-defying rock climbing here, some death-defying motorcycle driving there. Precisely the sorts of things a sensible producer would forbid his costly star to do. Except in this case the star and producer are one and the same.

“Some of the rushes [of the opening sequence were so harrowing] we didn’t send them back to the studio right away,” Cruise jokes. “It was fun. They were dangerous, very dangerous [to perform]. I really wanted to thrill an audience with the mountain climbing and allow them to feel that kind of suspense right from the very beginning.”

“It wasn’t fun for me,” Woo chimes in. “I was so scared.” “I felt safe,” Cruise emphasizes. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel I could do it and that it would be good for the movie.”

The opening scenes of M:I-2 leave no doubt that the tan, muscular individual dangling by his cuticles from a sheer cliff face in Utah is the one and only Tom Cruise. By the way, that’s one of the last times you’ll know with certainty that the guy who looks like Cruise is Cruise -- let’s just say several protagonists have excellent sources for very convincing latex masks.

“Producing involves a lot of problems and I actually ENJOY solving problems,” Cruise anounces with such sincerity that one is half-tempted to send problems his way as one might send flowers or candy to induce pleasure in the recepient. (‘Tom, there’s a fissure in the earth’s crust awfully near a nuclear power plant in Siberia -- any ideas?”) It might be inelegant to mention that a few “problems” with the plot of “M:I-2” haven’t been completedly solved. (About the way that deadly virus supposedly spreads, Tom....).

“We couldn’t come up with a better idea,” Cruise shrugs when someone points out that in both “Mission: Impossible” films, the villains come from the ranks of the IMF itself. “Everyone has a grey area,” Cruise offers. “Are they good? Are they bad? That’s something we play with in the series.” Most people would say a fiend willing to unleash a flesh-destroying virus that will infect 40 million people in the next day or so is about as much of a “grey area” as whether nursery schools should be named after Pol Pot and Adolph Hitler, but it’s generous to think that even the most larcenous and egregiously evil baddie can get in touch with his inner child.

We begin to suspect that Sean Ambroise (Dougray Scott) is not a nice man when he snips off an employee’s finger with a cigar trimmer. And that’s how he treats the people he LIKES.

While Cruise didn’t suffer so much as a scratch during the filming of M:I-2, his wife Nicole Kidman managed to crack two ribs while performing in the upcoming period extravaganza “Moulin Rouge.” The couple, who starred together in Eyes Wide Shut, have no immediate plans to reteam on screen. Cruise proudly reports that he and Nic recently celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary and they’ve hardly ever been apart for more than a week.

Nearly everyone who’s ever come in professional contact with Cruise describes him as down-to-earth, fun-loving and most of all, incredibly focused. Kristin Scott Thomas, who appeared in the first Mission: Impossible says, “Tom is just so incredibly normal. He enjoys his fame and doesn’t have the slightest problem remaining himself despite it. He’s right at home shooting pool, hanging out with his friends and family. He’s a delight to work with, he really is.”

No quantity of testimonials to the solid foundations of Cruise’s boyish-yet-manly charm can stop commentators and essayists from trying to intuit the “real” Cruise. His open, solicitous demeanor, his oft-professed love for his wife and children, those gleaming teeth -- can this guy be for real?

In a June 1999 story for Salon Christopher Kelly posits: “When it comes to deeply lived-in portraits of human sexuality, Cruise is the most original talent we have -- particularly in the way he so readily establishes his characters through heterosexual posturing and then strips away the layers of control. “ This, mind you, was after 20 film roles but before the dream logic-infused “Eyes Wide Shut” and Cruise’s strutting, incendiary performance as sex guru Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia.

Sarah Vowell, also writing in Salon, suggests that Cruise makes us delectably nervous because he looks like an all-American boy (‘Even his hair is drawn on with a ruler”) yet is “a mystery in plain sight.” More than one commentator has suggested that Cruise as he looked in 1983 when he starred in Risky Business, would not even be cast in such a role today. Compared to this generation’s young leading men, the 21-year-old Cruise wouldn’t seem quite muscular or pretty enough.

Nowadays, of course, Cruise meets the attractiveness criteria of vast segments of the global population. Isn’t it kind of strange to be a guy people never say “No” to?

“I still get told ‘No,’” Cruise laughs. “But with success there’s always more pressure. The studio trusts me — when I go to make a movie they afford me creative room. In that regard [being an established star] is very beneficial. I make sure I surround myself with people I trust and whose taste I trust. I think people know they can be honest. I WANT to know peoples’ opinions. I WANT to hear what they think.”

Thandie Newton, who plays Cruise’s plucky love interest, an international jewel thief who injects the deadly virus into her own bloodstream, turning herself into a ticking biological time-bomb that must be defused within 20 hours, adds, “I think it would be terrible to work on a film where you couldn’t offer ideas and suggestions. Tom is a good listener.”

Cruise first turned his hand to producing in 1996 with Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible, followed by the little-seen but engrossing “Without Limits” (1998) about American track and field runner Steve Prefontaine. Next up, Cruise is producing “The Others,”a film by Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar in which Nicole will star.

Although Cruise directed a well-received episode of the cable TV series “Fallen Angels,” directing is not at the top of his wish list. “I’ve been offered things to direct,” he admits, “but when I have a chance to work with the John Woos of the world, that’s simply too wonderful to pass up. And I enjoy acting.”

After 40 minutes, the press conference is called to an abrupt halt. And then, the strangest thing happens.

Professional journalists -- people who regularly meet well-known performers and who should be harder to impress than the man in the street -- swarm up to the podium clutching press kits and autograph books. And Cruise, rather than scurrying out, acts as if he’s got all the time in the world and enthusiastically signs his name (to Jean-Pierre, to Marie-Claire, to Frederique) for an additional 15 minutes. I even overheard Cruise apologize to a young man who said the name he’d just seen him scribble didn’t look like it said ‘Tom Cruise.’ “I’m sorry about that,” Cruise replied, with a grin. “I usually type because the people in my office can’t read my handwriting.”

A few cynics with TV cameras are baffled. Were we told the press conference was over precisely BECAUSE they wanted to leave time for Tom to impart some of his magic up close and personal? Or was Tom just too darn nice to disappoint his fans even if it meant being late for his next urgent appointment? Either way, dozens of happy reporters walked out of the Ritz on a cloud clutching a memento of which they could nonchalantly say, “That? Oh, Tom needed to test a pen to see if it worked and I happened to be next to him with a sheet of paper. It’s nothing, really.”

At age 38, Cruise’s penmanship may be the only aspect of his being that is not a model of focus and concentration. So, dear reader, if you happen to have lovely handwriting, you may bask in the knowledge that you do at least one thing far better than Tom Cruise.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Lisa Nesselson