This awesome ‘Mission: Impossible’ exhibit goes inside 29 years of extremely dangerous stunts
Agent Ethan Hunt has trekked through Norwegian fjords, scaled Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and been chased down the Spanish Steps of Rome.
Now he’s come to — da da duh! — Queens.
An impressive new exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, “Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle,” kicked off Friday in advance of the upcoming eighth film “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” in theaters May 23.
The high-tech environment, which looks like a laboratory where Simon Pegg’s Benji might build gadgets, features 29 years of memorabilia, blown-up videos of star Tom Cruise’s complex and dangerous stunts and behind-the-scenes tidbits you won’t find anywhere else.
“We wanted to bring together the idea of story and spectacle,” the exhibition’s curator, Barbara Miller, told The Post.
“We wanted it to go deep into practical stunt performance, but we also wanted to show how the story in each of the films was integrated. It wasn’t just about showing off a fancy stunt, it was about serving the story.”
There are 14 screens of various sizes placed around the sleek and dimly lit room. A large display is devoted to each movie — from 1996’s “Mission: Impossible” to 2023’s “Dead Reckoning” — projecting the flick’s most memorable action sequence alongside analytical interviews with coordinators, directors and other creatives about how they achieved the astonishing feats.
The “Rogue Nation” underwater scene in which Cruise held his breath for more than six minutes, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge shootout from “MI: 3,” the vault descent from the original — all there, as we watch the remarkably fit actor seemingly not age for three decades.
“It’s very painful at times,” Cruise, 62, admits in an interview recorded for the museum. “There are certain times when you’re, like, ‘OK, I’m in. We’re doing this.”
On the periphery of the space are detailed hand-drawn storyboards, props and costumes: Replica face masks, futuristic weapons, wetsuits, mission briefcases and weathered outfits worn by Cruise.
All told, Paramount has loaned the museum 80 original items from the “M:I” archive.
Especially neat is the handwritten sheet music of composer Lalo Schifrin’s iconic “Mission: Impossible” theme from the 1966 TV show.
Since the Cruise film series has been unfolding for nearly 30 years, it’s eye-opening for fans to experience the action coups side by side. They get increasingly intricate — and risky.
“As the franchise continued, the stunts became more and more involved and more and more exciting, and the stakes got higher,” Miller said.
“But each one of them has their own merit and their own amazing aspects. I mean, just looking at the first film,” she added of Brian De Palma’s movie. “What they were able to do just with silence and tension and suspense and physicality.”
The latest film promises some of “Mission: Impossible”’s most jaw-dropping achievements ever, such as Cruise clinging onto the wing of a biplane 8,000 feet in the air against 140-mile-per-hour winds.
On one end of the floor is a big orange box with a message that looks like it’s poised to self-destruct in a few weeks. It’s a concealed area reserved for objects and clips from “The Final Reckoning,” which the studio doesn’t want to spoil too early.
That museum mission, should you choose to accept it, begins May 22.
“Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle” continues through Dec. 14.
