Latest news with #actionheroes
National Post
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
Adventures in Streaming: When the president becomes an action figure
In 1997, Harrison Ford uttered that line to Russian terrorist Gary Oldman in the Wolfgang Peterson movie Air Force One (streaming on Paramount+). It didn't seem a culturally pivotal moment at the time, but it apparently opened some sort of pipeline wherein U.S. presidents would become action heroes in films as diverse as Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and Olympus Has Fallen. Article content Article content Prime Video is currently streaming two different variations of the formula (which, let's face it, was created in a Hollywood lab utilizing Die Hard as the agar in the petri dish). Article content Heads of State stars John Cena as Will Derringer, a newly elected American president, leaping into the White House after a career as a movie action hero. (One can only feel nostalgia toward the 2006 satire Idiocracy which portrayed that notion as ridiculously far-fetched.) Article content His feel-good presidency goes wrong when a vengeful Russian terrorist (Paddy Considine), launches an assault on an Air Force One mission to Europe for a NATO conference, with the British Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba), caught up in the crossfire. Clarke is ex-military and, once the two leaders parachute to safety, he is given to mocking Derringer's pretend fighting experience. If their spark-striking conflict seems familiar, Cena and Elba shared an even more deadly enmity in The Suicide Squad. Article content The film is helmed by Ilya Naishuller, the Russian director who made Hardcore Henry and the Bob Odenkirk actionfest Nobody. Naishuller is skilled at live-action cartoons, but when the stakes are raised, that makes for some tonal needle scratches as we go from mass murder on Air Force One to Cena being smacked in the face with sheep udders as he and Elba are smuggled out of Belarus on a livestock truck. Waiting in the wings to confuse things even further is Priyanka Chopra Jonas, in John Wick mode, playing Noelle, Sam's love interest and saviour. Article content With its relentless action beats, and it's road-movie squabbling, it's mostly silly, disposable stuff. But you have to admit, it's certainly an interesting time for a Russian filmmaker to make an American action movie with a Russian villain in cahoots with a would-be American demagogue plotting to destroy the NATO alliance. Article content G20 stars another Suicide Squad vet Viola Davis as American president Danielle Sutton, obliged to kick butt when the titular conference, taking place in South Africa, is hijacked by security forces led by a crazed Australian mercenary played by Anthony Starr, who has honed his villain act on the superhero series The Boys. At least G20 has a consistent tone, attuned to Viola Davis's gravitas. Sure, many people are killed. But at least Danielle and her estranged teenage daughter (Marsai Martin), will get closer in the process.
CBC
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Tom Cruise scores Guinness World Record for most burning parachute jumps
Social Sharing Tom Cruise has soared his way to a new stunt accolade: according to Guinness World Records, he has now performed the most burning parachute jumps by a single person. This specific feat was achieved during the filming of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, the latest instalment of the action franchise that has become defined by Cruise's jaw-dropping stunts. Sixteen times in a row, Cruise leaped out of a helicopter and plummeted toward the ground strapped to a flaming parachute. As the character Ethan Hunt, Cruise has performed a number of eye-popping feats since the first Mission: Impossible film, including clinging to an airplane as it was taking off, scaling the tallest building in the world and driving a motorcycle off a cliff before parachuting to safety. In 2018's Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Cruise became the first actor to complete something called a HALO (high altitude, low opening) drop on camera, which involved jumping out of a plane and freefalling thousands of metres before deploying a parachute. Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, said Cruise didn't just "play action heroes" but was one himself, in a release about the new record. Cruise is known for his insistence on performing the stunts himself. "A large part of his success can be chalked up to his absolute focus on authenticity and pushing the boundaries of what a leading man can do," Glenday stated. Before each jump, the parachute would be soaked in fuel so that Cruise would be able to light it on fire mid-jump, according to a behind-the-scenes video of how the team set up the stunt. "I have to kick out of the twist, and then ignite, within 10 seconds," Cruise says in the video. Once the chute had burned up, Cruise would cut the lines free and activate a backup chute to glide safely to the ground. But since the parachute material burned so quickly, disappearing in a matter of seconds, they needed to perform the jump multiple times to get enough footage for the scene: sixteen times, to be exact. Guinness World Records didn't specify if Cruise had to surpass anyone to get the record, although the organization noted that "no other actor or stuntman has come close" to that number. WATCH: Tom Cruise performs dramatic parachute stunt for latest Mission: Impossible film: Not every stunt has gone exactly to plan. Cruise broke his ankle on the set of Mission: Impossible - Fallout when he landed badly jumping from one building to another. The take made it into the film; he can be seen limping after pulling himself up.
