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Ethan Hunt has found himself in many elaborate car chases throughout the “Mission: Impossible” franchise. But while the stunts have gotten bigger, this time, the car has gotten smaller.
In “Dead Reckoning Part One,” a Fiat 500 becomes the star of a sequence set in Rome involving Ethan (Tom Cruise) and Grace (Hayley Atwell). The two find themselves handcuffed to each other as Ethan gets behind the wheel of their tiny getaway vehicle.
Narrating the scene, the director Christopher McQuarrie said the inspiration for it occurred to him when he was scouting locations in Paris for a chase sequence in “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” and came across a Fiat 500 parked along the Seine.
“I thought it would be great, the idea of watching Ethan Hunt and Tom Cruise driving in a car like that,” he said.
This scene includes more humorous moments than the series’ previous car chases. And it involves Cruise having to navigate the Fiat around cobblestone streets, which the actor did himself.
A climactic moment in the scene involves the Spanish Steps, when the Fiat bumbles its way right down the monument.
The production was not allowed to let cars actually touch the steps, so they built a replica of the landmark on a backlot and tumbled the vehicle down there.