Corrected entry: Ambrose wants to spread a deadly virus so he can make loads of money selling the cure. To this end, he drops off infected Nyah in the middle of the city to get this going. For this to work it would have to a highly contagious airborne virus. However none of the characters are worried about being near Nyah after she is infected. Even the scientist who created it smuggled it out by infecting himself and then getting on very long commercial flight.
Corrected entry: When Ambrose is impersonating Ethan on the plane ride, he not only speaks in Ethan's voice with the voice changer but also Ethan's American accent. But when he removes the voice changer his accent goes back to Scots. Wouldn't he still have his Scots accent even with Ethan's voice? (00:05:05)
Corrected entry: When Nyah tries to flee from Sean's house she runs into Sean disguised as Ethan. This is highly unlikely for two reasons: 1. Sean only knows that Nyah tried to con him, but he does not know Ethan is involved. 2. Even if for some reason Sean would have discovered that Ethan is involved, it is impossible for him to have a mask custom made (and to know the sound of Ethan's voice) on such short notice.
Correction: 1) He suspected that she was placed there by Ethan and was working with him. As he said earlier, her timing was suspicious. What he was doing was testing out his theory. If she wasn't working with Ethan, she wouldn't have recognized him. 2) It is very possible for him to have a mask and voice encoder for Ethan. He has a history of doubling for Ethan on many ops. He even had a mask of Ethan at the very beginning of the movie. It's likely he has a number of them for him to use. Especially since we see him using one right here. Also, please note that a lot of scenes in the film were cut because of the film studio's demand (due to the film's length), and John Woo's original cut might have explained many of the points above in detail.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Ethan is fleeing from the old car and the Range Rover, both vehicles are able to keep pace with his "crotch rocket". Any bike of that size could out pace those vehicles by miles. There is no way that the trucks in the big chase scene would have kept up with Tom Cruise on the motorcycle, especially on such a curvy road. Motorcycles have better acceleration, maneuverability, and they can corner better and at faster speeds.
Correction: Actually, the opposite is true. The motorcycle can accelerate much faster, but no motorcycle has the stability of a four wheeled vehicle in corners. I can take corners marked for 50 kmh in my car at 110 kmh in my BMW, but can only take the same corner at about 75 to 80 kmh on my motorcycle. Motorcycles simply don't corner as well as cars.
Corrected entry: In the scene at the BioCyte building, Ethan is lowered down to the lower floor through the atrium on a long rope. He then cuts the glass to the lab and descends even further down. After the gunfight Ethan escapes by base jumping through a hole in the wall. It appears that Ethan is now at least 40 stories in the air, not the basement as we were led to believe.
Correction: The atrium does not go down as far as the basement. It runs from the roof to the 42nd floor. We are shown this in the preceding scenes when Hunt and Stickell are planning their entry to Biocyte.
Corrected entry: The position of Ambrose's body changes from when Ethan has knocked him out, to when Ethan takes the antidote from his jacket pocket (you can glimpse Ambrose's body in the background), and again, back to his original position when he pulls a gun on Ethan. Plus, the rock that his head was propped up on disappears.
Correction: Ambrose's body can change position because he's still alive and fairly conscious; later on he is still strong enough to pick up his pistol to attack Ethan from behind. As for the disappearing rock. well, that IS a mistake.
Corrected entry: The man who Hunt's team tricks into thinking he has Chimera is allegedly somewhat knowledgeable about viruses and yet alludes to penicillin as a previous wonder drug in the fight against them. Penicillin has NO effect on viruses, it works on bacteria. Similarly, Nyah is likened to being another 'Typhoid Mary'.. another misplaced bacterial reference.
Correction: The "Typoid Mary" reference is simply a reference to someone spreading a dangerous disease, and how they are remembered. Whether the disease is spread by a virus, bacteria, microbe, or other method makes no difference in terms of the large scale effects, and how the person will be viewed.
Corrected entry: The main villain in this film (Ambrose) is supposed to be an active IMF Agent. A CIA operative can't apply for an auto loan without his superiors finding out, but a high-level agent of an entirely black-ops agency with the resources of the IMF can go completely evil, hire a subservient lacky and a whole army of henchmen, own a whole fleet of autos and motorcycles and an arsenal of explosives and weaponry, and the IMF has NO idea whatsoever until he crashes the plane (a task that would take extensive planning)? The movie seems to completely ignore the fact that this guy is a current employee of the US government and not some international criminal.
Corrected entry: The scientist who injected himself with the Chimera virus decided to cut things way too close. He says in the video that he must travel from Sydney to Atlanta in less than 20 hours. He is then shown flying on commercial airlines. A flight from Sydney to LA takes 15 hours, and a flight from LA to Atlanta takes 5 hours. He didn't leave himself any time at all for error or delays.
Correction: Character mistakes aren't movie mistakes.
Corrected entry: Throughout the film, Ambrose has relatively short hair (on the back of his neck). But at the horse-racing scene at the beginning of the film, you can see that his hair at the back of his neck is exceptionally longer than at any other point in the movie.
Correction: Ever heard of a haircut? There is no continuity problem.
Corrected entry: Before Tom Cruise is going to break into the lab it is said that the lab with the Chimera virus is on floor 47 but later when Tom Cruise sets off the first explosion in the lab the computer flashes Security Breach on level 42.
Correction: What is said is that Chimera is on the "forty-second" floor - apparently it sounded like "47."
Corrected entry: After Ambrose realises that he has just shot Hugh Stamp, there is a car chase, where Hunt shoots at a bronze coloured car. If you look closely you can see that it is in fact Hugh Stamp driving, though he died minutes before.
Correction: It is a blond guy but not Hugh Stamp.
Corrected entry: At one point we saw the memory card for the camera up close and it read '2 MB' on it. Later we see the contents of this memory card which is a complex animated video. 2 MB would be no where near enough to store the showed video sequence.
Correction: Actually it says 32 MB on the card.
Corrected entry: The emergency gas masks in a 747 are not linked to one sole system, which can be poisoned. The masks are connected to individual oxygen producing containers.
Correction: 747s do in fact have a 'ring main' for passenger oxygen, not individual generators. Therefore the premise in the movie is correct.
Corrected entry: In the BioCyte lab, a maximum security alert goes off and a wave of say ten guards runs up the stairs and are killed by Ambrose's men. The action then stops so Tom Cruise can run out and Ambrose's guards look out the hole he blew. Are we supposed to believe that a maximum security alert is going to last two minutes with only one wave of guards?
Correction: This is just a flaw of security utilities in BioCyte lab, not a factual error.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when Tom kicks the gun from the sand, firstly, it would be impossible to kick the gun so that it flies directly vertical from where it lies, secondly if you look closely, you can see the 'fishing line' that is attached to the gun to make it fly up vertically.
Correction: If you can see the fishing line, then yes, that is a mistake. However, it would still be possible. He hooks his toe under the gun by pushing his foot into the sand. He could still "kick" the gun up towards his hand.
Corrected entry: When Tom Cruise is on the bike near the end, he shoots the gas tank of a car following him and it blows up. However, his bike takes a bullet in the gas tank and it doesn't explode.
Correction: The bullet doesn't hit the tank, it hits the fuel line.
Correction: Incorrect, the tank is hit, the fuel lines are nowhere near that part...BUT the fuel tanks on Triumphs of that era are plastic and not metal, so the damage wouldn't look like it does.
Corrected entry: When the 2 Triumph bikes square off on the beach, just before they race towards each other Tom & Dougray rev their bikes. It's a really fast cut between the two throttles but Dougray twists his left wrist, which does nothing on a bike.
Correction: It appears to actually be Tom twisting the throttle with his right hand on his Triumph Speed Triple - however the scene has been flipped - as the brake fluid resevoir - which is also on the right hand side bike - is visible. So it just looks like a left-handed throttle twist but is really a right-handed one that has been reversed.
Correction: That's because she's not to that stage of the infection yet. The point of getting to her by a certain time is to cure her before she becomes contagious. She's not there yet but is basically a walking time bomb.
Quantom X ★
At what point do the infected become contagious then? She is on the chopper with the other 2 guys when her 20 hours is almost up and still no concern. Also, the scientist who injected himself would have been within a couple of hours of his demise by the time he got to Atlanta but somehow wasn't worried about spreading it.
If the plot was to infect people to sell the cure, then why would anyone in contact worry about getting infected? They have the cure and/or were already protected.
Bishop73