The famous rock climbing sequence was filmed at Dead Horse Point in Utah. Tom Cruise was on cables which were then digitally removed. Ron Kauk was the climbing double and the overhang stunt was performed by main stunt double Keith Campbell. Director John Woo was so scared each time but "Tom insisted on doing it".

Dougray Scott (Ambrose) was going to play Logan/Wolverine in X-Men (2000). When filming went over schedule and he was injured in a motorbike accident, he was forced to drop out and was replaced by Hugh Jackman.

Tom Cruise and John Woo clashed over some of the stunts as Woo wanted stunt doubles, and Cruise was adamant about doing them. He told Woo he didn't like "cheating" and that it's too easy to spot when the actor is being doubled because of body movement, timing, et cetera. It didn't help that Woo is afraid of heights. Woo admired Cruise's courage.

Director John Woo's first cut of this movie clocked in at three and a half hours. Paramount Pictures balked at this length, and told him that the final length could not exceed two hours. This would explain why there are so many plot holes and continuity errors in the theatrical cut.

Tom Cruise's then-wife Nicole Kidman suggested Thandiwe Newton (Kidman's co-star in Flirting (1991)) as the love interest for Ethan Hunt. She was cast before the script was written.

Continuity

(at around 1h 45 mins) During the motorcycle chase the tires on the bikes change from standard street tires on the road to more aggressive off-road tires when the characters get to the beach.

(at around 50 mins) After Nyah pick-pockets Ambrose, she places the envelope with the memory card in between her side and arm, and turns to walk away. When she begins to walk away, her arms are spread and no envelope can be seen, but then it closes up on her dropping the envelope into her hand, even though the space in between would have already allowed it to drop.

(at around 1h 8 mins) While much is made of the 40 seconds available to get Hunt into the Biocyte building and get the cable out again a NATURAL LIGHT SHAFT MANUAL-OVERRIDE alarms systems safety notice appears on the computer screen Luther is looking at. The notice declares: In accordance with city safety code 24395 if the light shaft aperture malfunctions and opens outside of daylight hours, after a period of 20 seconds has elapsed the state emergency services will be alerted.

(at around 1h 23 mins) After the alarm goes off in the Biocyte building when Ethan detonates the bomb, the real guards who respond to the alarm are shown to be carrying submachine guns. However, when they start a firefight with Ambrose's men, they are only firing pistols.

(at around 1h 45 mins) When Ambrose and Ethan are facing each other on the motorcycles just before they jump off, Ambrose accelerates with his right hand while Ethan accelerates with his left hand.



Factual errors

(at around 24 mins) The Spanish popular feast Fallas, where wooden figures are burned in the streets, is not celebrated in Seville, as is shown in the movie, but in Valencia. Anyway, the figures never represent saints, but celebrities from politics, sports, society life, etc.

The Triumph bike ridden by Hunt in the chase scene would have quickly and easily outrun the 4-wheel-drive vehicles driven by his pursuers.

(at around 1h 30 mins) Ambrose forces McCloy to sell all of his stock to buy options in the company. CEOs of public corporations are not allowed to liquidate a single share without first filing with the appropriate governmental agency (SEC in the US).

(at around 1h 13 mins) In the biomed facility, the air should be extremely clean. Hence we should not be able to see the laser.

(at around 1h 45 mins) When Ethan shoots at Ambrose during the bike chase, the windshield of Ambrose's bike shatters. Sportbike windshields are high-impact plastic, and would not shatter.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

(at around 5 mins) When the pilot is trying to avoid crashing into the mountains, he pushes the handle forward, instead of pulling it towards him. That's because he's pushing the throttle.

(at around 1h 45 mins) During the big chase sequence, when Ethan Hunt shoots the windshield of Sean Ambrose's motorbike, the angle of the bullet might be sufficient to hit Sean Ambrose, but it also might be sufficiently deflected by the windshield.

(at around 18 mins) Ethan changes gears while holding the wheel and a cell phone because the Porsche he is driving has a "Tiptronic" transmission that allows changing gears from the steering wheel.

When Hunt hits the car with his motorcycle and grinds to a halt, he kicks down his right foot. That's the rear brake, not (as some thought) the gear.

(at around 1h 30 mins) When Ethan Hunt blows up the door of the facility where Sean Ambrose is bargaining for the money (the place where you see all the doves), a crack in the wall appears to look like a support wire.



Revealing mistakes

In the final fight scene, Ethan delivers 16 body blows, seven kicks to the head and four body slams to Sean and he is still alive. Sean delivers 12 body blows, four kicks to the head, three body slams and one rock to the head of Ethan, and Ethan is still alive, and both having collided together at over one hundred miles per hour combined speed and then falling fifty feet off a cliff to the ground before the fight even began.

At the beginning Hunt it hanging by one hand. His center of gravity (belly button) is not directly under his single hand that he is hanging from. His CG is out away from the mountain where the real safety cable is holding him up.

(at around 30 mins) There are no visible marks or traces in snow on the picture of the 747 wreck. They couldn't have been covered with snow because there is none on the fuselage and engine.

Most of the cars that were smashed or involved in accidents were already damaged before filming, and had been patched up to disguise this fact. This left the front or rear of some vehicles noticeably short or unproportioned.

(at around 6 mins) Climbing chalk is visible on the rock before Ethan Hunt actually climbs up to that level. This could not be left over from another climber as the other parts of the route did not show such evidence.



Miscellaneous

During the car chase in Spain between Ethan and Nyah American road (yellow lines) changes into European (white lines).

At about 48 mins Ambrose cuts the end off of a cigar. He cuts it about an inch down. Because of the way cigars are rolled, if he cut it there the whole thing would unravel.

At around 1hr 30 mins after Hunt dispatches the motorcyclist flying overhead, he drops an empty magazine and inserts a new one, but does not chamber and re rack his pistol. He proceeds to discharge immediately in a subsequent gunfight, which would not have been possible.

At 1:36:11 None of the dishes appear to have any mountings that make them adjustable during setup. The higher dish is clearly pointing above the horizon when these are clearly meant to be line-of-sight with another Earth-based tower/dish. The higher dish is does not have a receiver (like the one below it has).



Audio/visual unsynchronized

(at around 31 mins) When Hunt's convincing Nyah of going back to Ambrose, Nyah's lips move well before we hear her.



Crew or equipment visible

(at around 9 mins) When Ethan Hunt gets his mission objectives by the sunglasses the camera can be seen in them.

(at around 1h 45 mins) A crew member and crew tent can be seen in background for a split second during the bike chase as Ethan hides his bike inside a rusty car; hard to see at normal speed.

(at around 1h 45 mins) During the motorcycle chase, when Ethan smokes the cars chasing him, right before he enters the intersection, the fog machine is visible on the right side of the screen.

Explosive apparatuses for use in stunts are clearly visible on overturned vehicles.

(at around 1h 50 mins) From the helicopter's point of view, as it approaches Nyah on the cliff over the harbor, safety wires can be seen attached to/in/behind/otherwise appearing to come outward from the actress's hands.



Errors in geography

The plane in the opening scene crashes in the Rocky Mountains. However, a plane flying direct from Sydney to Atlanta does not ever pass over the Rocky Mountains. Rather, it passes over central Mexico on the way to Atlanta due to the great circle route that airliners must take.

(at around 40 mins) When Ethan uses the tracking unit to locate Nyah in Sean's villa right on the waterfront of Sydney Harbor, the coordinates on screen are given as 33?52'48"S 151?13'10"E. This puts the house in the middle of the nightlife suburb Darlinghurst, nowhere near the harbor.

When for the first time Nyah is tracked using the injected tracking device, Ethan's associates say Sydney but the satellite map on the laptop shows somewhere between Cairns and Darwin.

(at around 18 mins) The car chase in Spain is supposed to happen near Seville, but there aren't any similar mountain roads nearby.

At the beginning of the movie a group of children are playing and singing Ring a Ring o' Rosie, and they incorrectly sing "ashes, ashes, we all fall down". In Australia, the correct lyrics would be "Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down" - ashes are American lyrics.



Plot holes

At the start of the movie, Dr. Nekhorvich tells "Dimitri" that he has to be in Atlanta within 20 hours of exposure. Even if it were possible for him to inject himself, get to the airport and then on a plane, with a 15-hour flight from Sydney to LA, and then from LA to Atlanta on a commercial airliner, he wouldn't have made it in time.

After a brutal fight with the villain's henchman, Ethan tricks the villain by placing a mask of his own face onto the henchman (after duct taping the henchman's mouth closed). Then Ethan puts on a mask of the henchman's face and changes clothes with him. All this would take considerable time, of course, even if Ethan did just happen to be carrying a mask of his own face AND a mask of the henchman's face as well, both of which seem highly unlikely.

(at around 3 mins) From his RT skills, it would have been noticeable very early on to the 747 crew that Stamp was an impostor. At cruise, altitude should be reported as Flight Level not height in feet i.e. descending to FL160 rather than altitude "one six thousand". He should also not have autonomously made an altitude change without either formally declaring an emergency or requesting descent clearance.

During the motorcycle chase several of the maneuvers shown are simply impossible to perform one handed.

At around 1:57 they ask for the whereabouts of Miss Hall. She still has the tracking device installed (as far as the plot shows) and therefore they know her location and most likely the location of Ethan Hunt as well. So they don't need to ask where he is going on vacation.



Character error

(at around 5 mins) The villains use nitrous oxide to knock out (not kill) the people on the plane. However, Sean tells his sidekick to disconnect the "NO2 tank", both on-screen and in the closed-captioning. However, nitrous oxide is "N2O". "NO2" is nitrogen dioxide, a poisonous, smelly gas that would be immediate noticeable, and would kill the passengers, not quietly knock them out.

When Ethan goes into the tower to kill the virus Luther says he'll be out of contact for 8 minutes while the ventilation sequence starts. However, Luther is still tracking Ethan's locator, so signals can get out. Someone with Luther's supposed technical skills could have produced a communicator that worked on the same frequency as the tracker so he could have kept in communication.

In the opening sequence, the crew of the airliner radios the control center, identifying the airline verbally as "Trans Pacific." In the shot of the plane, the markings say "Pan Pacific."

In the opening sequence, the pilot reports a partial cabin depressurization and identifies the aircraft as "Trans-Pac 227 747 Heavy". In reality a 747 is, by definition, designated "heavy" and the proper designation would be 'Trans-Pac 227 Heavy'. The "heavy" designation is used to indicate aircraft over 255,000 lbs.

When Nyah is telling Hunt about the pictures of newspapers with money, she mentions the 'London Times'. As Nyah is British, she would just refer to the paper as the 'Times'.