Tom Cruise shows off impossible stunts in latest film

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise has celebrated his birthday by walking the red carpet in Australia to promote his latest blockbuster.

His assignment? To woo Australian audiences for the seventh instalment of the Mission Impossible film franchise.

It's been 27 years since Cruise first took on the role of spy extraordinaire Ethan Hunt and he shows no signs of slowing down.

In Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, the 61-year-old races around the world dodging bullets and weaving through the streets of Rome.

And it's Cruise himself doing the stunts including his most dangerous yet - riding a motorbike off a cliff.

One of the most recognisable names worldwide, the former husband of Australian darling Nicole Kidman said he carved up the terrain doing more than 13,000 motocross rides and fell from the sky more than 500 times.

"As I'm jumping off, so many things can go wrong, and I had to be able to recover very, very quickly because I had six seconds to open up the parachute and eight seconds before I hit the ground," he said during a visit to Sydney.

The Mission Impossible franchise is one of the most successful in history, grossing more than $5 billion worldwide since 1996.

Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt in the two-part movie where he faces the world's most dangerous threat so far: a mysterious and powerful enemy trying to get its hands on a terrifying weapon that threatens all of humanity.

Cruise shares the screen with a star-studded cast that includes Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby.

The film's sequel is slated for release in 2024.

Australian Associated Press