Kid Reporter Emmet Smith talks with Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise. Get caught up in the action! Check out a slideshow of our Kid Reporters covering the Mission Impossible III premieres. (Photo: Suzanne Freeman)

Wednesday, May 3—"Here he comes! Here he comes! I see him!" shouted more than 350 New York City high school students lined up outside the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. They had been waiting for hours in hopes of meeting Tom Cruise before an afternoon screening of his new movie, Mission Impossible III.

It was a crazy scene on the West Side Highway in downtown New York, when police suddenly shut down the traffic so that Tom Cruise could ride up to the red carpet on a motorcycle.

Stepping onto the red carpet, Cruise disappeared into the crowd of fans and paparazzi. Students were snapping photos with their cell phones, and screaming out, "Tom! Tom!" to get his attention.

The interesting thing is that many of them did get his attention. Cruise spent nearly an hour talking to as many people as he could. He shook hands, posed for pictures, and signed autographs. He even took the time to stop and talk to me and my Scholastic Press Corps partner, Erika DeJesus.

The excitement continued even after the movie's top star zoomed off in a bright orange Mustang Saleen. Several other stars of Mission Impossible III were still on hand to meet and greet.

Kerri Russell, who plays the first damsel in distress in the movie, talked to us about being part of the excitement at the Tribeca Film Festival. "I live in New York and I love the chance to be at home any time I can," she said. "It's beautiful out today, it's a nice spring day and I love it." Of course, it then began to rain lightly and she hurried off to keep from getting wet.

Kid Reporter Emmet Smith talks with local high school students. (Photo: Suzanne Freeman)

Next up on the carpet was Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays one of the four Mission Impossible team members. He introduced himself as "Johnny."

We asked him what it was like to work with Tom Cruise. The native of Ireland answered in his best brogue.

"It's the easiest thing I've ever done, you know what I mean?" he said. "He makes all the sets a lot of fun. What he wanted to bring across in the film was that we all had a really good chemistry and that we all actually like each other as human beings, because if you don't like each other as human beings, then it's not going to come across in film as if you're a team. And it's all about being a team."

We got to see the movie after the stars left, and I agree that the team chemistry was a real strong point. We asked some of the more than 900 high school students who got to be the first in the nation to view the film what they thought.

"I liked the action," said 18-year-old Alcira. "My favorite scene was on the bridge—when he [Tom Cruise] flew on top of the car."

A few others said they weren't too crazy about the love scenes, which were pretty tame by Hollywood standards, but they loved all the action.

Nefertiti, 18, said she liked that Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt, was so smart. "He knew everything," she said.

So does she think Cruise is as smart as his Mission Impossible character? "I guess he would have to be," she said. "He's rich and famous!"

Said another young woman standing by, "Being cute helps, too!"