Best & Worst of Tom Cruise

Article by Gabe Zia

Okay, so as you may know by now, every week I take a look at a film coming out one week (ish) from now. I'll pick an actor or director (or even set genre), and talk about the best and worst films from that thing. This week, the big film is Edge of Tomorrow. The film has a few interesting actors with great movies, but the main guy here is Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow

The guy has become a staple in the action genre, solidifying himself as a great action hero with the Mission Impossible series, but has also shown some chops with playing a dramatic roles with Magnolia or The Last Samurai. However, my favourite Tom Cruise movie is one of the few where he plays the villain, and that film is Collateral.

Tom Cruise in Collateral

From Michael Mann, the director of Heat, comes this film about a taxi driver (played by Jamie Foxx), who ends up in a really bad situation. The situation being that his passenger is a hitman, hired to take out five different targets on one night in Los Angeles. Tom Cruise shows absolutely spectacular chops with playing the villain role, showing he can play complex and intimidating bad guys. What's even more clever is that some of his character traits reflect that of the character traits he brings into protagonist characters. That's really interesting, and plays well into the way the film shows off his character.

For worst, there are also a few bad films here. Vanilla Sky is one I know a few others would pick, but I don't mind that film as much as most people. However, probably Tom Cruises biggest point in his career (besides Risky Business) is the Mission Impossible series. I liked the first one, and I liked the third one. I love the fourth one, but I hate Mission Impossible II.

I like John Woo movies, most of the time. I like Face/Off, I love Hard Boiled, but Mission Impossible 2 just sucks. The action sequences are usually the saving grace for these films, but even by John Woos standards these are over the top and ridiculous. Ethan Hunt isn't the most interesting of characters, but even he seems like Lizbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in comparison to these cardboard cut-outs. Both the obvious love interest and the cheesy bad guy manage to be both stupidly over the top but also bland. I don't know how that combination was even made possible, but they did it.

Classic movie review of the cult classic "Donnie Darko" will be up sometime this week!