He can’t smile without it looking phoney unless it’s like a snarky cocky Top Gun smile. So, he doesn’t play parts that call for it. In some scenes in Vanilla Sky it comes across. He can not look like he’s just relaxed and having a decent time.
We do have a professional agent in here - and he agreed with me. :p
link to bad phony smile scene?
Edge of Tomorrow is a really fun movie.
Couldn’t find it. Looked in a few other movies as well. He almost never plays that kind of role - it’s pretty rare for him not be intense, especially not like aggro.
Other intense emotions? This is pretty bad.
He’s not good in Eyes Wide Shut either.
He’s in a lot of good movies and he’s very good at certain things.
Magnolia’s a bad movie in general. That scene works for me though. Like, I buy Cruise’s character here. He’s the only interesting character in the whole damn dumb movie.
But anyway critically-acclaimed Magnolia (which sucked, I agree) and critically-acclaimed Eyes Wide Shut are the weak Cruise movies you’re pointing to? Come on!
Oh, he’s been in worse movies. Cocktail, stupid race car movie, Top Gun was pretty crappy if you weren’t 14 years old when you saw it. He’s good at being Mission Impossible Man or War of the Worlds man or Minority Report man. He was very good at somewhat different heavily made up movie producer dude in Tropic Thunder - but that was still an aggro intense person. That’s what he’s good at. Action - being mad - being intense - running fast. He was good in his first violent aggro role in Taps - but, looking at other people in that movie, he’s no Sean Penn.
Bingo.
You also dislike Pacino?
I mean Cocktail wasn’t a good movie but he wasn’t bad in that movie. And actually upon rewatching, Cocktail is, much like Top Gun, an unrecognized-at-the-time homoerotic masterpiece. Like, show me an unconvincing scene from Cruise in Cocktail. Tom Hanks made Turner and Hooch but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad actor. And Cruise didn’t even make Turner and Hooch! Cocktail is a pretty good movie!
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I don’t know if I have to say that he’s usually in good movies again or not. I said that you know. He’s good at acting in like 1.5 different ways. But, like, Sean Penn? He’s no Sean Penn. He couldn’t even have pulled off Mystic River, and no way in hell he does Spicoli. He doesn’t try much that he can’t do. Man’s got to know his limitations. (great line from a great movie star who also isn’t a great actor)
I remember when Eyes Wide Shut came out there was a debate about whether Kubrick had instructed Cruise to act that badly to make some kind of an artistic point.
+1 to Cruise being a ham with a horribly limited range. I’ve tried to avoid his films as much as possible over the years.
The thing with other typecast or hammy actors with limited expression is they usually have some sort of watchable charm eg James Stewart, Charles Bronson etc, but not Cruise who’s mainly there to give young women something to look at while their boyfriend/husband enjoys the action sequences.
British TV sports has someone called Jamie Redknapp who serves the same function.
Redknapp is a sex symbol? I thought he was just a former player they bring to say stupid things. Is Jamie Carragher also considered eye candy for the ladies and 10% of the men?
lol no Carragher is there to remind parents of what happens to their kids’ speech if they let them eat too many marshmallows.
Redknapp just repeats cliches and is incapable of independent thought. He’s there to give camel toe in the studio for anyone desperate and bored enough.
I sort of agree, but unless 606 and the like have gotten much better in the decades since I heard them I think a lot of people probably enjoy Redknapp’s level of ‘analysis’ too.
On top of everything mentioned Tom Cruise may be the best actor/stuntman combo since Buster Keaton (okay Jackie Chan). Because of his wealth and self-funded insurance he does stunts literally nobody else in Hollywood is allowed to do.
He was very charming in the non-courtroom scenes in the YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH movie that I can’t think of right now. There moments on the softball field and in the restaurant with Jo that were natural and quiet and excellently acted.
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