Tom Cruise

[TKOSpikes]

A ranking of Cruise movies (strictly my personal opinion). I propose that the vast majority of his movies were carried by the great directors that have been associated with them (Pollack, Spielberg, Stone, Coppola, etc.) but even that is not a guarantee of quality (Kubrick, De Palma, both Ridley and Tony Scott, Spielberg again, Woo, etc.). In fact, I think that replacing Cruise in many cases would have improved the movies (I will give him the benefit of the doubt on most of the Good movies on this, but see movies with an "*" after the title for my feedback on this).

Tom Cruise movies (descending by order of release in each catagory):

Good movies as a lead:
Risky Business*- Has not aged great but still is funny overall.
Rain Man- Co-lead but Hoffman certainly carries this movie.
Born on the Fourth of July- One of his best acting performances. Wish there were more. Oliver Stone.
A Few Good Men- Movie was carried by Nicholson and the rest of a fine cast moreso than Cruise.
The Firm- A Pollack film.
Minority Report*- Spielberg adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story.
The Last Samurai- A decent performance.
Collateral- Co-lead with Fox. Truthfully, he is not asked to do much acting but it is a good action performance.
Valkyrie- Pretty good movie. Not a bad performance by Cruise.
Edge of Tomorrow- Good movie and I actually liked Cruise's performance.

Good movies as a non-lead:
Taps- His 2nd movie. A supporting role as the 'roided out bad guy.
The Outsiders- A Coppola flick.
Magnolia- Not my fav, but my wife liked it a lot.
Tropic Thunder- I liked the movie. Quite a minor role for TC.

Watchable movies:
Legend- Interesting Ridley Scott work. Curry has the best role in the movie by far.
Top Gun- I personally think that it is complete shit but I will bump it up to Watchable due to the iconic status.
The Color of Money*- Pales by comparision to The Hustler. A Scorsese movie.
Far and Away*- I didn't really like it, but it is a chick flick. Ron Howard directed.
Interview with a Vampire*- Almost crap but some good stuff in it brings it over the line.
Jerry McGuire- Also just above the crap line. As noted, has not aged well. Cameron Crowe directed.
Jack Reacher*- Good start, but a bad second half drags it down as it becomes a Cruise vehicle.


Crap:
Endless Love- His first movie. A small role, so not his fault by any means.
Losin It- Very poor compared to his next comedy role in Risky Business.
All the Right Moves- Not even in the converstaion of best football movies. Mediocre at best.
Cocktail- Ugh! What a piece of shit.
Days of Thunder- Take Top Gun (which was already shit), and do a shittier version of it on a race track.
Mission Impossible- De Palma move, and one of his worst. Could almost be in the Watchable catagory, but the next ones in the series drag it down.
Eyes Wide Shut*- I wanted to like it just because I love Kubrick as a director, but this is his worst. Kidman's full nudity is the only redeeming feature here.
Mission Impossible II- A John Woo movie. Worse than the first by quite a bit.
Vanilla Sky*- Poor compared to the original. Could be Watchable but Cruise, Cruz, and Diaz all perfom so badly in it!
War of the Worlds*- "How to ruin a classic". A Spielberg feature.
Mission Impossible III- Better than II, but still faceless crap.
Knight and Day- One of the worst big budget movies I have seen in recent years.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol- A lot of people liked it. Personally, I still thought it was crap.
Rock of Ages- WTF??
Oblivion*- How the hell this dreck has a 7.0 on IMDB I will never know.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation- Again, a positive response that I just could not bring myself to like. Why did they bother making 4-5 movies of this series when it is essentially the same exact movie every time?
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back*- Another "Why bother?" follow up.

I suppose that you could move some of these Crap ones into the Watchable catagory pretty easily but I am jaded by Cruise's poor acting so much that I admittably roll my eyes a bit just knowing that he is associated with the movie.

Discuss!

Under Good as Lead...
I think he and Hoffman nailed Rain Man together.
I very much disagree that Nicholson carried him... a great role, yes, but Cruise was good in A Few Good Men.
I enjoyed Minority Report. I don't think he hindered nor helped the movie, as the story was the star.

Under Watchable...
Jerry MacGuire is obviously just a chick flick that a guy can tolerate.

Under Crap...
see Jerry MacGuire for answer to Cocktail


...and my father loves the Jack Reacher novels. And is disgusted they chose Tom Cruise for the movie(s). He tried, but can't watch them.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

From what I have read he's apparently an amazing dude. Like if you are on set with him he will hook it up, catering food, making sure all the extras and everyone are taken care of. Strange dude for sure but supposedly a pretty great person.

 

[PEOPLESCHICKEN]

His best role is Tropic Thunder, and it's not even close IHMO.

There should have been a movie about Les Grossman

 

[theboardref]

Under Good as Lead...
I think he and Hoffman nailed Rain Man together.
I very much disagree that Nicholson carried him... a great role, yes, but Cruise was good in A Few Good Men.
I enjoyed Minority Report. I don't think he hindered nor helped the movie, as the story was the star.

Under Watchable...
Jerry MacGuire is obviously just a chick flick that a guy can tolerate.

Under Crap...
see Jerry MacGuire for answer to Cocktail


...and my father loves the Jack Reacher novels. And is disgusted they chose Tom Cruise for the movie(s). He tried, but can't watch them.

Jerry MacGuire was supposedly this amazing movie and I watched it on Netflix and wanted to quit watching. Has anyone here watched it back in the day and enjoyed it until they rewatched it recently? I think this movie fell victim to its age. It is a vanilla rom com. Not really enjoyable in any capacity.

 

[broncosmitty]

Rubbin's racin' son.

 

[jakedog56]

From what I have read he's apparently an amazing dude. Like if you are on set with him he will hook it up, catering food, making sure all the extras and everyone are taken care of. Strange dude for sure but supposedly a pretty great person.

The guy is worth hundreds of millions. Hooking up catering for a few folks is like me tossing a penny at a bum.