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Post by JangoB on Jul 27, 2018 22:24:43 GMT
Which Tom Cruise do you prefer? The action guy (which he seems to be focused on lately) or the actorly one of "Rain Man"/"Magnolia" type?
As much as I like him as an action star, I much prefer him in his more serious roles. I wish he made more of an effort to showcase his excellent acting abilities nowadays, but I suppose his time will come. I fully expect him to turn in some excellent character-based films after he's 60.
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Post by stephen on Jul 27, 2018 22:32:52 GMT
I can't really separate the two, because what makes Cruise's action flicks so great to watch is because Cruise is on all the time. I've never seen him phone in a performance, even when the film itself isn't good. He is giving it his all, just focusing more on physically reliant blockbusters than quiet introspective moments. If Tom Cruise wants to make movies like Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation or Edge of Tomorrow even into his sixties, let him do his thing till he can't run anymore. Cruise is like a shark: if he stops running/swimming, he dies.
Now with that said, I would love it if Cruise peppered in some auteur flicks in there somewhere. The man is one of the all-time greatest movie stars, but he's also an immensely talented actor, which a lot of people forget. I do wish he'd do more things like Magnolia and Collateral, roles that took his perception and warped it in a brilliant way. I'd even argue Edge of Tomorrow did this, because it riffed on Cruise's blockbuster badass label and made his character out to be a cowardly tool who has to learn to be a badass through (heavily repeated) trial and error.
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Post by quetee on Jul 27, 2018 22:33:45 GMT
Finally a poll that makes sense.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 27, 2018 22:46:34 GMT
Action movies as a general rule aren't good enough in the Cruise era onward for me - like he literally has a couple that to me stand-out. The last guy that made them stand out in a classic way was..........Harrison Ford maybe?
Cruise has a couple special turns and a couple potentially good ones he passed on (Donnie Brasco for one) or didn't do (the Phil Spector biopic where he'd have played his whole life)........it's kind of hard when I look at his whole career not to see it as a lot of waste and I don't like all his forays into serious acting either (loathe him and the film Eyes Wide Shut, don't much like Jerry Maguire, etc.).
His Joe Cool persona always irked me too - I hate this in actors in general, and he's as guilty as anyone of working his "brand" - a gross term that people use a lot nowadays...........but the surprises in his career, the best of it, came from the "actor" Cruise.
Should have been more......
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Post by Viced on Jul 27, 2018 22:48:03 GMT
I'm with Stephen... he's awesome at both and it's kind of impossible to choose.
A nice balance of both would be preferable...
And I doubt he'll stop doing action movies (barring a serious accident) until he's 70 or so. Denzel is still kicking ass at 63... Bronson was still doing action movies well into his 60s. Of course Cruise has the crazy stunts angle, but he'll find a way to adapt if he needs to.
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Post by wallsofjericho on Jul 27, 2018 23:04:13 GMT
He's great at both. Would like to see him get a plum role again like Collateral, which he absolutely killed.
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Post by urbanpatrician on Jul 27, 2018 23:04:55 GMT
Thoughts on The Rock, pacinoyes ? Would you say he made them stand out comparable to the days of Arnie? I don't know how to answer this question, but if Collateral is considered "action" that's my favorite performance from him, so based on that line of reasoning I'll vote action? I loved him in Collateral and Jerry Maguire. I quite like his Joe Cool persona (Days of Thunder is probably where I feel it at its epitome), but Depp definitely should've played Donnie Brasco. |
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Post by pupdurcs on Jul 27, 2018 23:05:29 GMT
I dunno...Cruise is a fine actor, but not a great one (he's like Will Smith in a way. Capable of great work, but he really needs to put the effort in compared to more talented peers). Utterly professional and committed, but there's often/usually been a shallowness to him that permeates his work. Ironically, that shallowness may be what makes him a compelling movie star. You are not watching him play Maverick or Ethan Hunt for any sort of depth, but for Cruise to flash his grin and do his stunts. And run a lot.
But Cruise has been incredibly interesting as an action star two times in his career. Because both occassions required him to really act as well. Minority Report and Edge Of Tomorrow.
I'll give it to actor Cruise.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 27, 2018 23:11:56 GMT
The Rock is that Joe Cool persona that I can't stand...............on steroids.  |
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Post by stephen on Jul 27, 2018 23:19:05 GMT
I dunno...Cruise is a fine actor, but not a great one. Utterly professional and committed, but there's often/usually been a shallowness to him. Ironically, that shallowness may be what makes him a compelling movie star. You are not watching him play Maverick or Ethan Hunt for any sort of depth, but for Cruise to flash his grin and do his stunts. And run a lot. But Cruise has been incredibly interesting as an action star two times in his career. Because both occassions required him to really act as well. Minority Report and Edge Of Tomorrow. I think you and pacinoyes really undersell Cruise's talent. The man is monstrously gifted, and he's got a few performances I'd rate as truly masterful ( Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, Collateral) and a host of others that are so strong that make his CV pretty well able to stand against anyone's. I don't even know if I'd agree with what you mean about shallowness, because I always see the character when I see Cruise, which is insanely hard to do when you're the most well-known movie-star on the planet. It boggles the mind that Cruise manages to somehow keep his nutty off-screen persona entirely out of most of his film work, and that only a couple of times has he really tapped into it in the first place, to play off of his image in order to fuel the performance (Frank T.J. Mackey and Les Grossman being the most successful examples). What I also think is remarkable about Cruise that not many people will discuss is that despite looking like a modern-day pop-culture icon, he has a great skill at fitting in whatever era you stick him in. His performance as Lestat, for example, feels both vibrantly fresh and yet classical; it's no wonder that Anne Rice had to eat her words after seeing what he did with her character, to the point that she can hardly envision anyone but him in the part now. He puts on a clinic in how to fuel a performance almost entirely through one's own charisma, and in doing so he utterly humiliates Brad Pitt in the process. One of his more underrated turns, The Last Samurai, shows a man completely broken by war and horror, and I'd advise anyone to rewatch the film and try and put the historical whitewashing out of your head (which I personally think is overblown in this film's case; Watanabe and the rest of the samurai are the title characters of the film, not Cruise, and he isn't really so much a "white savior" as much as he just is the observer into their world) and just pay attention to what he's doing. He fits the period, and it's a fully realized character. Cruise has a brand, this is true, but I think he is far more capable of subverting it and has done so on numerous occasions. It just happens to take place more often than not in blockbusters rather than indie dramas. If we judge his films overall, it seems he takes the safe and consistent path . . . but if we look at his individual choices within them, I think he takes far more risks (with success) than he's given credit for. Don't get me wrong, I wish that Cruise would take a role in a Werner Herzog flick or something to break the mold, but I think that if we judge what he has done up to this point, there's not a whole lot you can fault him for. He's probably got the widest array of auteur directors under his belt out of anyone alive, if not overall, as it is. |
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Post by pupdurcs on Jul 27, 2018 23:41:33 GMT
I dunno...Cruise is a fine actor, but not a great one. Utterly professional and committed, but there's often/usually been a shallowness to him. Ironically, that shallowness may be what makes him a compelling movie star. You are not watching him play Maverick or Ethan Hunt for any sort of depth, but for Cruise to flash his grin and do his stunts. And run a lot. But Cruise has been incredibly interesting as an action star two times in his career. Because both occassions required him to really act as well. Minority Report and Edge Of Tomorrow. I think you and pacinoyes really undersell Cruise's talent. The man is monstrously gifted, and he's got a few performances I'd rate as truly masterful ( Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, Collateral) and a host of others that are so strong that make his CV pretty well able to stand against anyone's. I don't even know if I'd agree with what you mean about shallowness, because I always see the character when I see Cruise, which is insanely hard to do when you're the most well-known movie-star on the planet. It boggles the mind that Cruise manages to somehow keep his nutty off-screen persona entirely out of most of his film work, and that only a couple of times has he really tapped into it in the first place, to play off of his image in order to fuel the performance (Frank T.J. Mackey and Les Grossman being the most successful examples). What I also think is remarkable about Cruise that not many people will discuss is that despite looking like a modern-day pop-culture icon, he has a great skill at fitting in whatever era you stick him in. His performance as Lestat, for example, feels both vibrantly fresh and yet classical; it's no wonder that Anne Rice had to eat her words after seeing what he did with her character, to the point that she can hardly envision anyone but him in the part now. He puts on a clinic in how to fuel a performance almost entirely through one's own charisma, and in doing so he utterly humiliates Brad Pitt in the process. One of his more underrated turns, The Last Samurai, shows a man completely broken by war and horror, and I'd advise anyone to rewatch the film and try and put the historical whitewashing out of your head (which I personally think is overblown in this film's case; Watanabe and the rest of the samurai are the title characters of the film, not Cruise, and he isn't really so much a "white savior" as much as he just is the observer into their world) and just pay attention to what he's doing. He fits the period, and it's a fully realized character. Cruise has a brand, this is true, but I think he is far more capable of subverting it and has done so on numerous occasions. It just happens to take place more often than not in blockbusters rather than indie dramas. If we judge his films overall, it seems he takes the safe and consistent path . . . but if we look at his individual choices within them, I think he takes far more risks (with success) than he's given credit for. Don't get me wrong, I wish that Cruise would take a role in a Werner Herzog flick or something to break the mold, but I think that if we judge what he has done up to this point, there's not a whole lot you can fault him for. He's probably got the widest array of auteur directors under his belt out of anyone alive, if not overall, as it is. Cruise worked as Lestat....you are right. But I think you are overselling the notion of Cruise fitting in any era. I thought Cruise felt far too modern for The Last Samurai (that movie needed Russell Crowe or DDL) and he was the main thing that made Valkyrie ring false as a movie. He did not fit into that setting as a supposed World War 2 German. |
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 27, 2018 23:45:32 GMT
Action Cruise, because I haven't been terribly impressed with Actor Cruise since the 80s, but I continue to have fun with his action performances.
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Post by stephen on Jul 27, 2018 23:45:46 GMT
I think you and pacinoyes really undersell Cruise's talent. The man is monstrously gifted, and he's got a few performances I'd rate as truly masterful ( Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, Collateral) and a host of others that are so strong that make his CV pretty well able to stand against anyone's. I don't even know if I'd agree with what you mean about shallowness, because I always see the character when I see Cruise, which is insanely hard to do when you're the most well-known movie-star on the planet. It boggles the mind that Cruise manages to somehow keep his nutty off-screen persona entirely out of most of his film work, and that only a couple of times has he really tapped into it in the first place, to play off of his image in order to fuel the performance (Frank T.J. Mackey and Les Grossman being the most successful examples). What I also think is remarkable about Cruise that not many people will discuss is that despite looking like a modern-day pop-culture icon, he has a great skill at fitting in whatever era you stick him in. His performance as Lestat, for example, feels both vibrantly fresh and yet classical; it's no wonder that Anne Rice had to eat her words after seeing what he did with her character, to the point that she can hardly envision anyone but him in the part now. He puts on a clinic in how to fuel a performance almost entirely through one's own charisma, and in doing so he utterly humiliates Brad Pitt in the process. One of his more underrated turns, The Last Samurai, shows a man completely broken by war and horror, and I'd advise anyone to rewatch the film and try and put the historical whitewashing out of your head (which I personally think is overblown in this film's case; Watanabe and the rest of the samurai are the title characters of the film, not Cruise, and he isn't really so much a "white savior" as much as he just is the observer into their world) and just pay attention to what he's doing. He fits the period, and it's a fully realized character. Cruise has a brand, this is true, but I think he is far more capable of subverting it and has done so on numerous occasions. It just happens to take place more often than not in blockbusters rather than indie dramas. If we judge his films overall, it seems he takes the safe and consistent path . . . but if we look at his individual choices within them, I think he takes far more risks (with success) than he's given credit for. Don't get me wrong, I wish that Cruise would take a role in a Werner Herzog flick or something to break the mold, but I think that if we judge what he has done up to this point, there's not a whole lot you can fault him for. He's probably got the widest array of auteur directors under his belt out of anyone alive, if not overall, as it is. Cruise worked as Lestat....you are right. But I think you are overselling the notion of Cruise fitting in any era. I thought Cruise felt far too modern for The Last Samurai (that movie needed Russell Crowe or DDL) and he was the main thing that made Valkyrie ring false as a movie. He did not fit into that setting as a supposed World War 2 German. Aw, I quite like Valkyrie and find it another one of Cruise's more underrated roles. I wouldn't nominate him for it or anything, but I thought the approach they took worked well. |
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jul 28, 2018 0:41:09 GMT
They're all part of the same thing and for the most part I don't like it.
I think my favourite from him is Interview with the Vampire, which would fall more so in the actor category.
Still, his noteworthy limitations as an actor mean I prefer action Cruise overall.
All the same, that's sorta like saying you prefer a kick in the dick to a kick in the balls.
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Post by quetee on Jul 31, 2018 0:08:20 GMT
Finally a poll that makes sense.  lmao. I'm making a jab at those polls where you are going this match up makes no sense. |
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