by Thom Yee

Jack Reacher images courtesy of Paramount Pictures
“Jack Reacher!?” I hear you cry out from across the room, the implication burning more brightly, clearly, and obviously than a thousand exploding suns. “But… Tom Cruise… he’s f*cked up…!”
In my mind, and to the extent that I care, Tom Cruise is a perfect movie star. He’s iconic, he’s been in movies I liked (Mission: Impossibles 1 and 3, War of the Worlds), he’s been in movies that I will never see (The Firm, Valkyrie, Rock of Ages), and, like it or not, he dominates the scenes that he’s in without necessarily chewing up the scenery. I believe that he’s the characters that he’s playing when he’s playing them, whether he’s playing to type (Jerry Maguire) or against (Collateral). I couldn’t care less about anything going on around him when he’s not on screen, Scientology or not, couch hopping or not, having a weird effect on his latest beard wife or not. I’m here to watch movies. He could be murdering babies in the street and the rational side of my brain would be admitting how overpopulation is a serious issue as I sit in the theatre waiting for Oblivion to start (though that might have more to do with my belief that most aren’t capable of raising proper children).
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