Live by the sword of megastardom, die by the sword of megastardom: the accepted wisdom about Tom Cruise, our most enduring movie star of the past three decades is that recent years have tarnished his once-gleaming brand. His association with Scientology, his high-profile divorces and the aura of something manufactured about his offscreen romances, and most of all a string of box office disappointments (grading on the steep curve by which a film that can take $350m worldwide can be a disappointment) have all combined to make it seem like he’s past his sell-by date. But this week will see the proof in the pudding: “Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation” rappels into theaters on Friday, and may very well bring Cruise back to the top of the pile. Because while early tracking was for a “soft” $40m opening, that’s still more than the last ‘Mission: Impossible’ film started out on, yet ‘Ghost Protocol‘ then held on, through excellent word of mouth, a wide expansion and stellar overseas numbers, to be Cruise’s third-highest domestic earner and his biggest worldwide hit ever. Early reviews of ‘Rogue Nation’ are positive (ours included); there are many far-flung locales worked into the storyline to potentially get more international bums on seats; and this is an enduringly popular franchise — it could well prove a ka-ching! recreation of the formula. And if you are an old-school star (and Cruise is arguably the last one of those we have) you are as big as your last hit.
So even though “Rock of Ages,” “Oblivion,” “Jack Reacher” and “Edge of Tomorrow” all underperformed, should ‘Rogue Nation’ do the business, Cruise will once again have bounced back. And despite it all, we’re kind of rooting for him to do just that, because however he may have been condemned/ridiculed for his offscreen behavior in the court of public opinion (and Amy Nicholson’s brilliant piece on the “myth” of the infamous couch-jumping incident may be from last year but it’s worth revisiting), onscreen, Cruise is still a remarkable performer. He’s a creature of pure Hollywood — charismatic and energetic — and has been defining the role of movie star for so long, it’s possible we’d feel a little bereft without him. And he is also, almost separately from all that, a good actor, or at least he can be in certain situations, with certain directors, in certain roles.
To celebrate “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation”‘s release, we’ve therefore revisited our old Best Of Tom Cruise feature and expanded it to ten, and also appended five of his worst performances for variety’s sake. The Ten Best and Five Worst Tom Cruise Performances follow, and taken as a whole they show that for all the ups and downs you can never count Cruise out. In fact, the tagline of the underperforming but very good “Edge of Tomorrow” could well be applied to his career overall: Tom Cruise, Megastar — Live. Die. Repeat.
Best
“Top Gun” (1989)
If “Risky Business” was the movie that made Cruise a star, “Top Gun” was the one that made him an icon. Among the most 1980s of the 1980s movies, from filtered sunsets to a Harold Faltermeyer synth score, this came from producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, and the late great Tony Scott, but from his first appearance, with his callsign Maverick emblazoned across his helmet, the film belonged to Cruise. Maverick (he has a real name, but I bet you don’t know it without looking it up…) is a young, brash naval pilot who with his RIO Goose (Anthony Edwards) is sent to the Top Gun school for the ‘best of the best,’ where he clashes with his instructors and classmatwes (Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer), and falls for astrophysicist Charlie (Kelly McGillis). It’s undeniably formulaic, jingoistic and self-centered (it’s a film essentially about the need to be aggressive and confident, making it a sort of cinematic cocaine), but goddammit it works, much of that because of Cruise, whose cocky smile throws off self-belief, but with the actor capable of showing doubt and insecurity too in a world which doesn’t have time for that. The film works better as a romance as you’d think too, thanks to him: imagine another actor of his vintage trying to pull off the “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” scene, and you’ll know how crucial Cruise is to the film’s blockbuster success.
“The Color of Money” (1986)
“Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas” et al receive more shine, but one of the more undersung films in the Martin Scorsese oeuvre is his 1986 picture, “The Color of Money.” And while the true star of the picture is Paul Newman, reprising the role of Fast Eddie Felson in the sequel to “The Hustler,” also vastly underrated in the movie is Tom Cruise as the pompadoured, cocky upstart pool player Vincent Lauria whom Felson mentors, only to be betrayed. Newman elevates their tête-à-têtes, but Cruise answers the challenge in his first serious dramatic role since becoming a star (released less than six months after “Top Gun” became a smash), faring better than Leonardo DiCaprio did in his first collaborations with Marty. As became his wont with more death-defying stunts, he performed many of the pool sequences himself, giving it an a easy authenticity, and is every part the strutting, glorious embodiment of youth that Felson left behind long ago; the scene of Vincent doing his thing to the tune of Warren Zevon‘s “Werewolves of London” is still one of Cruise’s most iconic movie star moments. And it also showcases early the truism, reflected in quite a few picks below, that Cruise can be at his most interesting when he’s at his least likeable.
“Rain Man” (1988)
If ever a film was more or less destined to be damned to uncoolness by its own success, perhaps Barry Levinson‘s “Rain Man” was it. A sincere, well-meaning but entirely manipulative piece of expert awards bait that hooked, from eight nominations, four big Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and Lead Actor for Dustin Hoffman), it’s hard to see past the film’s borderline parodic checklisting of Oscar-friendly elements: an autistic savant teaches a heartless yuppie about brotherly love, while the yuppie gives his autistic savant brother the chance for a little life experience and human contact. But while of course it’s Hoffman’s Raymond, the role featuring the developmental disability that won the award, Cruise’s part as the brash, bitter Charlie all but disinherited in favor of the institutionalized brother he never knew he had, has the much bigger arc of emotional change to sell. And Cruise, if you can remember it, is really, really good: he shows Charlie’s brittle armor cracking and finally coming apart in believable stages, on his journey from self-interested asshole to caring adult able to see the value in fraternal love, even if it can’t fully be returned. He’s not often considered a “generous” actor, but here Cruise carries the film while quietly ceding the spotlight.