Our review of the second annual, early-Summer, Tom Cruise-led sci-fi/action/adventure film, based on a book you should go read instead of wasting time/money on this film. Ooops – spoilers.
Our review of the second annual, early-Summer, Tom Cruise-led sci-fi/action/adventure film, based on a book you should go read instead of wasting time/money on this film. Ooops – spoilers.
As always, an entertaining review DDM. On my end, I try not to compare the books to the movies when reviewing adaptations since the similarities between the two are often perfunctory at best. I, myself, have often made the argument the best adaptation of Starship Troopers was the movie Aliens while Starship Troopers the film has less in common with it than Independence Day. I like both but judge them on their own merits.
In this case, it’s little enough merit. Yes, the Groundhog Day and Starship Troopers references are obvious (as is the “Tom Cruise plays the same character joke”) but it’s important to get those out of the way because they’re true.
Note: I will say, though, I think Tom Cruise did do a great job in the Interview with a Vampire movie and that’s my candidate for “great TC movie.” Never has an actor been better cast for playing a narcissistic megalomaniac bloodsucker which we, nevertheless, find immensely entertaining. Top Gun also gets a pass because that’s probably where Tom Cruise learned to be Tom Cruise.
I will say I think you undersold Emily Blunt’s performance in the movie. While she does exist as Obi-Wan Kenobi to Tom’s character, I found her role surprisingly nuanced. There’s certainly a gendered argument to be made we rarely see a woman consistently putting the mission first and the hardass in these sorts of films. The very *lack* of romance in the movie deserves to be commented on as well. No, it wouldn’t make any sense for Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to have one given they know each other one day repeatedly but since when has that ever stopped Hollywood?
As for the unearned paradoxical happy ending? I don’t know. Sometimes I feel that unhappy endings have to be earned. Especially when doing something so close to a video game. Things like Mass Effect 3 and Fallout 3 left a bad taste in my mouth because “heroic sacrifices” rarely feel less than contrived. Ending with Tom and Emily like the book would have irritated me on an entirely different level because of the gendered nature of the book while a TPK would have been memorable but emotionally satisfying? I’m not sure.
Or maybe it would have been better since my overwhelming emotion to this film was “meh.”
You are not alone in that “meh.” I consider that “meh” a serious problem creeping up upon us all. As producers become even more paranoid about appealing to even more demographics, the movies they make will become blander and “meh” will become the default reaction for even more people. I’m already seeing this happen to people I respect. The only thing I can think to do is show them genuinely bad movies, the better to re-set their filters and keep their minds sharp.
Granted, this one held the Love Interest down to a handful of scenes. I appreciated that…and the final Boss Battle, in the Louvre. More movies should trash that part of Paris – the Eiffel Tower’s suffered enough over the last five-plus years.
All endings need to be earned…and there’s only one “good” end to a Time Loop story like this. I should’ve name-dropped that Star Trek episode, “Cause and Effect,” which actually earns it.
I’ve always thought of Interview as “a good Brad Pitt movie,” myself, but your reasoning’s pretty airtight. No points, though. The answer we were looking for was Legend.