REVIEW: Robotic Tom Cruise Weighs Down Knight and Day
In other words, Knight and Day at least makes an attempt to have some personality, instead of just engaging in the usual summer-blockbuster pummeling. And while 10 years ago we wouldn't be giving out bonus points for that, Knight and Day at least shows a sensibility at work (or a sensibility trying to work). Diaz is also a plus: She's game, in a go-for-broke way. When Roy hands her a tiny bottle and urges her to take a swig, the thing may as well be labeled "Drink me!" Diaz is like a lanky, loose-limbed Alice, with a rubbery, easy smile and radioactive blue eyes, going through the looking glass again and again. She seems fully in tune with what the movie is trying so desperately -- though failing -- to be.
It's Cruise who's the real problem. Admittedly, he's as good as he can be. At this point, after we've seen his nutball Oprah moment and his delusional Scientology recruitment video, we all pretty much think he's crazy anyway, and he strives to channel that craziness here: It's now one of the tools in his extremely limited actor's toolbox, and you have to give him credit -- just a little -- for being canny enough to put it to use.
Still, we have to look at the guy. And looking at movie stars should be a pleasure, not a chore. Cruise has aged gracefully, damn him: If you're just measuring wrinkles and all-around droopiness, he really does look pretty OK. But he still has no natural expressiveness. His Go Smile grin seems to be triggered by some elaborate electronic gizmo receiving its signals from a remote control tower; it's a marvel of mannered spontaneity. Nothing Cruise does seems to come from the inside -- every eye crinkle, every grimace, every brow furrow seems plucked from the air, collected from the universe around him and bent to do his bidding. Maybe that's one kind of acting. But it's not cool. Never will be.
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To Trace:
Read Charles Taylor's opinion of John Cassavetes. It's identical to Kael's. Read Taylor's opinion of LAST TANGO IN PARIS. It's identical to Kael's. Taylor has been trashing Cassavetes his entire career, while simultaneously boosting Brian DePalma every chance he gets (another evaluation identical to Kael's). He thinks Jonathan Demme was a great filmmaker till Silence of the Lambs ruined his promise (another opinion identical to Kael's). His opinion of which of Kubrick's movies are great and which are lousy is identical to Kael's: every single Kubrick picture gets thumbs up or thumbs down from Taylor depending on what Kael said about each particular title. The exact same Steven Spielberg pictures Kael liked are the ones Taylor and Zacharek like, and the same ones she was cool towards are the ones they tend to dismiss - sometimes this leads to comical contortions, as when Kael loved the first 45 minutes or so of Empire of the Sun but claimed it falls apart completely as the movie progresses - Taylor says almost the exact same thing somewhere in one of his reviews! He even copies KAEL'S EXACT OPINION when the movie, like Empire, is one she kind of liked but kind of didn't!
This is not film criticism. It's a cult of personality and nothing else besides. That might be tolerable even so, if Taylor and Zacharek mustered some actual evidence, and built actual coherent arguments, for their picks and pans. But they don't. They take it as a given that just because Kael thought something, all they need do is repeat what she said. They're wrong about that.
Thank you for your reply Patrick. I'd encourage you and everyone reading this to, if time permits, read Kael in depth and then compare what she says about particular films and filmmakers with what Zacharek and her husband Charles Taylor say about them. You'd soon realize that Taylor and Zacharek are epigones and clones of Kael (who was intelligent and original but wildly erratic in her often unpersuasive arguments).
Furthermore: even if Steph and Chuck read my comments and they change their practice in the future, it wouldn't change their track record. Their track record of Kael apologetics is available at Salon and elsewhere on the net for all to see. Even if they start changing it up a bit now (which I hope they do, as it's the only way they can ever contribute something of worth to the discussion of movies), my accusation still stands, and the proof of their deep derivativeness is there for all to see.
"And she had no problem dismissing Jolie's performance in Changeling."
Gee, Trace, and I suppose it's just a coincidence that Changeling just happened to be directed by Clint Eastwood, whom Kael despised and whose assessment Zacharek constantly copies. Gee, what a coincidence that the first serious, major thrashing Angie Jolie ever received from Zacharek just HAPPENED to be in an Eastwood flick.
That review was complete and utter bullshit! Never insult the "Cruise" again!!!!
Tom Cruise is positively one among the very best actors I know, I love almost all of his dvds and I tend not to care when some people say he's not really as decent as he was once.
Teeny Tom Cruise is a liar and a member of the most dangerous cult currently operating in the world. A cult so dangerous Germany (and THEY know what a cult is !) has banned them from its borders.
He faked a few marriages, adopted some kids because he allegedly shot blanks - and now HOSANNA! He spawned little ugly Sewery, an ugly Korean brought in fresh from the paddies for play-show Tom's life.
He's not a 'has-been," he's a "never-was."
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