Maverick's going ballistic, into HD! One would be hard-pressed to bring to mind a contemporary actor more influential and lasting than Tom Cruise. Thanks to recent publicity gaffs, his image has drop a notch or two, but his legacy, for that is what it is, remains unblemished to the discerning moviegoer. It’s more than that, however. Cruise arrived in a transitional moment for Hollywood, when movies still favored actors and character over visual effects and high spectacle. Indeed, he was one of the last of the movie stars.
The year was 1986 and Top Gun broke through the stratosphere. Grossing over $300 million off of $15 million, it established Cruise as the force to be reckoned with. In 1981, he’d been an extra in TAPS when the director axed one of the leads and gave him the part, starring opposite Sean Penn, Timothy Hutton as he won the Oscar for Ordinary People, and the incomparable George C. Scott. Two years later, he was on screen in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, coupled with the staggering breakout that ranks as one of film’s all time bests, as Joel Goodsen in Risky Business.
Cruise had come a long way from the Franciscan seminary and graveyard shifts as an NYC trash man. And the domination had only just begun. With only 37 credits to his name, few are less than leads and fewer still were anything but blockbuster successes. Days of Thunder may have been a Daytona reboot of Top Gun, but it was still profitable and introduced Cruise to ex-wife Kidman, a partnership that would land them the leads in Stanley Kubrick’s final film.
Minority Report and War of the Worlds paired Cruise with Spielberg for two visually arresting forays into science fiction. The former specifically created a seamless world of exciting new technology, the likes of which had never been captured on the screen before. And somehow, between the two, Cruise turned in an incredible performance as the philosophizing hitman in Michael Mann’s urban epic Collateral. Unbeatable as the cocky hero or devoted family man, Cruise slipped in a chilling villain whose coldness to taking life puts him next to the most enjoyably unsettling out there.
The irony of this collection is that the movies are must-owns, and they’re not even Cruise’s best. The true fan knows that Oscar-nominated turns in Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia, both of which were devastating performances, are musts. Legal thrills in The Firm and A Few Good Men, Neil Jordan’s hypnotic Interview with the Vampire, and a whole franchise of Mission Impossible built around him don’t hurt either.
There was a time when Hollywood stars were owned by the studios. A film’s success depended on the success of the star, and the studios were dedicated to their image and fame. Of such stuff, icons were made. The ‘80s and ‘90s created the last great stars. While the studios no longer owned them, the audiences were loyal to them and the result was the same. Cruise, Pitt, Crowe, Hanks, Roberts, and so many others that we consider the stars of today, are still around thanks to the end of the 20th Century. They arrived on the scene before the medium changed. They, the actors, put butts in the seats with their execution of well-written stories. And they are still successful for it.
The cut-off was the millennium. With a new era came new technology, and every star who arrived after that time has played second fiddle. Audiences aren’t loyal to the Robert Pattinsons or Taylor Lauters. Their recent abysmal failures attest to that. Audiences today are loyal to branding. The franchise reigns supreme and actors fortunate enough to land in one do well. For those lucky few, however, who arrived before Lord of the Rings swept the world and Avatar dazzled our senses, they are stars by their own right.
Crazy or not, like him or not, there is no other star that dominated Hollywood’s final era of super-stardom, reigning over the final two decades of the 20th Century with an almost bulletproof command of the screen. When it comes to Tom Cruise, I’ll be his wingman anytime.
BLU-RAY BONUS FEATURES:
Thanks to the fantastic work done on each film’s individual release, this package collects features for each. Colllateral has some superb rehearsal footage that sheds light on the meticulous work that goes into Michael Mann’s process, as well as a dozen other behind the scenes looks at everything from the VFX to the locations in the film. As with most of his projects, Spielberg features heavily in War of the Worlds extras, discussing the source material and his formative experience of the original film. Days of Thunder lacks features, but there’s no loss there. Thankfully, Top Gun saves the day with a modest selection delving into storyboards, the making of, and a piece on the actual Top Gun school.
The only oversight is Minority Report. Originally released as a two-disc bundle, the extras disc has been neglected in this set. On its own, Minority Report has more extras than you can shake a stick at, but in this set there are none. Oops.
"Tom Cruise Blu-ray Collection" is on sale November 15, 2011 and is rated R. Action, Crime, Drama. Directed by Michael Mann, Steven Spielberg, Tony Scott. Written by Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr, Robert Towne, Stuart Beattie, Scott Frank, Jon Cohen, Josh Friedman, David Koepp. Starring Colin Farrell, Dakota Fanning, Jamie Foxx, Kelly Mcgillis, Max Von Sydow, Nicole Kidman, Tim Robbins, Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer.
