Tom Cruise is America’s last movie star. And he’s created a new genre—hyper-realism—that goes directly against the CGI schlock of summer blockbusters: Transformers destroying cities, a fleet of spaceships taken down by Thor’s hammer etc.
Tom Cruise’s action films are undeniably exciting. They are so, not because the viewer imagines that “Ethan Hunt” or “Maverick” is caught up in intrigue and danger, but because Tom Cruise himself is—and that he might actually die making these films!
The knock on Tom Cruise the actor was that he always played the same character or always played himself. But that’s missing the point. He always transcended the normal cinematic experience of characters and plots: you went to see *Tom Cruise*, not any film he happened to be in.
The idea of the “uncanny valley” is outmoded in contemporary Hollywood blockbusters. No viewer really believes that what he’s watching is even remotely real, even with the most photorealistic computer generated imagery.
No viewer of a Marvel film asks, “Wow, did they really crash a hovering aircraft carrier into New York City?” Instead, it’s all appreciated on a meta- and even cynical level: “Wow, all that CGI must have cost millions!”
With a Toim Cruise film, even if the plot makes no sense and the characters are cardboard cutouts, you powerfully feel that what is happening is real—because there is no distinction between Cruise the stunt performer and the character he’s playing.
Anyway, attack Tom Cruise the man all you want: he’s a weird Scientologist; he’s has no acting range, etc etc. etc. None of it matters. He’s a complete badass achieving something that no one else is even attempting—and doing it as he’s pushing 60!
