“For once, Cruise is not a rookie overachiever itching to take on the world, but what he is -- an immortal, ambisexual creature of the night who has Kim Basinger's hair.”

~ E. Bougerol

By E. Bougerol  |  Send to Friend

He's played a bartender, a fighter pilot, a motivational speaker and a sports agent. He's saved the world from aliens, artificial intelligence gone wrong and shadowy military injustice. And he's done it all unburdened by acting talent, with just three facial expressions to his credit: The furrowed brow, the belting laughter, and the –

Sorry, that was the doorbell. Some nice lady from the Church of Scientology just dropped off a muffin basket.

Where were we? Oh, right: Tom Cruise is the greatest actor of our generation, and we have no idea where the below list came from. Please disregard it.

The All-Time Worst Tom Cruise Movies

10. Far and Away (1992)

Sample Cruiseism: "You arrogant bastard! You're not in Ireland any more!

Real-life spouses Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise play Irish immigrants to American shores, both scrappy and hustling for cash as they get caught up in the land grab of 1893. Will their struggle to overcome poverty tear them apart? Will Cruise, dressed as Oliver Twist, ask for more? Ron Howard gamely directs the two through a host of costumes and extra-filled scenery, but Cruise's put-on Irish accent trumps pretty much everything else. It's up there with Kevin Costner's pained attempt at Sherwood brogue in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," and Cruise winds up sounding a bit like the Lucky Charms leprechaun doing a Christopher Walken impersonation.

9. A Few Good Men (1992)

Sample Cruiseism: "You don't need a patch on your arm to have honor!"

Cruise plays rookie military lawyer Daniel Kaffee, heading up the defense in the court-martial of marines (including one pre-"24" Keifer Sutherland) accused of murdering one of their own. Maybe it's because he's sharing the screen with pros like Jack "You Can't Handle the Truth" Nicholson, and maybe it's partly Aaron Sorkin's fault (the "West Wing" scribe, in classic exposition-driven Sorkinian style, uses 300 words when one would do, and Cruise swallows most of them) but while the actor shoots for earnest stars-n-stripes dignity, he lands somewhere in the vicinity of what happens when the captain of the football team signs up for drama club.

8. Days of Thunder (1990)

Sample Cruiseism: "I'll take your word for what a car can do, but I'm not taking anybody's word for what I can do!"

Let's get the giggling out of the way: Cruise plays a rookie racecar hotshot named Cole Trickle, and a 23-year-old Nicole Kidman plays a brain surgeon. "Days of Thunder" was hacked up by the same blockbuster outfit (the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer duo) that gave us "Top Gun," so it's no surprise that Cruise gives us Maverick redux, but with even less emotional depth, more painful repartee and extra hair (he relies considerably on his feathery shag for resonance, making it quiver and tousle with hurt, or vulnerability, or lone-wolf bravado). Especially fun is noting the utter absence of on-screen chemistry between Cruise and Kidman, who supposedly met on the picture and conducted the blazing, unquenchable romance that led to their marriage. Hmm.

7. Cocktail (1988)

Sample Cruiseism: "All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end!"

What's this? Cruise as a cocky rookie who overcomes obstacles, including his own ego, to make it to the top of his game? Similarities to all his other roles aside, this piece of spring-break schlock finds Cruise as a brash bartender with a conflicted mentor relationship (Bryan Brown is the daddy figure) and an undiscriminating penis (he beds bunnies and/or cougars from New York to Jamaica and back, eventually knocking up -- and then cheating on -- true love Elisabeth Shue). It's all pretty much embarrassing, especially the scene where Cruise hops onto the bar and spouts verse as "America's last barman poet" (what's with his high voice? Was he still in the throes of puberty at 26?). The only thing worse than Cruise's acting is the soundtrack, which lodged the Beach Boys' incomprehensible, sax-numbed "Kokomo" into our brains for 20 years. And counting.

6. The Color of Money (1986)

Sample Cruiseism: "Hey Gramps, put your teeth back in, get your hands off your daughter and pay attention – you just might learn something!"

A lot of things went very right with this picture, which isn't surprising, given its excellent source material (it's a loose sequel to 1959's "The Hustler"), most of its cast (Paul Newman reprises his role as Edward "Fast Eddie" Felson) and its director (Martin Scorsese). And then there's Cruise as -- you guessed it -- a hotheaded rookie pool player. Choking out lines to Newman like the one above, he has the countenance of the kid who loiters outside the liquor store, asking us to buy him booze. And look at his hair. Just look at it. It rises like a grain silo over a Minnesota plain.

5. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Sample Cruiseism: "No dream is ever just a dream."

The terrible, inscrutable Stanley Kubrick swan song that is "Eyes Wide Shut" might have been saved – just a little, even -- if it hadn't involved Tom Cruise. It's a lumbering meditation on the darker crannies of intimacy and the fear of the essential unknowability of a significant other, and as such, it goes for long stretches without dialogue, demanding a very delicate kind of inner-directed acting. And as we've said here before, Tom Cruise doesn't really do that kind of thing. Air guitar, running from exploding bridges, and couch-jumping he can do, but if you need vulnerability and confusion conveyed in five words or less, you're better off with, say, a Liam Neeson or (on a good day) a Richard Gere. On the upside, the Venetian mask Cruise wears in the much-ballyhooed mansion orgy scene is slightly more expressive than his own face.

4. M:i-2 (2000)

Sample Cruiseism: "We just rolled up a snowball and tossed it into hell. Now let's see what chance it has."

There was a lot of talk around the "M:i" franchise becoming 007 for the 21st century (this was back in the dark Pierce Brosnan years, before Daniel Craig masterfully slipped into Bond's skin in "Casino Royale"). But Cruise, as Ethan Hunt, runs about as far from the Brit superspy's ethos as possible. What Cruise/Hunt lacks in sexiness, subtlety and class, he makes up for in sheer overachieving efficiency, scowling his way through explosion after explosion and never slowing down, like a videogame version of himself. It's as if the trainer from your gym -- the one who eats three egg-white omelets a day and takes powernaps upside down -- was all of a sudden entrusted with saving the world (or whatever the semi-ridiculous plot is about; if you need more detail than that, we trust you can take care of yourself, okay?).

3. Jerry Maguire (1996)

Sample Cruiseism: "I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience."

That "Jerry Maguire" is actually a well-written movie (thanks, Cameron Crowe) featuring some very good performances (from Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Renee Zellweger) doesn't make watching Tom Cruise's turn as a sports agent clawing his way back to the top any more palatable. Palatable, no -- but realistic? Possibly. We have a sneaking suspicion this may be the closest we'll get to seeing the real Tom Cruise up on screen -- steely, relentless, hustling for more 24/7 and incredibly awkward around young boys and grown women, respectively. And, oddly, looking as if he may have lacquered his eyebrows.

2. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Sample Cruiseism: "Evil is a point of view."

The stone-cold genius of casting Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat, in this big-screen adaptation of the gothcore Anne Rice oeuvre, is that it makes Brad Pitt seem like Laurence Olivier. For once, Cruise is not a rookie overachiever itching to take on the world, but what he is -- an immortal, ambisexual creature of the night who has Kim Basinger's hair -- makes us long for the days of "Cocktail" and "Top Gun," when he seemed like a Ken doll with a smooth plastic patch where his crotch should be. But a hypersexualized, fangy Cruise running around with an on-again/off-again lord-of-the-manor accent, speaking French and biting Antonio Banderas in the neck? Ew.

1. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Sample Cruiseism: "Shall we shag now, or shall we shag later?"

In the realm of celebrity cameos, there's the brilliant (Ryan Seacrest in "Knocked Up," Orson Welles in "The Muppet Caper") and then there are instances so awkward, so inappropriate, so downright wrong, you wonder why on earth they made it into the final cut of the movie. (Answer: Cut Tom Cruise's appearance in anything, and he'll eat your young.) Case in point, this cameo-packed trailer-within-the-movie for "Austinpussy," a device trotted out by Mike Myers because, dammit, he was tired (if you spent eight years writing "shag" puns, you'd be tired, too). Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey and Danny Devito look to be having a ball -- like they dropped acid, did their six minutes of work and chortled off with their massive paychecks -- but Cruise, as Austin Powers, looks like maybe he didn't get the satire memo, and boned up on some Lee Strasberg to give his two lines heft.

E. Bougerol would once again like to point out to her alien overlords that she meant no disrespect to Scientology or any of its subsidiaries.