Mr. Tom Cruise is on a roll right now. With the lastest Mission: Impossible flick looking like a slam dunk and Rock of Ages pretty much either a car crash or a masterpiece, he’s all over the place. Add his presence as Jack Reacher [miscast!] in One Shot and it appears that the actor is showing no signs of slowing down. Considering he’s ten years older than me to the day it reminds me that with good luck and a billion in the bank I too can make it to 49 and still have my boyish good looks.
Ahem.
I love the guy. I do. He’s got to be the most maligned megastar whose onscreen work is nearly impeccable. A few duds, but not because Cruise didn’t put all he had into them.
Now he’s lining up another flick which Variety is considering a “tentpole” even though it sounds more like a cool time than a massive cinematic experience.
All You Need is Kill. A science fiction tale of a soldier in a war with aliens who dies and comes back time and time again until he has what it takes to whip his stinking space foes. The trade break compares it to Groundhog Day both because it features a recurring time loop and because the aliens look like Stephen Toblowsky. Doug Liman’s directing so you know it’ll be polished, interesting, and probably with a little behind the scenes tension. It’s funny, Liman has shaped himself an odd but kind of fun career and bounced through a wide variety of genres and sizes of projects. He’s got the chops to pull this off. Cruise certainly does.
Here’s hoping it’s a nice mixture of a Twilight Zone episode and Starship Troopers.
If all goes well it’ll begin filming late in 2012 unless the Mayans were right. They weren’t.