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cairistiona... you all know that those pulp thrillers are my ultimate guilty pleasure and therefore...
I.MUST.VENT!!!
Why? Because a film has been in the works for probably years, and now they've announced who's in talks to play 6'5", 240 lb, dirty blond, icy blue eyes, not especially pretty, built like a tank, tough guy drifter Jack. Is it Viggo Mortensen? Liv Schrieber? Russell Crowe? Chris Hemsworth? Michael Fassbender? Any of these big, "real men" kind of actors who are less about looks (though most have them in spades) than about their ability to channel strong and silent like John Wayne and Gary Cooper? (And, okay, Viggo, not so much big, but he's played those cold-eyed, big-hearted sort of tough guy roles perfectly and except for his age, is a lot of fans' first choice for Reacher, since Clint Eastwood is 127 now. And he carried off playing a 6'6" king pretty well...).
But alas, no. None of those seem to be the "one".
It's... Tom Cruise.
Please, someone just stab my eyes with sporks and be done with it.
Now, nothing against Cruise. I *like* him. I don't hold his rather, um, odd religious views (apologies if any of you are Scientologists) or even his couch-jumping against him (I'm probably the only one on the planet that thought his enthusiasm for his lady love was kinda cute). I know how to separate the man from the actor, and for certain types of roles, he's among the best. I enjoyed Mission: Impossible and Rain Man and even Knight and Day. Cruise is charming in that sort of intense-crazy-eyed way of his, and there's certainly nothing to complain about the visuals when he's on the screen. But I can't buy him as Jack Reacher. I just... can't. Reacher is the quintessential strong and silent type. After all, one of the famous taglines from all the books is, "Reacher said nothing." (You can even get that on a t-shirt!) So if you cast Cruise, it'd be like casting a non-stop yapping chihuahua as a quietly dangerous mastiff. And I'm not exactly against Cruise for his size--see again Viggo as 6'6" Aragorn. So height or lack thereof can be overcome. And I've long decided, since 6-4 blonde, blue-eyed hulks who can act with the subtle restraint necessary to convincingly portray Reacher are kind of few and far between, that height wasn't an issue as long as everything else was there. But with Cruise... everything else *isn't* there. He's small in build--no one would ever feel intimidated by him just standing there breathing like the baddies in the books do when they're up against Reacher. And "subtle restraint" has never really seemed to be part of his arsenal, although I suppose he might surprise me like he did with his nearly unrecognizable turn in Tropic Thunder. But to my mind, Reacher needed a Viggo or Fassbender type who can speak with his eyes and subtle shifts of his body... and then turn around and explode into someone who can sink an aircraft carrier with one good head butt and not even come away with a headache. That's who Reacher is, and I'm just not convinced that that's who Tom Cruise can be.
So... I just... ugh... this news has me pretty much spluttering incoherently. *sigh*
And what does Lee Child, the author and creator, think of this? He reportedly says that Reacher's size is a "metaphor for his unstoppable force" and that "Cruise has unstoppable force of his own" or some such twaddle. I think he's just trying to make the best of a potentially disastrous casting choice. Damage control spin, in other words.
The fans are going berserk all across the blogosphere. I've yet to see any positive "Maybe this might work" comments--mine here are about as measured as they've been. Blogger and screenwriter Drew McWeeny said it best, "My first reaction is to kick my computer into little pieces then run outside and bellow impotently at the sky in rage."
Yeah. I can relate.
*sigh*
I.MUST.VENT!!!
Why? Because a film has been in the works for probably years, and now they've announced who's in talks to play 6'5", 240 lb, dirty blond, icy blue eyes, not especially pretty, built like a tank, tough guy drifter Jack. Is it Viggo Mortensen? Liv Schrieber? Russell Crowe? Chris Hemsworth? Michael Fassbender? Any of these big, "real men" kind of actors who are less about looks (though most have them in spades) than about their ability to channel strong and silent like John Wayne and Gary Cooper? (And, okay, Viggo, not so much big, but he's played those cold-eyed, big-hearted sort of tough guy roles perfectly and except for his age, is a lot of fans' first choice for Reacher, since Clint Eastwood is 127 now. And he carried off playing a 6'6" king pretty well...).
But alas, no. None of those seem to be the "one".
It's... Tom Cruise.
Please, someone just stab my eyes with sporks and be done with it.
Now, nothing against Cruise. I *like* him. I don't hold his rather, um, odd religious views (apologies if any of you are Scientologists) or even his couch-jumping against him (I'm probably the only one on the planet that thought his enthusiasm for his lady love was kinda cute). I know how to separate the man from the actor, and for certain types of roles, he's among the best. I enjoyed Mission: Impossible and Rain Man and even Knight and Day. Cruise is charming in that sort of intense-crazy-eyed way of his, and there's certainly nothing to complain about the visuals when he's on the screen. But I can't buy him as Jack Reacher. I just... can't. Reacher is the quintessential strong and silent type. After all, one of the famous taglines from all the books is, "Reacher said nothing." (You can even get that on a t-shirt!) So if you cast Cruise, it'd be like casting a non-stop yapping chihuahua as a quietly dangerous mastiff. And I'm not exactly against Cruise for his size--see again Viggo as 6'6" Aragorn. So height or lack thereof can be overcome. And I've long decided, since 6-4 blonde, blue-eyed hulks who can act with the subtle restraint necessary to convincingly portray Reacher are kind of few and far between, that height wasn't an issue as long as everything else was there. But with Cruise... everything else *isn't* there. He's small in build--no one would ever feel intimidated by him just standing there breathing like the baddies in the books do when they're up against Reacher. And "subtle restraint" has never really seemed to be part of his arsenal, although I suppose he might surprise me like he did with his nearly unrecognizable turn in Tropic Thunder. But to my mind, Reacher needed a Viggo or Fassbender type who can speak with his eyes and subtle shifts of his body... and then turn around and explode into someone who can sink an aircraft carrier with one good head butt and not even come away with a headache. That's who Reacher is, and I'm just not convinced that that's who Tom Cruise can be.
So... I just... ugh... this news has me pretty much spluttering incoherently. *sigh*
And what does Lee Child, the author and creator, think of this? He reportedly says that Reacher's size is a "metaphor for his unstoppable force" and that "Cruise has unstoppable force of his own" or some such twaddle. I think he's just trying to make the best of a potentially disastrous casting choice. Damage control spin, in other words.
The fans are going berserk all across the blogosphere. I've yet to see any positive "Maybe this might work" comments--mine here are about as measured as they've been. Blogger and screenwriter Drew McWeeny said it best, "My first reaction is to kick my computer into little pieces then run outside and bellow impotently at the sky in rage."
Yeah. I can relate.
*sigh*
