Cruise Month - Mini Review: The Last Samurai

Well, we’ve had books, short stories and TV series for Cruise movies to be based upon. But what about real life events? This is the Last Samurai (also, the last Cruise Month review)

Based (once again, loosely) on the Satsuma rebellion of 1877, The Last Samurai was released in 2003 grossing $456m on a $140m budget.

Not really much else to say on this one, let’s take a look

Guilty Pleasures #17 - Cruise Month - Oblivion

Time for another entry in Cruise Month

So, what have we got this time. Another adaptation of a book, what a shock! This book however was incomplete and never made publication, so the movie’s all we’ve got this time. I am of course talking about Oblivion

A Universal Studios project (Cruise and Paramount separated in 2006 owing to comments Cruise made in the media and/or financial concerns about their arrangement) Cruise once again serves as an actor but not as a producer (his production company did Jack Reacher in 2012 and its next project was Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, that’s a significant gap for the company)

Anyway, the movie opened pretty well, earning $37.1 in its opening weekend in the states, however time was not kind to it and it only made $89m in the States in total. International takings bring the box office figures to $281m on a $120m budget. When you take into account marketing costs, that’s likely to be a disappointment.

Reviews were mixed holding a 53% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 54/100 on Metacritic. So, is this movie worth the price of admission, let’s take a look.

Star Wars Rebels - The Siege of Lothal Review

With the end of series 1 promising Darth Vader himself to enter the fray, things could never end well for our heroes, and here we are.

Cruise Month - Mini Review: Minority Report

So, we’ve looked at one Cruise/Spielberg collaboration, so let’s took a look at another with Minority Report

Based (and I know this will shock you) loosely on a book of the same name written by Phillip K Dick, this was originally conceived to be a sequel of the sort to another adaptation of his works, total recall, and I mean the original one with Shwarznegger, not the reboot. They looked at the story again in 1997 with Novelist John Cohen chosen to help screenwrite it. However for whatever reasons the original director, Jan de Bont dropped out of directing, instead serving as a producer to the series (neither Cruise nor Spielberg are credited as producers on this one) Cruise passed the script onto Spielberg who agreed to direct after several rewrites. He’d been hoping to work with Cuise for some time.

The movie had a $102m budget, and grossed $358.4m, a moderate success for 2002, but it gained massive critical acclaim for its ideas and themes. So, we’re 13 years on now, does the movie still hold up under modern grounds? Let’s take a look.  

#24 - Cruise Month - War of the Worlds

It’s time for another entry for Cruise Month

You know, there have been some pretty big producers/directors on this show, George Lucas/Christopher Nolan spring to mind, but there a few bigger than the one who directed this movie. Steven Spielberg. Spielberg has directed films from the Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park, and has been involved in Back to the Future, Men in Black, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid and even Transformers.

This and next week’s Minority Report were both collaborations with Spielberg with Dreamworks and Tom Cruise with Paramount. The results are mixed as we look at War of the Worlds. Based (once again very loosely) on the HG Wells novel of the same name (I haven’t read it, I’m judging the movie as a standalone product) it was commercially successful grossing nearly $600m on a $132m budget. Critically also successful, nominated for 6 different academy awards (all of which it lost to King Kong) but winning awards in other areas.

So why do I dislike this film? Well, let’s dig in.

Cruise Month - Mini Review: Jack Reacher

In this movie, Cruise obsesses over a woman whilst trying to get a job done. “What, again?” you might ask and yes, this is a well to common trait of Tom Cruise movies. Let’s have a look where plays a cop that’s supposed to be considerably taller than him.

Based on the 2005 novel ‘One Shot’ written as a part of a series by Lee Child, Jack Reacher enjoyed moderate success earning $218m on a $60m budget. Not exactly the usual flare of a Cruise movie. But then it says it all that there was a promotional competition for the movie on the channel Dave.

Paramount and Cruise/Wagner productions acquired the rights to Child’s novels in 2005 (and it only took them 2013 to release the product) after the failure of several other attempts at an adaptation. Cruise’s casting in the role was met with some criticism given the stature of Jack Reacher in the book.

So, let’s dig in

TV Retrospective: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 episodes 20-22 review

It's time to look at the finale to season 1's episodes of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.