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They needed an actor in his twenties, not his fifties. The plot requires that the protagonist is a green recruit, but they stick this middle-aged donkey-cave in the role.

 AlexHolker wrote:
They needed an actor in his twenties, not his fifties. The plot requires that the protagonist is a green recruit, but they stick this middle-aged donkey-cave in the role.

He's an REMF Major, a guy whose been in a while, but has sat behind a desk all the time. Fits the roll perfectly.

 AlexHolker wrote:
They needed an actor in his twenties, not his fifties. The plot requires that the protagonist is a green recruit, but they stick this middle-aged donkey-cave in the role.

I assume certain aspects of the plot (which I'm not familiar with) were changed. He appears to be in handcuffs in a few shots.

One might think this is an adaptation and not a transliteration.

 Frazzled wrote:
It looks like it could be a half decent movie. Its a shame Tom Cruise is in it, else I'd want to see it.

Feel the same way, as I haven't really enjoyed his other sci-fi offerings (Oblivion, Minority Report). Also, still haven't forgiven him for managing to get cast as Jack Reacher, which was probably the biggest mis-cast in the history of cinema, even worse than Tom Hanks' mulleted Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code.

Plus points though for Bill Paxton and Emily Blunt being in it, and the armoured suits look cool so would probably go and watch it for those reasons alone.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
You Tom Cruise Haters should Love this, you get to see him Die OVER AND OVER again.

Seeing his character die over and over is still watching him. If one doesn't enjoy watching him, why would that be any better, especially when you know he's just going to wake up right away?

In my opinion, Tom Cruise can do a good job, or a bad job. Usually, he does a bad job. Collateral was good, Tropic Thunder was good, but Last Samurai? Oblivion (points automatically deducted for it not being an Elder Scrolls movie)? The Jack Reacher movie? I don't even know the character, and I could tell Cruise was horribly miscast. I think his main problem (politics, Scientology, and sanity aside) is that he believes his own hype. He thinks he is as good as people tell him he is, so he doesn't put the effort into his work the way an actor who worries about if he is good enough would.

Tom Cruise is way overrated, Interview with an vampire was the one of the few movies with him i found bearable.
And Top Gun off course the whole gay imagery in the film is awesome.
I have trouble sleeping in planes but i fell asleep during Oblivion.

About this time last year there where trailers for Oblivion, After Earth and Elysium all over the internet and I remember thinking that they all looked like the same film. Out of all of them Oblivion I thought would tank the most and just be a vehicle for Cruise's religious whack job beliefs.

Oddly enough it actually turned out to be the best of the three. Elysium was a huge disappointment and After Earth a genuine abomination, but Oblivion was a pleasant surprise.

Vanilla Sky, Magnolia, and Tropic Thunder were excellent roles for him.

I can't stand the mission impossible stuff.

Tom Cruise can do a good job, or a bad job

Tom Cruise as an actor strikes me as being incapable of portraying anything on screen that it's total apathy, or sadonic apathy. Every time he trys to convey emotion to the viewer, it feel false which is why I think Valkyrie was not as good a movie as it could have been for example. Stroffenburg should have been an emotional title wave in that film, torn between duty and what's right, tormented by the horrors of war and the Holocaust and compelled to end it.

Instead Tom Cruise walks on screen with his "time to kill Hitler face" and proceeds to be as emotionally engaging and a uncooked noodle.

 LordofHats wrote:

Tom Cruise can do a good job, or a bad job

Tom Cruise as an actor strikes me as being incapable of portraying anything on screen that it's total apathy, or sadonic apathy. Every time he trys to convey emotion to the viewer, it feel false which is why I think Valkyrie was not as good a movie as it could have been for example. Stroffenburg should have been an emotional title wave in that film, torn between duty and what's right, tormented by the horrors of war and the Holocaust and compelled to end it.

Instead Tom Cruise walks on screen with his "time to kill Hitler face" and proceeds to be as emotionally engaging and a uncooked noodle.

This, and I think it harkens back to what Squidhills was saying: he buys into his own hype.

He had the same problem in Last Samurai: his character is supposed to be an emotional train wreck(for pretty much the same reasons as von Stauffenburg) and yet he's just kinda there, filling space. I mean, I like the movie for the concept(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet) and the rest of the cast is brilliant despite having to work around Cruise and some language barriers, Cruise almost ruins it.

He's too much of a known face, so it's difficult for him to disappear into a role. Magnolia was his best effort.

I don't particularly dislike him as an actor and he does try to make interesting films. I think I've watched pretty much everything he's done (EDIT - Actually having just checked his filmography, that was a vast overstatement on my part).

Top 5 in no particular order...

Magnolia
A Few Good Men
Minority Report
Collateral
Tropic Thunder

(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet)

er what?

 Frazzled wrote:

(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet)

er what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Brunet

Much of the 1800's modernization of the Japanese military is thanks to the French, not the Americans.

Read up on the Boshin War, the actual period of modernization, rather than the Satsuma Rebellion which is "depicted" in the movie. Since the movie was American made, they made America the assisting country instead of the French, who did most of the actual work(in fact, there's photographs of Japanese officers in French uniforms before the Japanese developed their own). That said, the German and Prussian armies are what the Japanese actually tried to emulate, even forming their own version of the Generalstab, the Imperial Army General Staff Office.

The movie looks good but the story in the trailer anyway feels too groundhogdayish. How many posts about Edge of Tomorrow IG armies are we gonna see in the next few months?

I like tom cruise though.. he's nuts but he's a good actor. I think you have to be nuts to work in hollywood... all the best actors are loony.

 Seaward wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
It looks like it could be a half decent movie. Its a shame Tom Cruise is in it, else I'd want to see it.

Dude's cray-cray, but he's a damn fine actor. Collateral was some awesome work, and even Valkyrie was good, despite all the protest around it.

I'll definitely see it.

Waaaaait a sec......you mean the film where he plays a German but still just sounds like Tom Cruise? I found that film to be really annoying just because of that! Some of the worst casting I have seen in a long time.

At least Craig put on a decent Polish accent when they did Defiance.

Worst accent still goes to Kevin Costner as "Robin Hood."

Mel Gibson's accent in Braveheart was pretty awful.

 Necros wrote:
The movie looks good but the story in the trailer anyway feels too groundhogdayish.

That would be because the book is Ground Hog's Day with power armor and alien bugs.

About this time last year there where trailers for Oblivion, After Earth and Elysium all over the internet and I remember thinking that they all looked like the same film. Out of all of them Oblivion I thought would tank the most and just be a vehicle for Cruise's religious whack job beliefs.

Oddly enough it actually turned out to be the best of the three. Elysium was a huge disappointment and After Earth a genuine abomination, but Oblivion was a pleasant surprise.

I agree with you. I actually liked Oblivion.

Okay, so we agree that Tom Cruise was not the best choice for the role.

But as an actor he is amazing. Have you ever seen Castaway?

 master of ordinance wrote:
Okay, so we agree that Tom Cruise was not the best choice for the role.

But as an actor he is amazing. Have you ever seen Castaway?

I'm hoping you meant that as a joke... cause comparing Tom Cruise to Tom Hanks is hilarious.

Also, yeah, firmly in the hate tom cruise camp, don't like his acting and his "religion".

 LuciusAR wrote:
About this time last year there where trailers for Oblivion, After Earth and Elysium all over the internet and I remember thinking that they all looked like the same film. Out of all of them Oblivion I thought would tank the most and just be a vehicle for Cruise's religious whack job beliefs.

Oddly enough it actually turned out to be the best of the three. Elysium was a huge disappointment and After Earth a genuine abomination, but Oblivion was a pleasant surprise.

After Earth was a nepotism engine - a way for Will Smith to try to turn his son into a movie star. There's nothing odd about the fact that it was gak.

 Platuan4th wrote:

This, and I think it harkens back to what Squidhills was saying: he buys into his own hype.

He had the same problem in Last Samurai: his character is supposed to be an emotional train wreck(for pretty much the same reasons as von Stauffenburg) and yet he's just kinda there, filling space. I mean, I like the movie for the concept(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet) and the rest of the cast is brilliant despite having to work around Cruise and some language barriers, Cruise almost ruins it.

Yes. I really liked the last samurai as a Dances With Wolves with Katana's and no where near as much boring, but TC just sort of spoiled the experience in my opinion. He's so cold and blank on screen even when he's trying to be broody and "look at me and feel bad for how tormented I am cause I did bad stuff you know?" Ken Watanabe was the real power in that film and we just didn't get enough of him.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

This, and I think it harkens back to what Squidhills was saying: he buys into his own hype.

He had the same problem in Last Samurai: his character is supposed to be an emotional train wreck(for pretty much the same reasons as von Stauffenburg) and yet he's just kinda there, filling space. I mean, I like the movie for the concept(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet) and the rest of the cast is brilliant despite having to work around Cruise and some language barriers, Cruise almost ruins it.

Yes. I really liked the last samurai as a Dances With Wolves with Katana's and no where near as much boring, but TC just sort of spoiled the experience in my opinion. He's so cold and blank on screen even when he's trying to be broody and "look at me and feel bad for how tormented I am cause I did bad stuff you know?" Ken Watanabe was the real power in that film and we just didn't get enough of him.

Pff, Billy Connolly was the real power in that film.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Okay, so we agree that Tom Cruise was not the best choice for the role.

But as an actor he is amazing. Have you ever seen Castaway?

llooooool

 LordofHats wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

This, and I think it harkens back to what Squidhills was saying: he buys into his own hype.

He had the same problem in Last Samurai: his character is supposed to be an emotional train wreck(for pretty much the same reasons as von Stauffenburg) and yet he's just kinda there, filling space. I mean, I like the movie for the concept(even despite them turning the French into Americans, I'd have much prefered Reno as Brunet) and the rest of the cast is brilliant despite having to work around Cruise and some language barriers, Cruise almost ruins it.

Yes. I really liked the last samurai as a Dances With Wolves with Katana's and no where near as much boring, but TC just sort of spoiled the experience in my opinion. He's so cold and blank on screen even when he's trying to be broody and "look at me and feel bad for how tormented I am cause I did bad stuff you know?" Ken Watanabe was the real power in that film and we just didn't get enough of him.

it would have been awesomely better with a different actor for TC in a minimal role and the primary focus being on KW.
I liked the movie but took issue with the "noble samurai as a noble savage" nonsense. Samurai were the rulling elite for centuries and there was little noble about them. They just didn't like losing power.

 marv335 wrote:
Mel Gibson's accent in Braveheart was pretty awful.

 malfred wrote:
Worst accent still goes to Kevin Costner as "Robin Hood."

Lindsey Lohan says hi!

I liked the movie but took issue with the "noble samurai as a noble savage" nonsense. Samurai were the rulling elite for centuries and there was little noble about them. They just didn't like losing power.

Yeah. I remember reading an article about that years ago and I thought it was silly when the writer went the route of "those ignorant foreigners know nothing of our history!" It's though Japanese media that we even get the perception of the noble Samurai hero (Seven Samurai anyone?).

It's not that different from how we in the West look at knights as chivilric men of virtue. Knights were brutal people (dear lord the Normans XD). They spent more time pillaging and skewering people than they did saving helpless villagers