Has Cruise lost it?

A tad old but think that Mark Harmon would have been good as Reacher also

 

I don't know about Reacher -- although it'd probably not be as big of a stretch as when he played Ted Bundy -- but I thought Harmon was pretty good as another classic thriller-book character: Minnesota's own, Lucas Davenport.

 

No accident . . . he's far more sympathetic in a supporting role than he is as a lead, anymore . . . that list going back 15 years contains GIANT quantities of suck, cubed.

 

I thought so, too. In fact, the wife (an avid reader of the Reacher books) said at first that she didn't even want to see the movie based on Cruise being cast as Reacher. She thought Hugh Jackman should have been chosen.

After seeing the movie, we both agreed Cruise turned out WAY better than we expected. We kept focusing on just one aspect of Reacher (his size) as the reason Cruise wouldn't work. Well, Cruise nailed every other aspect of Reacher.

Anyway, we both loved the movie. But I'm a little surprised at the box office numbers.

 

It's an old question: How important is it to stay true to the source material?
Change a detail from comic book, and the nerds get upset. That has to be anticipated, but you also have to bear in mind that those fans make up a portion of your movie audience - a big portion of your repeat viewers if your movie is good.

Make all the changes you want to a great book like 'Bonfire of the Vanities,' and no one bats an eye. The movie stunk, in part, because it got away from the source.

Look at 'The Shining.'

Jackson's made changes to 'The Hobbit.'

 

Or "The Scarlett Letter."

I've seen "The Hunger Games" twice. Loved it the first time, then I read the book. I watched it again and it didn't like the movie near as much.

But I'd never even heard of the Jack Reacher books until now.

How close are the Bourne books to the movies?

 

That's why I don't watch movies about books I have read.

 

I read the Bourne Identity a long, long time before I saw the movie. I remember the movie being pretty close, but I could be wrong. I didn't read the ones that the other three were based on.

Silence of the Lambs is a rare one where the book and movie are both amazing. The movie is pretty damn close to the book. I think the only significant thing that was left out was sexual tension between Starling and the Scott Glenn character. Red Dragon is by far the best of the Hannibal books. The movie is good, but not as good as the book.

 

Pretty close. I have read the Ludlum Bourne books plus the one after he died and the character seems very close to what is portrayed in the movie.

 

Rising Sun was another one where bad casting ruined the movie of one of my favorite books...

So much of the book is about how racist the Japanese were and casting Wesley Snipes as the main officer working for the Asian Crimes Unit just went against so much of the book... It was just idiotic.

 

I wish he would do more organic/less fantastical stuff like Jerry Maguire. He has the "cocky young guy" down old, but it doesn't fit a guy who is 50. Also helps when he is working off another strong actor (like Paul Newman or Dustin Hoffman) - the guy probably could have won on Oscar by now if he wasn't so attracted to "toy" movies.

I think I found a new favorite website

http://www.notstarring.com

 

I would argue that he should have won two Oscars for Born on the 4th and Magnolia. I remember reading when he lost for Born on the 4th was partly because (at the time) a lot of people in Hollywood thought things had come too easily for him.