Congratulations are clearly so as. After many years of being missed, underestimated and typically simply flat-out ignored, a Hollywood mainstay is lastly getting some genuinely-earned recognition. Bravo!
No, to not Tom Cruise for that honorary Oscar — to the Academy for ensuring the world’s final remaining film star will flip up for his or her subsequent broadcast.
Let’s face it, at this level the Oscars want Cruise greater than Cruise wants an Oscar, notably an honorary one, which continuously go to stars of extra mature classic (Mel Brooks received one final 12 months, at 97). In latest occasions, the present’s numbers — to say nothing of its cultural relevance — have been on the identical spiraling trajectory as that biplane Cruise dangled from within the newest Mission: Not possible film. Viewership has fallen some 66 % since its peak in 1998 (Titanic 12 months), with solely about 20 million tuning in today, about the identical viewers that seems for a run-of-the-mill midseason NFL sport.
In the meantime, Cruise, at 62, continues to attract arena-sized crowds to his tentpoles. The latest Mission: Not possible, The Ultimate Reckoning, grossed $500 million worldwide final month, whereas Lifeless Reckoning Half 1 grossed $550 million in 2023. After which there’s 2022’s Prime Gun: Maverick, the movie that proved the pandemic hadn’t totally crushed the theatrical enterprise. It grossed a stratospheric $1.5 billion, Cruise’s private finest.
The dramatic flip right here is nearly as jaw-dropping as one in all Ethan Hunt’s mask-pulling reveals. For many years, the Academy appeared to maintain Cruise at a vaguely disdainful distance, dismissing him as extra of an motion determine than a severe ack-TOOR. Positive, they’d often toss him a well mannered nomination — in 1989 for Born on the Fourth of July, in 1996 for Jerry Maguire and in 1999 for Magnolia — however they by no means invited him as much as the rostrum to gather a statuette. He’d all the time stay caught within the viewers with the opposite losers, gamely flashing that well-known 500-watt smile for the response shot.
Actually, the honorary Oscar introduced this week appears like too little, too late. As a result of over time, when he wasn’t climbing Burj Khalifa or leaping bikes off cliffs, Cruise has turned in some actually nuanced, courageous and positively Oscar-worthy performances. And we’re not simply speaking concerning the roles the Academy deigned to appoint — a minimum of one in all which, by the best way, most likely ought to have gained (how Michael Caine’s largely unremarkable efficiency in Cider Home Guidelines beat Cruise’s unforgettable flip because the toxically masculine “respect the cock” motivational speaker in Paul Thomas Anderson’s underrated 1998 drama Magnolia is a thriller for the ages).
There have been additionally Cruise’s unnominated however award-worthy performances in Rain Man (reverse Dustin Hoffman), in Interview With a Vampire (reverse Brad Pitt) and within the late Stanley Kubrick’s closing movie, Eyes Vast Shut (reverse some actress named Nicole Kidman). An inexpensive argument may even be made that Cruise’s fat-suited, Weight loss program Coke-swilling, profanity-spouting studio exec in Tropic Thunder — the scene-stealing Les Grossman — was a efficiency worthy of some type of award (a minimum of the Golden Globes gave it a nom).
As for why it’s taken the Oscars so lengthy to pay Cruise his due, one can solely speculate. Maybe it’s all that gleaming charisma — he’s all the time been too easy, too slick, too industrial for the Academy’s insular voters. Perhaps it was Cruise’s unabashed embrace of film stardom over methody self-flagellation. Or perhaps the Academy simply couldn’t carry itself at hand a gold statue to somebody who as soon as made a film known as Cocktail. Regardless of the motive, the Oscars can now not afford the posh of snobbery.
As a result of at this level, Cruise doesn’t want an Oscar to cement his legacy. However the Oscars may simply want him to save lots of theirs.