Does Tom Cruise have a recent clause in his contract so that in almost every movie or trailer he's in, his identity must be obscured for as long as possible? It's like... it starts and you only see the back of his head, or maybe his face is obscured somehow (hair, shadow, etc.). Things keep going, and then... suddenly... he turns, or looks up, or the camera zooms in on him, and it's almost like it's supposed to be all "OH FUCK, TOM CRUISE!"
Let's look at some trailers first. I'll kind of order them from most relevant to least relevant (which turns out to be rather based on time).
TRAILERS
-Jack Reacher (see face: 1 minute in)
-Rock of Ages (technically: 58 seconds; officially/hilariously: 1 minute, 56 seconds)
-Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (see face: 58 seconds)
-Collateral (see face: 53 seconds)
-Mission: Impossible III (see face: 47 seconds)
-Mission: Impossible II (see face: 29 seconds)
-A Few Good Men (see face: 28 seconds)
-Interview with a Vampire (see face: 43 seconds, but not a huge focus on him anyway)
-Lions for Lambs (see face: 42 seconds, though this one doesn't really count to me, either)
MOVIES
I certainly won't be able to recall all his movies, but I know for certain that they play coy with his face at the beginning of Ghost Protocol (he's bouncing a rock off the wall, and it takes a while for him to turn and look). He takes a little bit to show his face in Minority Report, as well. I'm not 100% with Collateral, but from what I remember their was an air of mystery to his introduction. Hell, the majority of his cameo in Tropic Thunder banks on the hope that his face is obscured and it will take you a while to realize it's him and have an "OH FUCK, TOM CRUISE!" moment. Anyway, you get the picture.
It seems to be a more common thing as of late, like he just recently decided "Hey, let's freak people out who didn't realize I was in this movie!"
Has anyone else picked up on this phenomenon? And if you have, what other movies have you seen him do this in? And what do you think about it?
Haha, interesting observation!
ReplyDeleteI rarely watch trailers, only ones that I'm looking forward to and some random when I'm too bored, so I can't tell. As for movies, I haven't seen many with Tom Cruise, but I guess in Rock of Ages they were really mysterious about his persona in the scene when they introduced his character.
I was shocked when I was going back and watching all his older trailers how much this happens in them. I expected maybe a few, but not as many as I got.
DeleteI just had a flashback to my last appearance on the LAMBcast.
ReplyDeleteWere you the one who talked about Tom Cruise running?
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