I saw Tom Cruise tonight.
For realsies. I have proof:
Maverick in the flesh
Dave worked on the movie Jack Reacher so he got invited to the premiere and I got to be his plus one. It turns out that if you throw a dress on me and slap some spackle on my face, I can pass for a plus one.
By the way, if you go see Jack Reacher you can see what Dave looks like. He’s an extra in the bus stop scene on the right. Enjoy.
This premiere was a challenge for me. You see, I have somewhat of an overactive imagination (shut up). When I’m in a fancy store with china in it, I just imagine how awesome it would feel to bust everything – the fancy pitchers and the decorative plates and the wine glasses. My brain loves a good fantasy. That’s why when I got to see Mark Hamill a few years ago, all I could think about was asking him for some of his Jedi sperm so I could make a Jedi baby (details here). It’s also why when I saw Tom Cruise tonight I wanted to treat the premiere like a nerd convention and dress up like Lili from Legend.
Actually, Meg Mucklebones probably would have better gotten his attention.
For those of you who know Tom Cruise for his slew of box office hits and not for his contribution to cult classics with his work as Jack in Legend, allow me to regale you with its synopsis.
Legend is a beautiful British fantasty-adventure film from the 80s starring Tom Cruise as a child of the forest, Mia Sara as Lili, a princess he is romancing by teaching her the language of animals, and Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness who is hoping to destroy a unicorn horn to hold the world in eternal cold and darkness.
Doesn’t it sound perfect? That’s because it is.
Anyway, as much as I wanted to dress up in costume and accost Tom and thank him for the work he did in the 80s, I owed it to Dave to seem like a well-adjusted citizen and opted instead for a little black dress and to sit politely in the second row while he addressed the audience.
When I do well in public, Dave gives me cookies. It’s an excellent and effective motivator for feigning normalcy.
Since I did get to see the premiere, perhaps you’re wondering what I thought of the movie. And I’m thinking what everyone thinks; Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher. The posters all keep saying that, but let’s get real. I’m not even talking about the physical description, though Tom Cruise is probably the most opposite you could get from the Lee Child novel, which notes that Reacher is 6′ 5″ tall with a 50-inch chest, weighs between 210 and 250 pounds with ice-blue eyes and dirty blond hair.
But that’s not what bothers me, really. What bothers me is that Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher in any way. In his defense, I found the script to be pretty terrible altogether, particularly in its characterizations and dialogue. But I’ve seen a lot of cheesy action movies and have still loved the actor in the lead because they sell the hell out of it (Demolition Man, anyone? Running Man? Other action movies that end in man?) I’d say the primary problem here is casting. At one point when Jack Reacher is, like, super duper serious, he says “I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot” and it’s really hard to see that as believable. Cause, you know, it’s Tom Cruise. And its a bloody rotten line.
They’re all rotten lines. I should give a tip of my hat to one Mr. Robert Duvall, who somehow manages to deliver his with a slight nod to the audience acknowledging the corniness. Like in this little gem:
Cruise: Can you take him out?
Duvall: To dinner, you mean?
Ugh.
So yeah I didn’t like the movie. You might. I’m kind of a jerk about lots of things. Maybe that boot bit really got you interested. If that’s true, you have my blessing. But now that my review portion is out of the way, I would like to note that someone brought a baby to this movie. I don’ t know if the baby was a plus one, or if the baby had worked on the movie or what the baby situation was entirely. I just know that it cried when Tom Cruise began to speak before the movie and cried again any time Jack Reacher began to speak once the movie started. I wanted to slap its parents silly. I also wanted to slap the guy to my right, who had two huge bags of popcorn and two drinks to himself and managed to text, crunch, and spill his way through 130 minutes of my pure, unadulterated rage.
I guess it’s comforting to know that people make terrible audience members even when Tom Cruise is there.
So I suppose I can add “attending a movie premiere” to my list of anti-hermit adventures. You can find it over on my “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?” page, along with a review of everything I’ve tried to date. Maybe next will be actually dressing up as Meg Mucklebones and actually accosting him.
Besides, if he has any forest magic left from the 80s, I could capture his sperm and use it to give birth to a forest child who will rise up to conquer the Lord of Darkness.
…And drink blood from boots. ♣
The Jackie Blog 
