The short answer to the question "Is Tom Cruise now too Tom Cruisey?" is yes. The longer answer is "maybe." This was a thought that occurred to me as I screened Lions for Lambs - a movie which I'm not allowed to tell you anything about until Friday (although you can helpfully find full reviews here and here). So, though I can't say whether or not Lions for Lambs is good or bad I can say that it's getting more difficult to see Tom Cruise as anything besides... well, Tom Cruise. Hey look, there's Tom playing a fighter pilot! Oooh, Tom Cruise just emigrated from Ireland with that gal who used to be his wife! And so on, and so forth. He's become so omnipresent, so ubiquitous (a word I learned from Don King) that you can no longer accept at face value the part he's playing. The process of "acting" is laid bare on the screen. It's a sad thing actually.

The upshot of all this is that it takes you right out of the moment. A serious scene becomes something to giggle at. Hey, there's Tom Cruise getting indignant!

I do have a simple solution for Tom, though: a comedy. That's right, something where he can put that ego on display full force without shame. This worked wonders for De Niro (well, okay, the first few times) and I think it could help Tom too. The alternative is too ghastly to consider - that we've lost Tom to the clutches of sound bites and Oprah interviews forever. Somehow, Cruise has lost the thing that makes a person a star in the first place -- "mystery." Once I know where someone stands on 1.) God and 2.) prescription medication, there's not a lot of room for him to inhabit the persona of a "character" is there?

I said "maybe" at the outset for a reason though, as I don't see this being a problem for everyone. If you're the sort who doesn't follow celeb news, who doesn't watch interviews, and who doesn't troll the Internet every day, well, you're probably safe. Quakers, for instance, could probably take in and enjoy Mission Impossible 3 at face value while pondering "What sort of 40 time does Tom Cruse run?" (answer: 4.7)

For everyone else, we've got a slight problem. The persona of Cruise has officially surpassed the talent level of Cruise and I don't know how you put that genie back in the bottle. The good news for Tom is that he was able to make a few gagillion dollars on his way to seeming silly. We should all hope for such a fall from grace, eh?

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