An average movie

I already saw this movie but, since it was ages ago, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, I was actually surprised by how little I actually remembered the damned thing which is usually not really a good sign. Anyway, I have to admit that I always had some mixed feelings regarding this movie. Indeed, even though it started out as a rather ambitious project (Isn’t it always the case when Tom Cruise is involved?), it didn’t turn out to be really amazing after all. Still, somehow, I can’t really discard the whole thing. Indeed, it was actually a really good story and it could have been a great epic. Furthermore, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (who just got married a couple of years before) had tons of chemistry together. Still, even if Cruise was, as usual, quite charismatic, he was however not convincing at all playing some poor Irish farmer. However, I would mostly blame Ron Howard though. Indeed, eventually, the biggest problem was that the tone was just too light. While re-watching this movie, it reminded me of some (really successful) epics such as ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Titanic’ and during both movies, you didn’t have some rather goofy supposedly funny scenes every 5 minutes which in this case really bogged down the impact of this movie.That’s in fact a recurring issue with Tom Cruise, the fact that he is able to get involved in some really interesting projects but too often he or the director he is working with make the misguided choice of toning down too much the material resulting in something without any edge whatsoever. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and I think it is still worth a look, especially for Tom Cruise’s fans.