You don’t need to be Christopher Walken to twat an alien with a pneumatic fist

Ever-reliable box office draw Tom Cruise has made a frighteningly expensive flop with recent film Digger because he broke his own Tom Cruise rules:

Don’t get clever
The most complex storytelling we want from a Tom Cruise movie is the bit where he explains how to break into the thing to get the other thing. Digger features genre shifts and a metanarrative. If his audience wanted their brains to hurt, they’d read a book.

Stick to sci-fi, action or sci-fi action
Do we want to see Tom as an amoral hitman? Fucking around in a mask at sex parties? No. He should be punching criminals, killing aliens or operating a cool computer with holograms instead of keys. Ignore that if your PC worked like that you’d be knackered after every Facebook post.

Tom must win
Tom always wins, and in a way that makes the audience happy. Valkyrie wasn’t brilliantly received because those watching it wanted von Stauffenberg to succeed in killing Hitler and win the heart of Eva Braun. They could change the history books if it needs to be a true story,

He should not have a personal life
Tom messed up with his bizarre Oprah couch jump, making it tough not to be distracted in dull moments by stray thoughts like: ‘I wonder what Nicole Kidman really knows about Xenu?’ To prevent further damage to the Tom we know and love he should put in an induced coma between films.

Running must feature
It’s become a joke, but we still want to see Tom running as fast as his little legs will carry him. We don’t pay £10 for the reliable Cruise brand and come away from the cinema feeling disappointed and cheated. We’ve got Ridley Scott movies for that.

He should learn his limits
Tom’s two acting skills are a winning smile and a surprised face with his mouth open, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be Christopher Walken to twat an alien with a pneumatic fist . When he overreaches it turns out badly. It’s impossible to watch Far and Away without coming out hating the Irish for what he did to their accents.

Tom must be the good guy
Tom has played a handful of bad guys, including a vampire, an assassin and a Hollywood producer, and his character in Digger is not a traditional Cruise hero. Audiences hate this. Tom must to stick to playing good guys who are unquestionably on the right side, such as members of the US military.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

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