Cruise musings

It's impossible to watch Tom Cruise leaping across a broken bridge in "Mission: Impossible III" and not recall his couch-jumping incident. His period of boistrous craziness that began about a year ago lingers into each of his films and takes you away from the moment. You're not seeing Ethan Hunt, you're seeing a starry-eyed, often manic scientologist.

The film is nearly perfect for what it is - director J.J. Abrams avoids the usual threequel plummet by crafting a reasonably fresh, twist-filled explosionfest that's exactly the sort of action flick summer movie audiences are addicted to. It could have been even better without Cruise.

Once in an interview with Christian Bale I asked him why I never read about him in the tabloids. He said that for the most part the celebrities whose exploits you read about while waiting in line in the supermarket have to work at keeping themselves there. Bale said he purposely shied away from publicity because he wants audiences to come into each of his movies with an untainted image, so they'll be able to more easily accept his character.

The problem Bale mentioned wanting to avoid is exactly what Cruise is stuck in, and his movies suffer for it. He needs to do a better job of reshaping his badly damaged image and reshape the way he's perceived. If the spectacular but Cruise-burdened "M:i:III" fails to bust blocks at the box office this weekend, the fault will lay solely upon him.