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I am 37y/o. I experienced the early period through the eyes of a child so I did take him for granted. (Top Gun, Risky business, etc) By 1997, however, there was enough variety to realize that he was integral part of all his movies not just bystander star. The belief just became reinforced after that...magnolia, collateral, etc. He is a unique presence in film so his attributes and contributions aren't easily observable at first.
I find the way this question is phrased odd. It pre-supposes that once you "stop taking Cruise for granted" that suddenly he becomes a consistently great and reliable actor. This is not the case.
Yes, I respect Tom Cruise as an actor, but I will always hold Cocktail against him. Having to sit through that movie as a teenager was torture. And damn the Beach Boys for attempting a comeback with Kokomo, that song makes me want to gouge my ears out.
2007. Eyes Wide Shut showed that he was willing to take huge risks and even be flat out unlikable. Cruise turned his own best assets (charm and that 1000 watt smile) against himself. There is a scene late in the night where he's driving over a bridge and his electric Cruise smile is first charming, then sinister, then completely unhinged. All in one fluid facial gesture. It showed remarkable self-awareness for Cruise. Also, it doesn't get any braver than playing an onscreen couple with your real life wife and digging into what feels like must have been real temptations and very deep personal thoughts. His commitment was total and I think he and Kidman even moved to London for more than a year to patiently film everything to Kubrick's precisely detailed vision. This is a guy who could have played it safe and continued to cash action movie paychecks for life.
My real answer is the moment I saw him lip sync battle Jimmy Fallon.
Interview with the Vampire is actually what did it for me.
However, I didn't see it until 2008 and at that point in my life hadn't even seen very many Cruise films, so I decided at that point to look into more of his films.
So the wording of this poll has me confused, do I vote 1997 or earlier because Interview was released in '94 even though I didn't see it until '08? Do I vote 2017 or earlier because I didn't see Interview until '08 and the cutoff for the other entry is '07?
Better poll would be "In what decade did you recognize Tom Cruise's tremendous talent? A. 80's B. 90's C. 00's D. '10-Present E. He has no talent."
I never took Tom Cruise seriously until I saw Collateral. After that, I realized he was in a lot of my favorite movies. Movies I would stop and watch every time they showed up on cable. If he makes a sci-fi movie, I'm in the theater opening weekend.
It's a nuanced answer. Collateral is the one that caught my attention but afterwards I appreciated Jerry Maguire and Born on the Fourth of July more.
You know what? I voted completely wrong on this one (ok, I was going to say Magnolia, so not completely wrong, hold that thought). I pulled up Cruise's full filmography, trying to figure out what I would have known of Cruise leading up to Magnolia and there is one film that stares at me from that list, the film that completely changed my perception of Cruise (and Nicole Kidman for that matter): Far and Away. At that point, I would have seen Top Gun and I would have seen Rain Man and known about Cocktail, Risky Business, and Days of Thunder. I hadn't seen Legend (I don't think I even knew about Legend). So here was this actor, who had always played, in my experience, some kind of slick, swaggering, hyper-modern guy, and he's doing a period piece, a friggin' romance movie, with farming! . . . And I loved it. I was completely wrapped up in that sequence during the land grab and Cruise was racing on his horse to find a homestead (he rides as well as he runs, at least in my memory). Cruise and Kidman had such great chemistry (even a youngster like me noticed it) and Cruise's character has this massive arc where he matures a lot as the movie takes us from Ireland to Oklahoma. It was a really different role for him in a different kind of movie and it stood out for me. I was always ready for Cruise to be good after that.
Now, I have the usually story about Magnolia as well. I was just starting to learn about and like cinema at the time, not just "the movies" and the things that showed up in American theaters. Magnolia was already a new world for me, this R rated indie that spoke frankly about sex and fate (and which many of my friends reviled for its putative self-indulgence) and it was full of character actors and people I'd never seen before on screen. I recognized Jason Robards, sure, and Philip Seymour Hoffman looked familiar (is that . . . Dusty? From Twister?!) but then Tom Cruise explodes onto the screen. Holy crap, I know who this guy is and WHAT IS HE SAYING? Beyond all the crazy talk at Mackey's seminars, it was the first time I'd seen Cruise in a supporting role, it was the first time his character was so unlikeable as to be basically despicable. Frank TJ Mackey was a revelation of a role about Cruise's willingness to take big risks all that stuff everybody has already mentioned.
So while, Magnolia and Cruise was a revelation for me about film in general, what they could accomplish, how they could be structured, it was Far and Away that really made me notice Cruise and locked him into my brain as a face to look for in a film. His subsequent performances just drove that further home (and continue to do so).
Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut cemented it for me - the latter, of course, was a divisive sex thriller by Stanley Kubrick (come on) but the former... here he is, adorable leading-man, playing a despicable supporting role and nailing it. Credibility, confirmed.
That said, I voted for "1997 or earlier." By that point, he'd muscled his way through a diverse litany of demanding, emotionally realistic lead roles with tons of screen time. He'd made "A Few Good Men" and "Born on the 4th of July." If you could watch those films as still dismiss Little Tommy as a pretty boy in jet fighter, you're a much crueler judge of the craft of acting than I am.
Born of the Fourth of July did it for me. (It seems I'm on the older end of the spectrum here.)
While I don't recall ever taking Tom Cruise for granted, it was the 1-2 punch of EYES WIDE SHUT and MAGNOLIA that made me realize just how much of a risk taker Cruise was. He'd later take this to new and sometimes ridiculously stupid heights with his stunt work, but Cruise was always willing to jump in and give it his best shot even when numerous people were criticizing him. You can't really take many Cruise performances and say he was miscast, even when he seems an unlikely fit. He makes it work. I've always thought he was the hardest working actor in the business and still do.
14 years old when I first saw Top Gun. Strangely, it was still playing in first run theaters when the VHS tape became widely available for the (reasonable to a 14 year old) low price of $14.99. My buddy and I watched the film on a giant screen, then walked straight to K-Mart and got the tape. The VHS copy became our holy text for that summer, both worshiped and studied. I never looked back.
Regardless of Cruise's occasional missteps over the years, he remains for me the ultimate movie star, with all the glitz and glamour that the term "movie star" brings with it. And I know, when settling down in the theater to watch a Cruise film, that I have about a 90% chance of enjoying it, a 70% chance of loving it, and a 50% chance that I am about to watch a flat out classic. Not bad, Tom Cruise.
14 years old when I first saw Top Gun. Strangely, it was still playing in first run theaters when the VHS tape became widely available for the (reasonable to a 14 year old) low price of $14.99. My buddy and I watched the film on a giant screen, then walked straight to K-Mart and got the tape. The VHS copy became our holy text for that summer, both worshiped and studied. I never looked back.
Regardless of Cruise's occasional missteps over the years, he remains for me the ultimate movie star, with all the glitz and glamour that the term "movie star" brings with it. And I know, when settling down in the theater to watch a Cruise film, that I have about a 90% chance of enjoying it, a 70% chance of loving it, and a 50% chance that I am about to watch a flat out classic. Not bad, Tom Cruise.
Sinister Scientology gimp.
My apologies but I think I have to question the wording of this poll a bit, since I think it favors the later years seeing as I was born in 91 so 07' and 17' are really my only options, maybe asking what decade of Cruise's films made you stop taking him for granted would be more fair? Either way I have to pick 07' mostly because of Minority Report, even though now I don't see it as one of his best films at the age of 11 it hooked me and really made me enjoy Cruise in dramatic/action roles. Now if you want to ask me when I gained the most respect for Cruise in one film, easy, tropic thunder, in most Cruise films his looks are a major selling point but most people didn't even realize the crazy and lovable Les Grossman was actually Cruise behind all the hair and make up until the credits had rolled.
My wife figured this out when we watched Magnolia. Tom Cruise is a great actor when he is playing a character who is an arrogant jerk. When he plays a Mr. Perfect action-hero, such as Ethan Hunt, I yawn. Taking my wife's insight back to the beginning, he was right in his wheelhouse playing Vincent, the pompous pool shark in The Color of Money. His hair was perfect!
Seeing Magnolia in film school taught me to not take Cruise for granted as a great actor. But honestly Edge of Tomorrow is the film that taught me the film industry is still learning how to avoid taking his potential for granted themselves.
As a cowardly PR man lacking a moral code, Cruise is perfectly cast in the sci-fi action film, and I believe we enjoy the character's arc as much as we do BECAUSE it is often unlikeable, often taken for granted Cruise in the roll. Rather then the straight two dimensional action hero he typically plays, as in the Mission Impossible films, Cruise gets to bring his skills to a much more interesting action hero: one with a unlikeable streak but great potential to grow.
He doesn't have to just play standard action heroes with an impressive indie performance tossed in every few years. He really shines when he can bring both these talents to bear.
Collateral, am I right? szcheesh. That was intense
Being 41 y.o., Cruise has always been a present star, but after the backlash and Katie Holmes/Scientology business, it was not cool to like the Tomcat. But he's soooo good, though. Tropic Thunder really sealed the deal for me, but Collateral was the movie that separated the popular opinions from the talent in my mind
Magnolia was a major part of my awakening as a cinephile, and might still feature his all-time best performance. So I have to vote for 2007 or earlier. Add to the mix Collateral and Minority Report ("mixed" on these, Adam? You have to revisit - they're amazing) and you have a period of work any actor would be envious of. It's a stretch of performances so good that, if anything, the broad blockbuster stage he's in now is a sad step back.
Forgot to leave my location: Kansas City, MO
I was born in 1996, so technically it would be 2017 or eariler, as most movies I've seen have been between 2007 and now. I haven't seen enough of the films from the earlier options, so if I'm going by movies I've seen much later their initial release, I think it has to be 2007 or before. Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut are two of my favorite films, and his two best performances.