Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to Far & Away (1992)
Plot In A Paragraph: A young Irish couple (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) flee to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely.
Cruise teamed up with director Ron Howard for what should be a slam dunk for the the pair of them, but it ends up being a total misfire. It's not all bad, it was a personal project for Howard and nobody can fault Cruise for trying something different, it does look visually impressive, but the story is not that good of believable (so much comes down to chance and coincidence) and the dialogue is poor, as are the accents on display.
It takes awhile to get used to the Irish accent coming from Cruise's mouth, who is totally miscast, he was far too old for the role at 30 (he is repeatedly called "boy") but at least he is understandable, which is more than can be for some of the other cast early on.
Nicole Kidman (in her second and last movie with her now husband) once again doesn't offer much to her role and Robert Prosky is such a cliché, it's awful to see such a good actor wasted in such a role. In fact the cast may not be the movies biggest problem. Whilst the idea is certainly a decent one, the script is weak and the dialogue is often ridiculous.
It does have some things going for it!! As I said earlier it's visually impressive. The Oklahoma land rush is beautifully shot and looks great and has John Williams ever produced a bad score.
I had not seen it in 25 years, and I remember a different ending. I won't go in to spoilers, despite the movies age.
Far & Away grossed $58 million at the domestic box office, to end the year the 21st highest grossing movie of 1992. His worst performing movie for quite some time. Luckily he didn't have too long to dwell on two under performing movies in a row.
Plot In A Paragraph: A young Irish couple (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) flee to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely.
Cruise teamed up with director Ron Howard for what should be a slam dunk for the the pair of them, but it ends up being a total misfire. It's not all bad, it was a personal project for Howard and nobody can fault Cruise for trying something different, it does look visually impressive, but the story is not that good of believable (so much comes down to chance and coincidence) and the dialogue is poor, as are the accents on display.
It takes awhile to get used to the Irish accent coming from Cruise's mouth, who is totally miscast, he was far too old for the role at 30 (he is repeatedly called "boy") but at least he is understandable, which is more than can be for some of the other cast early on.
Nicole Kidman (in her second and last movie with her now husband) once again doesn't offer much to her role and Robert Prosky is such a cliché, it's awful to see such a good actor wasted in such a role. In fact the cast may not be the movies biggest problem. Whilst the idea is certainly a decent one, the script is weak and the dialogue is often ridiculous.
It does have some things going for it!! As I said earlier it's visually impressive. The Oklahoma land rush is beautifully shot and looks great and has John Williams ever produced a bad score.
I had not seen it in 25 years, and I remember a different ending. I won't go in to spoilers, despite the movies age.
Far & Away grossed $58 million at the domestic box office, to end the year the 21st highest grossing movie of 1992. His worst performing movie for quite some time. Luckily he didn't have too long to dwell on two under performing movies in a row.