Movies of 1996 Bracket Game: Jerry Maguire Vs. Mission: Impossible

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http://lebeauleblog.com/2016/01/22/m...on-impossible/

If you’re a movie star, any year in which you have a hit movie is a good year. Twenty years ago, Tom Cruise had two. In 1996, he starred in the franchise-launching adaptation of the TV show, Mission: Impossible as well as the Oscar-nominated romantic comedy, Jerry Maguire. These were the third and fourth highest-grossing movies of the year in the US making 1996 an excellent year to be Tom Cruise.

Readers screamed for Neve Campbell and ditched Jim Carrey’s Cable Guy. Scream handily defeated the black comedy to advance to round 2 where it will face one of the biggest movie stars in the world. In today’s match, we’ll decide which Tom Cruise movie Scream will go up against.

Ten years prior, Cruise became a bona fide movie star with the box office smash, Top Gun. He had spent the early eighties building his resume with movies like The Outsiders and Risky Business. But Top Gun put Cruise over the top.

Post Top Gun, Cruise had an impressive run at the box office with several hits that grossed over $100 million dollars. He was able to alternate popcorn movies like Days of Thunder and The Firm with prestige fare from top directors like Martin Scorsese on The Color of Money and Oliver Stone on Born on the Fourth of July. With Rain Man and A Few Good Men, Cruise enjoyed the best of both worlds; critically acclaimed box office hits that also attracted Oscar nominations.

The one thing Cruise didn’t have was a franchise. Most of the big movie stars of the day had a franchise they could return to time and again for reliable box office. It had also been a while since Cruise had flexed his muscles as an action star. He decided to address both of these concerns in 1996 with Mission: Impossible.

The movie was based the TV show from the sixties which capitalized on the popularity of the James Bond movie by focusing on a team of spies. The movie did away with the team concept rather unceremoniously. This was Cruise’s bid for a franchise and he didn’t want to share his series with a team of actors who could potentially replace him someday as the lead. Originally, the script called for the return of the characters from the TV series. In the opening scenes, they would all be killed off except for Peter Graves who would eventually be revealed as a traitor.

When Graves and the others balked at the opportunity to tarnish their own legacy in service of Cruise’s movie career, they were replaced. A new team was brought in which included Cruise’s buddy from The Outsiders, Emilio Estevez. John Voight assumed the role of Graves’ character, Jim Phelps. While critics complained that the movie’s plot didn’t make a lot of sense, director Brian De Palma did deliver a couple of really memorable set pieces including Cruise suspended in midair be wires during a break-in.

Twenty years later, the sequels have largely improved on the original. Just as planned, the Mission movies have served as Cruise’s fall back position during troubled times in his career.

Following his alternating pattern of popcorn movies and prestige picks, Cruise’s next movie was Cameron Crowe’s romantic comedy-drama, Jerry Maguire. One common knock against Cruise as an actor is that he rarely has onscreen chemistry with his leading ladies. But Jerry Maguire was one of those rare exceptions like Risky Business. Audiences really did believe that Renee Zellweger completed his character. The fact that we weren’t throwing up in our mouths during mushy lines like “You had me at ‘hello'” shows just how much we bought into these characters and their relationship. In the years since, Crowe has induced more eye rolling than heart-fluttering with mawkish follow-ups like Elizabethtown, We Bought a Zoo and Aloha.

While Jerry Maguire hasn’t had the same long-term impact on Cruise’s career as the Mission: Impossible franchise, it did bring him a rare Oscar nomination. He had been nominated once before for Born on the Fourth of July and would be nominated again for Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia. To date, Cruise has yet to win an Academy Award. But Jerry Maguire did bring Cruise his second Golden Globe.

There’s no doubt that 1996 was a banner year for the actor. Cruise enjoyed both critical and commercial success. He launched a career-sustaining franchise, showed that he was capable of headlining a romantic comedy and garnered awards attention. While other 80’s icons were watching their careers fade, Cruise continued to dominate. Looking at the nineties it’s clear that 1996 was the pinnacle of the decade for Tom Cruise.

Which Cruise vehicle do you prefer? The spy thriller that launched a series or the sports-themed rom com about an agent who finds his soul?