Mission Impossible 2, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The last Samurai, Collateral, War of the worlds, Lions for Lambs. Tropic thunder. Valkyrie, Knight and day, MI:Ghost, Rock of ages, Jack reacher. Oblivion.
That is his last 14 movies. A dog or two? basically 13 movies in a row, is not a dog or two, or consistently good.
Half of those is directly HIS fault for being bad. Tropic thunder is the only one, which stands as a joke part/cameo.
I'm going to disagree with your list a lot.
*Mission Impossible 2 - It wasn't great.
*Vanilla Sky - I really enjoyed this one. The movie was incredibly fucked up, but his acting in it was on par with what I would expect anyone to do. It was pure psychosis.
*Minority Report - I wasn't terribly in to this movie. Not so much because of Tom, but the overall subject matter. I'll have to give it another try.
*The last Samurai - I loved this one. Then again, I enjoy Japanese culture as a whole. This movie did a really good job of showing the mentality off. Also, I enjoy his "trying to be a samurai" stage.
*Collateral - He's a cold hitman. He's doing a job. The acting is exactly what it should have been. He's intense when he needs to be, but very charismatic the rest of the time.
*War of the worlds - This movie was complete horse shit. I'd say that everyone involved is to blame, not just him.
*Lions for Lambs - Never saw it, so I can't comment one way or another.
*Tropic thunder - His scenes were great. This is one of those movies that you didn't realize Cruise could do really funny shit, but he played it off great.
*Valkyrie - It's a movie about Nazi's. I definitely liked this more than Inglorious Bastards, but what do you want?
*Knight and day - I hate hate HATE Diaz, yet I still enjoyed this. It's silly. Not believable at all. But it's still a cute 'no brainer' type of film. Worth watching if you're bored.
*MI:Ghost - Ghost was fucking awesome. Tom amazes me with the stunts that he actually wants to do, as opposed to making other people do for him. I really liked this one.
*Rock of ages - Never saw it.
*Jack reacher - I liked this movie as well. In fact, I rewatched it again a week or two ago. It was done quite well. I know a little of the subject matter of Jack Reacher supposedly being this giant guy (maybe even a black dude), but it didn't matter. Tom kicked ass in this role.
*Oblivion - Eh... The concept was entertaining, as was Tom's acting. But the movie itself got boring after a while.
You missed:
*Mission Impossible 3 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. This was definitely the 2nd best MI film, following #4. My order is MI 4, 3, 1 then 2 in terms of good to bad. His acting was great. Especially when he's trying to get his wife. You can see the anguish in his moves. It's a good movie.
So, there's my list and why I like it. I think you're overly critical.
The racist comment is kind of dumb and totally unrelated to anything. Movies involving any country besides America are pretty racist too. It's Americans making movies for often the lowest common denominator of other Americans about somewhere that isn't America. It's never going to behonest.
