5 Tom Cruise flops worth catching

The boyishly handsome Tom Cruise turned 50 on July 3, and for most of his career, he has enjoyed a string of hits that transformed him into a superstar.

But even Cruise has sometimes missed.

Certainly he has enjoyed major triumphs such as Top Gun, Jerry Maguire and the Mission: Impossible franchise, but he also has some misses, which in a few cases deserved better box-office fates.

Following are five Cruise box-office misses (all on DVD and/or Blu-ray Disc) that deserve a second look:

1. All the Right Moves (1983), a gritty R-rated melodrama with Cruise as a high school football player whose future for a college scholarship is threatened by his conflicts with the teams coach (Craig T. Nelson).

2. Legend (1986), a visually striking unrated fantasy directed by Ridley Scott (Alien). In the story, Cruise is a guardian of nature pitted against a horned prince of darkness (played with villainous relish by Tim Curry). The story involves the fight between good and evil, but the real joy comes from just experiencing the images.

3. Far and Away (1992), a wide-screen PG-13 picture directed by Ron Howard and casting Cruise as an Irish farmer seeking land in America. The frontier epic really should be experienced on a big screen, where Howards carefully created visuals can be truly experienced, but the massive land-rush scene works even on the small screen.

4. Vanilla Sky (2001), a love-it-or-hate-it title in which director Cameron Crowe (who also worked with Cruise on 1996s Jerry Maguire) remakes the 1997 Spanish favorite Open Your Eyes. The R-rated picture features the actor as a man whose face is disfigured, something that causes the victim to seek psychiatric help. Its an acquired taste.

5. Collateral (2004), a stylish thriller directed by Michael Mann and starring Cruise. The actor plays a cold-as-ice contract killer who forces a taxi operator (Jam! ie Foxx) to drive him through Los Angeles so he can eliminate the victims on his hit parade. The R-rated film grossed a respectable, if unimpressive, $101 million in the U.S. and Canada, and benefits from a supporting cast that also includes Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo.

Lou Gaul: 609-871-8055; email, lgaul@phillyBurbs.com

Lou Gaul: 609-871-8055; email, lgaul@phillyBurbs.com