Thursday, December 25, 2008

The X Factor

Currently the reviews with professional critics range around 60%, which by itself is not bad.

Now, you do have to add an X factor to that, given TC previous reputation (in part artificially created by Scientology critics). As Roger Ebert, one of the most acknowledged film critics explains:
Tom Cruise is perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role. I'm at a loss to explain the blizzard of negative advance buzz fired at him for the effrontery of playing a half-blind, one-armed Nazi hero. Two factors may be to blame: (a) Cruise has attracted so much publicity by some of his own behavior (using Oprah's couch as a trampoline) that anything he does sincerely seems fair game for mockery, and (b) movie publicity is now driven by gossip, scandal and the eagerness of fanboys and girls to attract attention by posing as critics of movies they've almost certainly not seen. Now that the movie is here, the buzz is irrelevant, but may do residual damage.
A conservative estimate of this X factor would be something like 5 to 10%, if not considerably more. That would bring the ratings near the high ratings received on IMDB by knowledgeable users.

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