♥
+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year
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| Tom Cruise looks happy on this pleasant poster for Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire |
Jerry is a successful sports agent, - but suddenly he attains an insight: Fewer clients, more care, - that will be his new motto. He establishes his own company, - with only one client, - and falls in love with his only employee.
Jerry Maguire is written and directed by Cameron Crowe (Say Anything (1989)).
It is a consistently false and unnatural Major Movie Star Vehicle, which uses ploys that are so obvious and primitive so as to make the film just about insufferable, not to speak of enormously overlong. - When Jerry Maguire seems to be over, it packs another full 45 minute act for us!
Tom Cruise (Legend (1985)) is the winning success type here, as we know him from so many other previous films, but the charm seems to wear thin here, - the charm of seeing him portray another go-getter professional type. Crowe slaps more or less superfluous music onto most angles of the film, which encapsulate the carefree 1990s that Jerry Maguire arrives from, an era that also seems far in the past due to the gender and race dynamics in it.
Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty (2000)) is the romantic interest, who has a son who is cute with perfectly gelled hair 100 % of the time he's in the film, giving one unnatural line after another. Cuba Gooding Jr. (Norbit (2007)) yells himself through large portions of the film as Maguire's only client and is fetishized shamelessly for his envious physique, half-naked very often.
Jerry Maguire may be among the most widely overrated films of all time. It is awful.
Related posts:
Cameron Crowe: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
We Bought a Zoo (2011) - Crowe's terrific family film
Elizabethtown (2005) - A cute piece of Crowe's world; just roll with it!
1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) - Heckerling's popular high school portrayal debut (writer; based on his book)
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 273.5 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 5.47 times its cost)
[Jerry Maguire premiered 6 December (New York) and runs 139 minutes. The script was inspired by sports agent Leigh Steinberg and a 28-page memo written by Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg. Cruise was paid 20 mil. $ and 15% of the film's profits for his performance; Gooding Jr. was paid 600k $. Shooting took place from March - July 1996 in New York, Arizona, including in Phoenix and in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 17 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 10 weekends in the top 5, one of them again back at #1, grossing 153.9 mil. $ (56.3 % of the total gross). The foreign market gross numbers have not been made public. It was the 9th highest-grossing film worldwide of the year. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning one, for Best Supporting Actor (Gooding Jr.). It lost Best Actor (Cruise) to Geoffrey Rush in Shine, Editing to The English Patient, Picture also to The English Patient and Original Screenplay to Fargo. It was also nominated for a European Film award, won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to 3 notches over this one. The film was also a big hit as a home video release, selling 3 mil. copies in North America in its first day of release alone. Crowe returned with Almost Famous (2000). Cruise returned in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Jerry Maguire is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Jerry Maguire?
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