5. Ethan Hunt
As Seen In... The
Mission: Impossible Movies I've watched four whole movies featuring Ethan Hunt as the main character, and I still can't tell the difference between this guy and, like, an assortment of other Tom Cruise characters. It's not as if Tom Cruise is unable to play characters who feel like different people: Jerry McGuire feels like a fully-formed individual, and so does that character he played in
Magnolia, whose name I have ironically forgotten for the basis of the joke I've just worked into this sentence. But Ethan Hunt is just "a guy" with a bunch of good skills, from what I can weigh. For a character we've spent around eight hours in the company of, I wish I felt like Ethan was a little more "unique" than I do: he's just always felt like... well, Tom Cruise. And that, as we know, is not a good thing. I mean, what's different about this person? What is Tom doing to make Ethan feel like a character who can lead a billion dollar franchise? The answer is nothing, despite the fact that people still clearly like the
Mission: Impossible movies. I do, in fact. But we can tell the difference between Indiana Jones and Han Solo, despite them having similar traits: you can't mix those performances up, because of the subtleties. Those two characters are separate from one another; entirely different performances. Ethan Hunt isn't like that: he's just another "Tom Cruise action hero." He exists purely to run away from explosions and clock up missions. I wish I knew what his favourite food was, or what he does when he's not punching people.