Tom Cruise

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Ben Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on May 19th, reviewing “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1980s classic 36 years later … but still features Tom Cruise. In theaters beginning May 27th.

CHICAGO – The big excitement for Memorial Day weekend 2022 at the movies is the delayed-for-two-year release of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1986 classic, both starring Tom Cruise. Two of his supporting actors in the film, both from Chicago, are Bashir Salahuddin and Charles Parnell.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on February 3rd, 2022, reviewing the new TV miniseries “Reacher” – a new iteration of the Jack Reacher adventures – currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

CHICAGO – Jack Reacher is back, in a binge-worthy TV miniseries premiering on February 4th, 2022, streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Portraying the iconic character, which debuted in a book series beginning in 1997 and adapted into a couple of high profile films, is actor Alan Ritchson. The series story is from the first novel (by Lee Child) in the Reacher series, “The Killing Floor.”

CHICAGO – By any reasonable account, Tom Cruise should be entering into a phase in the “Mission Impossible” series not unlike the latter James Bond films of Roger Moore… appearing in closeups and letting the stuntmen do the rest. However, Cruise continues to outrun the ravages of time, and his stunts only seem to get crazier in the sixth film, “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”

CHICAGO – Tom Cruise was once a Top Gun, but his newest film “American Made” never really takes off. It wants to be a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction kind of satire where commercial airline pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) winds up getting involved in the Iran Contra Affair and the Medellín drug cartel, but it never creates an enthralling place or story.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the new film “American Made” starring Tom Cruise!

CHICAGO – It’s the opening Sunday of the NFL, and what better time to celebrate the films that celebrate the sport that celebrate the ballers. Film history has a steroid-free stack of pro football films in all categories. Patrick McDonald, Jon Lennon Espino and Spike Walters of HollywoodChicago.com take on three prime examples.

CHICAGO – Universal Studio’s “Dark Universe,” which is centered around its stable of classic movie monsters, isn’t a bad idea. But in the darkly inauspicious debut feature called “The Mummy,” everything unravels. This is a mixed, muddled, marvel of a mess that contains an assembly of special effects, but precious little life.

CHICAGO – The title of Tom Cruise’s second Jack Reacher adventure has almost prophetic ring to it – but we all would have been better off if the writers, and director and star of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” had heeded the advice. This film seems more like one of those bargain-bin-just-barely-released thrillers than a major studio action movie.