Days of Thunder

The most daring thing about his cat-and-mouse game with Kidman is how erotic Noyce makes it.

Dispensing with all notions that Days of Thunder is a critical work of any sort reveals its hollow and misogynistic underpinnings.

Like the previous Simpson-Bruckheimer pictures, it's designed to give audiences an overdose of the thrill of victory; it wants us to jump out of our seats, pumping our fists in the air and roaring for the hero to pulverize his opponents.

This is the kind of monstrously overgrown commercial movie that depends entirely on the microscopic pleasures of having one`s most routine expectations fulfilled.

Whoosh!! Days of Thunder just streaked in, fast as a race-car paint job and about as flat.

Not only does Days of Thunder disappoint on the basic narrative level, it is also a peculiarly thrill-less action movie. Shot from the driver's point of view, the race sequences lose their novelty as swiftly as a video game.

Some members of the audience I attended for Days of Thunder snickered at the mythologizing of the young actor on the screen. Tom Cruise would be wise to pay heed to such derision.

There is some interest to be mined from Days of Thunder as an auteur piece--the auteur being Cruise, not Scott.

A vanity piece for Tom Cruise, who makes sure that he looks even prettier than co-star Nicole Kidman.

The most awesome technical feat of Days of Thunder's massive gadgetry is Cruise in close-up.