Anonymous wrote:Meh. Only if his target demographic is something like the rock - the MAGA crowd.
As a white woman in my thirties - around his age - I don’t find him appealing. I don’t think Gen z is into him. My mom doesn’t know who he is. My grandma (who loved George Clooney) wouldn’t be into him.
Which leaves the kind of people who would watch top gun maverick - white dudes, aged 35-75.
I liked Top Gun Maverick but not for Glen Powell. I had honestly forgotten he was in it. I remember Tom Cruise and Miles Teller, and then some of the smaller roles -- Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman. I had no recollection of Powell but then if I thought about it I could kind of see his grin somewhere in my memory of the movie. But that's it. Just the smarmy smile.
I think the issue is that he has no edge. He has a similar vibe to Tom Cruise except that Cruise has always felt like the surface charm conceals unbridled rage. As he's gotten older, the surface charm has cracked a bit and we see it's not just rage, but also naked ambition, control issues, and whatever his weird Scientology crap is. But it's still edge! I don't want to be friends with Tom Cruise but I like watching him in movies. That edge makes him interesting.
Same with Clooney. Yes, he's handsome and charming. He also has a kind of devious, trickster quality. It's what makes him great in movies where he plays con men -- Out of Sight, Ocean's, etc. He also can play intellectual, and it's believable, which has allowed him to play a range of brainy characters while still being a sex symbol. Are these accurate reflections of Clooney's real character? Probably not, and I bet if I met him I'd find him a lot less interesting. But it makes him feel more complex as a leading man and like a lot of women, I'm attracted to that kind of complexity.
The Rock has a hook in that he looks like the Rock. A lot of his roles are essentially sight gags based on his physicality, sometimes juxtaposed against him being friendly and charming, other times as a foil to other characters. It's the Arnold Schwarzenegger approach. Glen Powell doesn't look like the Rock (or Schwarzenegger).
Glen Powell has no edge. That's his problem. You can't just be good looking and affable, it's not enough.