RIP, Val Kilmer
Apr. 2nd, 2025 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerToday film actor Val Kilmer died. He was 65. He starred in dozens of movies; in many of them he made his characters memorable. Here are a few memories of Val Kilmer movies I've seen and enjoyed:
Kilmer's first film was Top Secret! (1984). He starred as Nick Rivers, an Elvis Presley-like rock star sent to a festival in East Germany to draw attention away from an American spy operation. I saw that movie not when it ran in theaters but probably not too many years after that on video. I think I saw it before the fall of the East German regime in 1990, when it was actually topically relevant rather than a quaint historical piece. And as a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker film it was hilarious, full of slapstick humor, sight gags, and Vaudeville-style straight-man lines.
The first Val Kilmer movie I saw was 1985's Real Genius. As a middle school/high school student really interested in STEM it was meaningful to me to see his slacker/genius portrayal because it showed me that smart guys can also be cool. Prior to that I'd only ever seen smart people in movies made fun of as stereotypical nerds.
For a lot of people Kilmer's co-starring role opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986) might be his most iconic. For me that movie was forgettable except as some big-budget special effects vehicle that involved a 110% predictable love triangle.
Willow (1988) was another movie where I remember Kilmer's portrayal as being special. His character of Mad Marnigan was not the star but he brought a special verve to it, frankly a bit of scenery-chewing— but in a good way— that made the character bigger than it was written.
Tombstone (1993) might be the movie in Kilmer's filmography I like best. It was an amazing movie. And Kilmer's portrayal of legendary gunslinger Doc Holliday was amazing. He took a character that in many other tellings of the story of Wyatt Earp is portrayed as two dimensional and made him actually more interesting than Wyatt Earp. Plus, even the way he committed to portraying Holliday as a person suffering from tuberculosis was special. He acted as if he had such trouble speaking that you really wanted to pay attention to every word he said; like a person who didn't have that many words left sure wasn't going to waste one.
As I peruse Kilmer's list of film credits on IMDb I realize there are many of his movies I haven't seen— and should see. Tops on that list is The Doors (1991). I'm a big fan of The Doors' music. And just today I learned that Kilmer actually sang all the parts as Doors' front man Jim Morrison in that movie.
Kilmer's first film was Top Secret! (1984). He starred as Nick Rivers, an Elvis Presley-like rock star sent to a festival in East Germany to draw attention away from an American spy operation. I saw that movie not when it ran in theaters but probably not too many years after that on video. I think I saw it before the fall of the East German regime in 1990, when it was actually topically relevant rather than a quaint historical piece. And as a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker film it was hilarious, full of slapstick humor, sight gags, and Vaudeville-style straight-man lines.
The first Val Kilmer movie I saw was 1985's Real Genius. As a middle school/high school student really interested in STEM it was meaningful to me to see his slacker/genius portrayal because it showed me that smart guys can also be cool. Prior to that I'd only ever seen smart people in movies made fun of as stereotypical nerds.
For a lot of people Kilmer's co-starring role opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986) might be his most iconic. For me that movie was forgettable except as some big-budget special effects vehicle that involved a 110% predictable love triangle.
Willow (1988) was another movie where I remember Kilmer's portrayal as being special. His character of Mad Marnigan was not the star but he brought a special verve to it, frankly a bit of scenery-chewing— but in a good way— that made the character bigger than it was written.
Tombstone (1993) might be the movie in Kilmer's filmography I like best. It was an amazing movie. And Kilmer's portrayal of legendary gunslinger Doc Holliday was amazing. He took a character that in many other tellings of the story of Wyatt Earp is portrayed as two dimensional and made him actually more interesting than Wyatt Earp. Plus, even the way he committed to portraying Holliday as a person suffering from tuberculosis was special. He acted as if he had such trouble speaking that you really wanted to pay attention to every word he said; like a person who didn't have that many words left sure wasn't going to waste one.
As I peruse Kilmer's list of film credits on IMDb I realize there are many of his movies I haven't seen— and should see. Tops on that list is The Doors (1991). I'm a big fan of The Doors' music. And just today I learned that Kilmer actually sang all the parts as Doors' front man Jim Morrison in that movie.
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Date: 2025-04-04 09:37 am (UTC)When I heard about him being cast as Morrison, I was upset. "That comedy pretty boy? The really funny and really pretty guy? As the Lizard King? That's gonna be a terrible movie!!" I groused at my GF of the time.
Oh boy, was I ever wrong!!!
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Date: 2025-04-04 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-04 10:52 pm (UTC)To say he nailed the Morrison role would be an understatement. Especially if you went into the movie expecting him to bomb.