Tom Cruise Syndrome: We’ve all seen it. From “Top Gun” to “Minority Report” to “War of the Worlds” and the “Mission: Impossible” series, good ol’ Tom has managed to play the same character nearly every time. I will say that “Vanilla Sky” was very different, but, generally, Tom Cruise acts the same in every movie. He says a few witty lines, gives his smile that could charm the paint off of walls, and plays his character, whether it’s a futuristic cop or a modern-day father, with the same sort of style.

How does one diagnose his or her favorite actor with Tom Cruise Syndrome? Simple. Take three roles of the same actor and see if you think the characters could be in the same room at a dinner together. If you cannot see them in the same room, your actor doesn’t have it. However, this doesn’t work with Tom Cruise because I cannot discern any different characters for him to play!

I don’t know the cure for it either. Though, I think Christian Bale and Al Pacino are examples of actors who do not have this syndrome. I thought Denzel Washington did, but, no. Put in Alonzo from “Training Day,” Tripp from “Glory,” and Frank Lucas from “American Gangster,” and you can see they are all different people with different traits and attitudes.

Tom Cruise’s action/heartthrob status overrides his characters. Similarly, Will Smith’s charisma and humor work against him sometimes. He is expected to be the funny action guy. Jeremy Piven is close to being typecast as a jerk-type due to his Ari character on HBO’s “Entourage” series. He plays his bit part in “The Kingdom” as pretty much Ari with a different haircut and name.

I hope this trend stops because it robs other actors of some fine roles and diminishes the body of work of the actors who suffer from this “syndrome.” I also wish that maybe Cruise and others in this position will snap out of it and try to fix things for their careers.