Decider Vs. Rotten Tomatoes: Does Tom Cruise’s ‘Cocktail’ Really Suck?

I both love and respect Rotten Tomatoes. The website’s combination of reviews and colorful, easy to process data is a fun, breezy way to discern the basics about a film. But just because you love someone doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally disagree with what they’re saying. Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer has given the 1988 film Cocktail an abysmal 5% rating. FIVE PERCENT!? If Cocktail were a student who took a test on state capitals, it would’ve only answered Georgia, Pennsylvania, and half of Missouri correctly! That’s horrible! The capital of Oklahoma is Oklahoma City for goodness’ sakes!

Starring Tom Cruise’s smile and Tom Cruise (in that order), Cocktail is a memorable ’80s film about a charismatic bartender who learns about life, love, and how much grenadine is too much grenadine through a series of adventures in New York City and Jamaica. I’m not saying that Cocktail — a film Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader referred to as “very, very stupid” — deserves the same amount of reverence reserved for cinematic classics like E.T. or Mighty Ducks 2, but five freakin’ percent?! Tomatoes aren’t the only thing that’s rotten on the internet.

Rotten Tomatoes is plum wrong on this one. That’s right plum wrong. Here’s a tiny taste of why Cocktail is so much more delicious than its paltry 5% rating.

“Love under a waterfall. Livin’ it up while water’s fallin’ dooooown”

One of the many reasons I was taken aback by Cocktail’s dreadful rating is because it’s a movie filled with memorable moments. It may not be a soup to nuts masterpiece, but the film delivers a plethora of unforgettable scenes, including a sizzling aquatic make-out session between Cruise’s Brian Flanagan and Elisabeth Shue’s Jordan Mooney. The relationship is fraught with conflict, but despite the fact that Flanagan is an unrelenting jerk for the majority of the movie, Jordan, as well as the audience, just can’t seem to stay mad at this face:

Maybe I’m just not living my life to its fullest potential, but I’ve never hardcore frenched under a waterfall for what seems like an hour and a half, so thank you for showing me what it’s like, Cocktail!

It features a young Tom Cruise dancing to “Addicted to Love”

Unlike the Washington Post — who believed Cruise’s performance had “all the integrity of wax fruit” — I adore the “untainted by the rigors of life, ’80s bartender” version of Tom Cruise. It’s the happiest (non Katie Holmes/couch category) Tom Cruise there is!

Cocktail has an undeniable place in the culture iconography of bartending. Thousands, potentially millions, of bottles have been broken attempting to emulate Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown’s impressive array of behind the bar gymnastics.

Summer movies are supposed to be fun, and the above gifs are the textbook definition of the word.

Cocktail is responsible for the Beach Boys single “Kokomo.” Enough said.

The official music video for “Kokomo” combines three of my favorite things: John Stamos, running away from all your problems, and bongos. It truly is a sweet, sweet, melodic gift. If I were watching the love of my life swear her eternal love to my sworn enemy at a mountaintop wedding and “Kokomo” began to play, I’d be like, “Hey, it’s not all bad. Kinda weird I was invited to this wedding though. Seems unnecessarily vindictive.”

The film’s association with “Kokomo” is worth at least an additional 10%, unless you hate falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band, and if that’s the case, you’re a monster and your gargoyle opinion is invalid.

Is bartending fun? Heck yeah it is!
Is it also the most dangerous game in the world? Heck yeah it is.

The duality of man: thy name is Thomas Cruise.

Tonally, Cocktail is a peculiar film. It’s a hodgepodge of disparate movies that combine to form one intoxicating cocktail elixir of cinematic confusion. We have the love story between Flanagan and Jordan; Flanagan’s very ’80s quest to make gobs of money as a successful businessman; a slew of campy, over-the-top summer movie moments; the complicated relationship between Coughlin and Flanagan; Flanagan kinda becoming a high-end male prostitute; and the gruesome suicide of Coughlin.

It’s like a studio exec said, “We could do movie A, B, C, or D,” and another exec snorted a line of cocaine and was like, “Or E… all of the above.” Then they probably went golfing to celebrate a job well done.

Life, much like the movie Cocktail, is crazy. Sometimes, ya just gotta laugh, am I right?

Is Tom Cruise a bartender? A businessman? A poet? Guess what, hotshot? He’s all freakin’ three!

One of the most wonderfully bizarre moments from Cocktail is when Flanagan takes a break from slinging drinks to a jam-packed bar to perform some spoken word poetry, you know, as one does.

You might think thirsty patrons would be like, “Hey, dude. Cool riddles or whatever, but I’ve been waiting 35 minutes for my Jack and Coke.” But nope. The crowd literally chants for young Flanagan to stop serving booze and pontificate about life.

Initially, he just rhymes Sex on the Beach with Schnapps made from peach, which isn’t great but everyone’s pretty drunk and to be fair, I doubt Walt Whitman could catch a bottle of rum behind his back. Eventually, a more mature Flanagan is pierced by Cupid’s arrow which gives him the requisite life experience to recite a poem about the importance of love and family. Cheesy? Sure. But Brian Flanagan truly was the world’s last barman poet.

Is Cocktail a wonderful film? No. Is it a fun, silly summertime movie worthy of a lazy rewatch? You bet! It’s… what’s the word I’m looking for here…

Yes. Thank you, Oz. It is watchable. Very watchable. Does Cocktail suck? Absolutely not.

Where to stream Cocktail