It was the apotheosis of the Kubrick curse: a focus on (brilliant) technical production at the expense of emotional engagement. For me, he's always a bit of a puppet show. A great puppet show, but a puppet show nonetheless.
I get that about Kubrick. It's only occasionally that I can actually relax and enjoy one of his films. I wouldn't put Vanilla Sky in the same class, but (as I said) I did enjoy it.
Yeah, Mrs WilliamA pointed me towards his acting talents a few years ago (she having seen some of the MI films when she worked night shifts) and I was a bit surprised as I hated Top Gun. I think he was absolutely perfect casting for Edge of Tomorrow. His performance in War of the Worlds was pretty good too (that's another thread, because several of the performances in WOTW were excellent, some of the scenes were astonishingly good, but the editing was so abysmal that the overall film is definitely smelly). The Mummy: probably best not mentioned.
WotW might be worth a re-watch, because last time I saw it was before my Tompiphany. What I mostly remember about it is that his character mainly survives the invasion by being a dick and throwing other people to the wolves (or tripods).