Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Shia LeBeouf
Battle of the Next Gyllenhaals

For a young actor, staking out the niche of soulful, long-lashed, sensitive dreamer isn't the worst possible strategy. In fact, for those under the age of eighteen, the more sensitive and long-lashed (read: girly) they are, the easier it is to attract girl fans who will embrace the actors' sexlessness. Every generation needs its own off-brand James Dean -- usually more than one -- so no one goes hungry and millions of girls doodle their crushes' names on their Trapper Keepers, daydreaming about their hairless chests and delicate wrists. The problem is that it's not a reliable strategy for the long term. Many of them end up being so "sensitive" in real life that they have to drink a lot and go to seed. Or, they grow up looking less like attractive dreamers and more like...well, pussies. And though sad-eyed misfit roles are plentiful for the high school-aged, there are ever fewer of them as those actors age: it's why we only need one Jake Gyllenhaal, and why Shia LeBeouf and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, at this moment, are so busily showing us that they should replace him when he ages out of his current slot. (Or, rather, beefs out of it, which he kind of already has, as you know if you saw Jarhead. It's actually the accumulation of muscle that causes the Gyllentype to grow up, for the public; see Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, and, someday, Lou Taylor Pucci as the lead in a film adaptation of Jose Canseco's Juiced.)

For quite some time, it seemed as though LeBeouf was the Gyllenheir apparent. While no one was watching, he'd built up a respectable list of credits for a fellow of his tender years -- and by "while no one was watching," we actually mean "where": on the Disney Channel (in Even Stevens), on terrible sitcoms (Suddenly Susan, Jesse, Caroline In The City), and in the waning years of The X-Files, among others. Then he starred as a sensitive young juvie inmate in Holes -- the film adaptation of a book you've never heard of unless you were fifteen when the movie came out, or a librarian in charge of the Young Adult section -- and the whole world suddenly opened up to him as though the thing had been a total blockbuster of an undeniable hit, a youthquake Da Vinci Code (which it wasn't -- $67 million in four months?!). Holes made LeBeouf not just tomorrow's Gyllenhaal but the new Shirley Temple, practically: he was artlessly, uselessly shoehorned into the likes of I, Robot and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. He became the biggest name on The Battle Of Shaker Heights, the second total failure birthed by the awesome TV series Project Greenlight. He even got to headline a little golf movie, The Greatest Game Ever Played (we didn't see it, but...we're dubious that the title is accurate): not quite The Legend Of Bagger Vance; maybe The Fable Of Change-Purse McGee.

However, these days LeBeouf is having a harder time defending his title as the male, pubescent Dakota Fanning; Joseph Gordon-Levitt is gunning straight for him. Gordon-Levitt started out in the business even younger than LeBeouf did; you might remember him as George, the neighbourhood kid so boring and weird that even D.J. Conner doesn't like him, on Roseanne, but you probably didn't know that it was his twenty-second professional credit. It's no surprise that he is one of the few Los Angelenos who was actually born there; one could even say he was bred there with the sole purpose of supporting his parents as a child star. Anyway, we can probably assume he wasn't horrible misused, as he continued to work once he was old enough to know what was going on -- as Tommy Solomon on 3rd Rock From The Sun, in 10 Things I Hate About You, and in guest shots on That '70s Show and (perhaps just to stick to his pattern) Numb3rs. And, suddenly, he's making an effort to show us how serious he can be -- in the well-reviewed high-school noir flick Brick, and in the current Shadowboxer, opposite the eminent Helen Mirren. And though we're positing Gordon-Levitt as a contender to be the next Gyllenhaal, we would be remiss not to point out the physical resemblance between Gordon-Levitt and Gyllenhaal's Brokeback love interest, Heath Ledger (also a G-L co-star, back in 10 Things). Gordon-Levitt may not yet evince the physical heft that would have us believing he could herd anything larger than a weiner dog, but we'd probably buy him mournfully sniffing a work shirt or two.

Which of our wispy young dreamers is better situated now to play another sensitive math student (as Gyllenhaal did in Proof) or slightly unhinged discount-store bagger (as Gyllenhaal did in The Good Girl)? Turns out the answer is pretty clear. The next two films on Gordon-Levitt's CV find him playing a psychopath (reminiscent of Brad Pitt's Oscar-nominated role in 12 Monkeys, perhaps?) in John Madden's Killshot, and a brain-damaged janitor (reminiscent of every "heart-tugging cripple" role that's ever won anyone a Best Actor Oscar) in The Lookout. And LeBeouf is going to be in the Transformers movie. And not as a Transformer! WEAK.

Advantage: Gordon-Levitt.