I have never seen anything she is in until Thank you for smoking which I thought she was below average as a very youngish looking reporter and not really beleivable at all. She looks about 18.
There wasn’t even any nudity to compensate for the lack of acting. This coming from a straight woman.
She is not even remarkably gorgeous or pretty or exotic. She’s just average.
Nothing, as far as I know. If it weren’t (wasn’t?) for her relationship with Tom Cruise, most of us would have never heard of her.
Who says she’s great? (apart from Tom Cruise, obviously!)
As a chap I can speak with authority on complex issues like ‘how hot is she?’ 
She’s a 7.
(Pretty but not gorgeous.)
She was okay in Pieces of April – as in, I was astonished later to realize it was the same person.
I first saw her on SNL a few years ago. She was quite pretty in the opening sketch. But there are plenty of women that I think are more attractive.
Tom Cruise got her pregnant. Talk about Mission Impossible…
She was just awesome in Dawson’s Creek.
Her tits. Those suckers are beauties.
Argh, you beat me to it. The only good thing about her.
Let’s play Word Association. You say “Katie Holmes”—I think “Weren’t her nipples in Batman Begins?”
She’s the only living descendant of Sherlock.
Sad state of female acting today. All you need are great tits, average though emaciated looks, and minimal talent. Women with more talents than looks are far too often overlooked. Men, too, but IMHO it is easier for a talented but pedestrian-looking actor to get good work (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Black) than for a similarly skilled actress.
Katie has wonderful tits and they complement her overall physique. She is not one of the actresses I would have ever described as emaciated. Wholesome is the word I would use. The average girl-who-lives-next-door you like to bang until her eyes popped out of her head. 
I’ve seen Batman Begins and Thank You for Smoking, and she looked Hollywood skinny to me. Not quite ‘count the ribs, collarbone-jutting’ skeletal of some actresses, but still skinny.
I think she’s more talented than Tom. I don’t for one minute believe she’s in love with him.
Check out The Gift. Rrrrrrowwwrrrrr.
To elaborate on my original answer to the OP, I don’t think there was ever anything necessarily great about her, other than being a nice looking wholesome girl-next-door cutie. But when big bad Tom Cruise ensnared her in his wicked web, the world rebelled in a “how can nut job TC spoil our little sweetheart” sort of way.
Yeah, to concur with many above, I’d say decent actor, very attractive, great body, all the ingredients for moderate, sorta mid-B-list success in Hollywood. She’s nowhere near the talent to pull into the class of AC-tors like your Cate Blanchetts, nor do I think she’s able to hold her own against your Scarlett Johansens. I personally would put her on par, talent-wise, with someone like Natalie Portman (whose success just baffles me, as I find her a pretty weak screen presence without her looks to prop her up). So, given Natalie’s example, I suppose it’s entirely possible she’ll earn accolades on occasion for yeoman’s work, maybe get undue adulation now and then related more to her beauty than anything, and eventually be forgotten once the next cutie who can at least fake it comes along.
It’s her tits. How to describe them?
You know the Holocaust? Picture the opposite of that!
I think Natalie’s got that ‘oomph’ that Katie lacks–Katie’s very very cute, but she just seems too girl-next-door to pull off celebrity status.
Katie Holes was riding popular culture to fame long before Tom.
She is a capable, young, attractive actress with enough talent that she can play almost any young-attractive actress role, and there’s plenty of those.
She had an existing fan base from Dawson’s Creek and industry cred from well-chosen movie projects. Then the amorous references to her physical qualifications in Harold and Kumar. Then the fact that those qualifications are nearly perfect…
I’d peg her at a 7 with a 9 rack
