Jack Reacher Never Go Back
Starring Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Ninja N. Devoe
It really took some effort to make Jack Reacher 2 worse than the first one. Cruise is on autopilot, making one action movie a year, and this was just the next script in the pile. It’s not exciting, it’s not thrilling, it not only lacks anything new with Lee Child’s character, but it can’t even find anything fresh in the action genre. Whether he is trying to stop the world from repeating every 24 hours, on his latest impossible mission or saving the world from aliens, Cruise is playing himself in every role. The Jack Reacher series is worse than most, due to its bland set up. The first film at least had heavy hitting supporting players like Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo.
What was supposed to be a romantic evening with his commanding officer Major Susan Turner (Smulders), quickly turns into a rescue mission. Former special military operative Jack Reacher (Cruise) finds himself accused and on a hit list when he starts asking questions. Falsely accused, Turner and Reacher are on the run to find out why two soldiers are dead and what when wrong during a routine government arms transfer. No one can be trusted, and making matters worse, a young teenager claiming to be Reacher’s daughter is now in danger. “It’s time to stop running and start hunting,” Reacher says approaching his breaking point.
Never Go Back the title says, but Cruise always goes back to familiar territory and it’s boring to watch.
Like a bad cell phone, Reacher gets a recall back into the army. Scenes where they take him into custody, only cue following scenes where we know he is going to break out. This is another one of those action-heroes-who-always-save-the-day types; beat up the bad guy and gets what he wants. These are the only types of men Cruise is interested in playing at this stage in his career. It’s a bravado thing, he is like an ape chasing a banana so he can beat his chest in the end. The script, written and directed by the once promising Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai) asks a lot of questions in the beginning, but takes its precious time answering, so Cruise can beat the pulp out of a stream of never ending henchmen every ten minutes.
It’s really laughable how the bad guys threaten Reacher for a solid two hours, many of them even get close to him, gun in hand, but they never shoot him. Hundreds of times, the bad guy has the element of surprise, could easy put a bullet in this guy, nope, they want to fist fight so he can take them down. Never Go Back the title says, but Cruise always goes back to familiar territory and it’s boring to watch. Yarosh is also one of the films biggest drags, playing an annoying character with questionable acting abilities. Smulders might think she is playing some Emily Blunt – Edge of Tomorrow equivalent, but the script isn’t fair to her either. There are enough cheesy one liners in this movie to give your rolling eyes a headache.
Final Thought
Joins Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Now You See Me 2 and Blair Witch among the year’s most useless and unwanted sequels.
Grade
D+
Glad that I wasn’t able to make the screening. I agree with you 100%. It’s the same thing in all his movies now and he’s not good at it.