Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In the prologue we see protagonist Jack Reacher arrested; it turns out he was working with Major Susan Turner of the Military Police to arrest the corrupt sheriff who had just arrested him. Sometime after this he goes to Washington DC to see her and learns that she has been arrested for alleged espionage. He goes to see her lawyer and is told that she specifically said not to let him get involved... she doesn't want anything to do with a 'deadbeat dad'; something that comes as a surprise to Reacher as he has no children and doesn't know the woman who had claimed he was the father of her fifteen year old daughter Samantha. Soon afterwards the lawyer is murdered and Reacher is blamed. He is convinced that those behind the murder with be after Major Turner next so he breaks her out of military prison before collecting his 'daughter' who is being targeted to get at him. Together Reacher and Turner must discover how their situation is connected to the murders of two US Military Police personnel in Afghanistan and a shadowy military contractor. This will lead them to New Orleans where the truth will be exposed and the villains faced.If you are looking for plenty of action then this will is well worth watching; there are fights, gunfights, chases and explosions every few minutes. These are well executed and make it relatively easy to overlook the fairly cliché plot. We have protagonists accused of a crime they didn't commit; a child who needs protecting who does things that put her in danger; a dodgy mercenary group and a motive that will seem obvious to viewers but isn't mentioned by the protagonists till the reveal scene. Tom Cruise does a fine job as Jack Reacher; not too surprising as it is the sort of role he excels in. Cobie Smulders and Danika Yarosh are solid enough as Turner and Samantha even if their characters are mainly there for Reacher to save. Patrick Heusinger is suitable menacing as the main bad guy even if his character does descend into pantomime villain territory towards the end. Overall a fun enough action film that won't test the brain cells too much!

Jack Reacher, loner ex-Military Police officer, visits Major Turner, a female officer he only knows from telephone calls, and finds she has been arrested. Reacher finds himself involved in uncovering - and being implicated in - a conspiracy: he and Turner go on the run. To add complication, they are saddled with a teenage girl who may or may not be Reacher's daughter.Tom Cruise plays Reacher in a second adaptation (out of order) of one of Lee Child's novels. The first one had an element of novelty to it - Reacher is an entertaining character, a principled loner, gifted at giving and taking a thumping, a good and dogged detective, and with a tendency towards pithy rejoinders - but that novelty is not present in a second offering. What is left is an action thriller with a plot which is effective, but which isn't going to surprise anyone who has watched more than half a dozen action thrillers in their life.Having said that, it is perfectly satisfactory as a basis for the suspense, chases, shoot-'em-up and beat-'em-up sequences which populate this movie. The trouble is that it all feels a bit generic - it's satisfactory entertainment while you're watching it, but there's an air of déjà vu to it.Cobie Smulders should have an underwear scene written into every film she appears in, as a point of international law.Cruise seldom offers less than value for money in terms of performance, and he is joined by Cobie Smulders as Turner, a women with nearly as much attitude and physicality as Reacher, Danika Yarosh as Samantha, Reacher's maybe/maybe-not daughter, plays her well, but the character is not very sympathetically written, and is hard to like. The villains are a mixture: some may as well have "villain" tattooed on their forehead. None is as memorable as Werner Herzog or Jai Courtney in the previous film.The action sequences are entertaining but, again, none is exceptional, and none matches the bathroom fight from Reacher's initial outing.If you enjoyed the first film then you are likely to enjoy this one, but you may feel slightly let down by a film which entertains but has nothing out of the ordinary about it.

I will not accept TC as Reacher. He took WAY to much punishment and too long to dispatch bad guys. This should have been someone like THE ROCK, and someone who could flex something besides his cheeks. TC is now too old and too small for this part. 4 stars because of the skill of the ladies, not for Tommy.

Tom Cruise at 5'10" is no Jack Reacher. The movie doesn't follow the book and it's all the worse for it. The worst part was at approx. the 30 min. mark. Reacher looses a one-on-one fight. Sorry, at 6'5" and 250 there is no way he ever lost a fight one-on-one since he was 6. That is straight from every book when Reacher gets into a fight. Dwayne Johnson is 6'5". I don't see him as Reacher (too pretty) but at least he is the right size.