Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Director: Edward Zwick.
Rating: 2/5
Synopsis
Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is a former Major in the US Army’s Military Police Corp, now working on the outside as a ‘special’ investigating army misconduct. He pays a visit to his old headquarters to see Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who has been assisting him on a number of his cases. When he arrives, she has been arrested for espionage. Breaking her out of prison, the two must evade counter-forces within the services to find out who has set her up and killed two of her soldiers based overseas.
Review, by Jason Day
A fellow critic I know once ruminated on the question 'What is wrong with Tom Cruise?' as she watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, a question I found myself asking whilst watching this, the second instalment in what will almost certainly be a series of Jack Reacher films, based on the books by British author Lee Child.
It's easy to see the appeal of what is essentially passable fodder for a male film star who has been largely cloaked in cinematic heroics since his early days in movies.
But those days are long gone. The first Jack Reacher film performed so poorly at the US box office it put plans for a sequel in jeopardy. International audiences helped save it (so you have yourselves to blame, Britain!)
One does wonder how many more missions need to be accomplished before Cruise realises they are very far from being 'impossible'.
This is a by the numbers action flick, not especially stirring but it does what it says on the tin. Be prepared for a lot of fisticuffs throughout the film; big man like to punch big man. Rather a lot as it transpires.
Review by Jason Day
Cast & credits
Director: Edward Zwick. 118 minutes. Paramount/Skydance/Huahua film & Culture/Shanghai Film Group/TC Production. (12a).
Producers: Tom Cruise, Don Granger, Christopher McQuarrie.
Writers: Marshall Herskovitz, Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick.
Camera: Oliver Wood.
Music: Henry Jackman.
Sets: Clay A. Griffith.
Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Patrick Heusinger, Danika Yarosh, Holt McCallany, Austin Hebert, Robert Catrini, Robert Knepper.
