Review: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back Shouldn’t Have Come Back.
- Jan 7, 2017
- 2 min read
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is quite possibly the most boring film Tom Cruise has ever starred in. Dull, repetitive and utterly unexciting, there really isn’t any reason to watch and it doesn’t have any reason to exist.
Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is doing what he does, drifting from place to place and occasionally helping out a member of the military police who he has never met. When she’s arrested for treason, Reacher takes it upon himself to prove her innocence and take down whoever framed her.
Directed by Edward Zwick, the man who directed the excellent Last Samurai, also starring Cruise, creates a film that isn’t bad due to poor direction, writing or acting, but simply because so very little happens across the two hour runtime. There’s a girl who may or may not be Reacher’s daughter tossed in for no apparent reason, a conspiracy that runs through the military's top brass and a shootout that feels like it’s from a different movie.
Tom Cruise seems as bored as I was, at least for the most part, acting like a man who’s there for a paycheck, that or his age is finally catching up with him. Desperately trying to remain relevant in a post Marvel world, Cruise seems to have given up. The same can be said for just about everyone in the film, from Cobie Smulders to anyone except the villain who appears to simply be having fun with the role.
Fortunately there’s a solid shootout that serves to break up the monotony, though it’s far from enough to save the film. The gunshots are meaty and choreography solid but it’s little more than a distraction from the rest of the sleep inducing feature that surrounds it.
Jack Reacher never should have come back. The first film was decent enough but hardly warranted a sequel and Never Go Back proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Never Go Back should never be seen except as a cure for insomnia.
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