Tom Cruise returns in yet another Cruise-esque action film where he solves an American-related problem with a woman 20-years younger than him. Except other than the creativity of his other films, his latest film, “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” is cruising for a bruisin for the audience’s expectations.
For those who haven’t seen the first film in the Jack Reacher series, Tom Cruise once again portrays the titular protagonist, a former Army major who hangs up his rank and instead drifts around the country solving problems – typically by using his fists or his lack of charisma to do the talking.
Director Edward Zwick partners up with Cruise for the first time since their last outing in “The Last Samurai,” but as that film was intelligently written and designed, “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” doesn’t deliver the punches that the first film brought.
A new problem, or problems in this case, he has to solve involves a mystery surrounding the imprisonment of half-flirtatious Major Susan Turner who has been helping him solve several cases for some time. Cobie Smulders, who portrays the major – and has more charisma than the character Cruise is not particularly fit to play – breaks out of jail along with Reacher in an attempt to piece a conspiracy involve a corrupt mercenary group.
Another striking relationship that pops up for Reacher is a fifteen-year-old rebellious girl who may or may not be his daughter. With a nearly non-social and stoic character like Reacher, introducing a potential daughter into the mix pushes from an action thriller to a dramatic exaggeration in an attempt to play at the audience’s emotions. Due to the bad guys also targeting Reacher’s supposed daughter, he has no choice but to bring her along.
There’s a larger and more significant focus on Reacher being the one-man-army action hero who can easily take down a group of four henchmen with ease, while the smug and egotistical hitman antagonist (Patrick Heusinger) can nearly bring Reacher down.
If you haven’t seen a single action movie throughout your entire life, then you might not notice the terrible clichés that plague “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.” From Smulders attempting to wear a hat as a disguise, to Cruise slowly putting his gun on the floor as the bad guy has the advantage, the film is filled with typical action movie cliches that predictably ends up to a logical conclusion.
In the first film, a particular fight scene stood itself out from the rest. It involved Reacher correctly predicting the outcome while his opponents attempted to act smug about their chances. Unluckily for them, they were facing the legendary Jack Reacher. The scene is on Youtube with five million views at the time of this writing. “Never Go Back” attempts to recreate Reacher predicting his opponents’ outcome, but it devolves into being reductive as he uses it several times before a fight.
The fight scenes are also a testament to the not-so special stunt work, where there are more cuts of people being punched and parts of Cruise’s face not being shown, which made me think if that’s really Cruise or his stuntman. What also helps to perpetuate the over-usage of such action films are the settings that take place in three fight scene areas: a warehouse, a kitchen and a shipping dock.
There’s a striking loss of the coolness that the first film brought which “Never Go Back” seemed to lose by attempting to copy the first film and several action flicks of the past few decades. But, if there is one positive aspect I have to note – and my editor will get upset if I don’t – it’s that the film’s title, “Never Go Back” is a stern warning to the audience once they leave the theater.