Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

So I always make the mistake with this franchise that this is Tom Cruise's attempt at a Bourne movie. I made that mistake with the first movie and I made it again here. Jack Reacher is not like Jason Bourne. While he is an ex-military operative who is now off the radar and fighting terrorists and espionage wherever it hides, Jack Reacher is it's own weird sub-genre that you probably weren't expecting, and that's the 80s and 90s action film.

While I and other people might give Tom Cruise shit for getting old, the truth is he's only 55 and has only been acting since 1981. In the early days of Tom Cruise, he was mainly cast as the pretty boy in romantic comedies and some coming of age movies. He had roles in War movies but they weren't your classic 80s movies you think of. Nobody thinks of Born on the 4th of July as a classic 80s nostalgia romp these days.

Even Top Gun which is a classic 80s movie, wasn't really an action film as much as it was a romance with some sick fighter plane action scenes.

Sure Cruise got involved in Mission Impossible, but they never really fell into the cheesy action style that was so recognizable in films like Die Hard, Rambo, Lethal Weapon, and Point Break. Tommy never got that real shot. So for some reason I think he's trying to capture that missed opportunity now with the Jack Reacher franchise without people really knowing.

Never Go Back is really a sequel only in name because it returns to a character we didn't know much about in the first film, Jack Reacher (played by Cruise). He's a former Military Police Officer who now just kind of drifts around helping people like a weird ex-military superhero.

At the beginning of the film he forms a connection with an Army officer by the name of Major Susan Turner (played by Colbie Smulders) and Reacher goes to find her. But when he does he figures out she's in jail for a crime she didn't commit. Well Jack Reacher gets on the case, eventually breaks her out of jail, and the two go set out on a mission to clear both their names as a conspiracy unfolds.

Again, you would probably assume by that set up and the exaggerated use of the Military Police they have in this movie (like it's really, REALLY exaggerated) that this movie would be very much in the vein of Jason Bourne where he's fighting government agents and they have to avoid getting caught by the government and a shady organization. And while that is a lot of the plot, surprisingly the movie takes a turn and decides to focus more on the characters themselves and the addition of a girl named Samantha (played by Danika Yarosh) who the shady organization believes is Jack Reacher's daughter. The rest of the movie is this weird pseudo-family road trip where Tom Cruise is trying his hardest to be a combination of Jason Bourne, Liam Neeson from Taken, and bald Bruce Willis (AKA the one who doesn't care).

I've never read the Jack Reacher books but he comes off as a Jack Bauer character whos been hardened by what he's seen and he just kind of grunts. That has never been Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is your suave charismatic action hero. If he's not that he's your suave charismatic jerk who becomes humble and turns into an action hero.

He's not Jack Bauer, he's not Liam Neeson from Taken, HE'S NOT BRUCE WILLIS. And that's a good thing! Tom Cruise is funny, he's likeable. He's got a fantastic smile. And he doesn't smile once in this movie. He just stares and tries to look intimidating. At least in the first film he had a little bit of fun with it and he got a couple of one liners that made him seem like a badass.

I wonder if this sequel was never supposed to happen because it doesn't totally seem like Cruise has his heart in it. I don't know what 2016 and 2017 did to Tom Cruise but he used to put his heart and soul into every movie he was in and now for some reason he's started to not care. This and The Mummy are perfect testaments to that. I really hope he's got his head in the game when it comes to Mission Impossible 6.

Colbie Smulders is in this movie and...

Listen I love Colbie. I loved her in How I Met Your Mother, she's got a great talent for comedic timing. She's fine in The Avengers but she's never had a huge role. She really wasn't very good in this movie. I don't know exactly what it was because she does do a good job at portraying a woman in the military and she does have her moments of being a badass.

But she doesn't really have much of a character. As much as she's definitely not the damsel in distress, they don't quite create a character that I connected to at all. There's no romantic chemistry between her and Cruise which isn't exactly the point of the movie but still noticeable since they allude to it, and her acting is a little wooden at times.

I want to see her get more leading roles and allow her to expand past comedic roles, but I just hope she gets better roles because Susan Turner is ultimately a kind of boring character.

I don't really remember a lot about Samantha but I do remember saying this movie would probably be a lot better if she wasn't in the film. I think she does bring the third act to an interesting close because the bad guys going after her and Reacher fighting them off to protect her did feel very reminiscent of 80s action films that Cruise never really got to be apart of.

However, while there is some nostalgic value to the atmosphere created by Jack Reacher, it's a weird medium to try an recreate a specific genre of film during a specific time period. It doesn't totally work. I think it worked better in the first film when people seemed to give a crap but when Tom Cruise doesn't seem like he wants to be there it might be a good sign your movie isn't very good.

The movie as a whole is your pretty typical action film. There's some good fight sequences, and an alright mystery that you're trying to solve with Reacher. But overall, it's a pretty mediocre and forgettable film. I actually enjoyed the first Jack Reacher a lot more than I thought I was going to and while I wasn't racing out to see Never Got Back, I was excited to watch it. However, after some time to digest the film, I realize it really wasn't that great and it's probably one you can skip. There are a lot more Tom Cruise vehicles out there to go and check out, this one you can probably skip.

Also I really don't get the title of the movie... I'm sure that's what the book was called but it doesn't tie into the movie at all.

But those are my thoughts on Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Gotta love the Conan spin on the opening scene. Enjoy!