JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK

This is the second and last film with Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. It's no surprise that this sank the nascent franchise given that whilst there's nothing especially bad about it it's all quite forgettable.

Is Tom Cruise miscast as Reacher?  I can't really say given that I've never read any of the novels but judging the recent Amazon Prime series Reacher is very much the strong silent type of hero, which doesn't really play to Cruise's strengths.  He gets very little opportunity here to show any of the Cruise pizazz and when he does it seems out of character.

The critics didn't much like the plot. Compared with Lee Child’s source novel it's clear that what we have here is a much simplified story with one character, Sam (a teenage girl who might be Reacher's daughter), brought centre stage.  

She's not as irritating as I feared, showing some spirit and initiative early on, but unfortunately towards the end she does something very stupid and out of character simply to set up an exciting climax.  They're in New Orleans so naturally this takes place against the backdrop of a carnival parade.

It's contrived for sure but at least it's a decent bit of action to round things off because things prior to this are fairly tame. 

On the plus side I liked Cobie Smulders as Major Susan Turner who is on the run with Reacher and Sam.  She shows a good no-nonsense attitude and can look after herself.  I enjoyed the interplay between the three characters as a kind of nuclear family.

Ultimately though the plot is too thin and the director Edward Zwick shows little aptitude for this type of material.

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm