SPOILER-FREE MOVIE REVIEW
I'm just going to cut to the chase with this movie. It wasn't very good.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the sequel to the 2012 film Jack Reacher - a film which I actually enjoyed quite a lot despite it being quite a generic action film.
What made the original film enjoyable for me was how innovative its writer and director Christopher McQuarrie (who wrote the brilliant film The Usual Suspects and also directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) told his story. Just think about that sniper scene with Jai Courtney at the start, for example. That was just pure genius!
These intelligent ways of providing exposition to the audience made the original Jack Reacher very memorable.
The sequel we have here, however, has none of those things.
For one, McQuarrie only returns as a producer for this film, handing over the director's seat to Edward Zwick (whom star Tom Cruise had worked with before in The Last Samurai). The former doesn't even have writing credits on this one and it painfully shows.
With all due respect to Zwick, he just doesn't bring anything new to the table, whereas for McQuarrie, he was brimming with innovative ideas which really showed in the two aforementioned films he did).
Armed with a script without the McQuarrie touch, Zwick really didn't have much to work with to be honest.
Yes, the film is based on a book but surely the book's story can't be this bad?!
What we end up getting is a screenplay which felt as if it was glued together by a hungry ape who decided to eat part of the script because it was so hungry, leaving a massive gaping hole in it.
It's pretty much the case for the whole story. Story arcs are initiated and delved into but all of a sudden, another subplot pops out of nowhere and all these arcs aren't fully explored to their potential.
Of course, I'm talking plot holes here and there are so many. For instance, at the start of the film, we are abruptly introduced to Cobie Smulders' character, Major Susan Turner without being given any insight as to who she is or what the hell is she doing in Reacher's life.
And that's just the beginning of the film, folks. Later on, even more complications arise when a kid named Samantha (Danika Yarosh) pops out of the freaking blue to cause even more trouble.
Her presence in this film was so unnecessary and felt so shoehorned in. It's almost as if her inclusion in the movie was a last minute thought in order to add a little more substance to it.
Performance-wise, the kid did okay with what she had but sheesh, she could've been a lot less whiney and irritating.
On to the pairing of Tom Cruise with Cobie Smulders as the male and female leads which carry the movie, and they were on-and-off most of the time.
In terms of chemistry between the pair, well, there was barely any. Sure, it could be attributed to perhaps the age difference between them. After all, Cruise is 54 (unbelievable, right?) and Smulders is a whole two freaking decades younger than him. Overall, they were just awkward together.
There's also this clash of personalities between the two characters that goes on so often throughout the movie where one's ego or arrogance ends up offending the other and an entire verbal war ensues which is so painful to watch because it is so stupid.
Some of the things Major Turner (Smulders) says in her outbursts to Reacher are also just so uncalled for. Like, why so triggered??
There's this bit where Reacher tells Turner to stay behind and watch after the kid, which, to my mind is a perfectly reasonable thing to say which wouldn't cause any offence whatsoever. But no, Turner decides to get all triggered and ends up arguing with Reacher, accusing him of being sexist and/or misogynistic by saying the things he did.
Come on, man. Like, I get that you're trying to empower women in movies and that's great, but could you put more effort into doing that and not just slap on some pathetic reasoning to argue for the relevance of the female character? Jeez.
Okay, so maybe the movie fails in its story and in its characters, but surely the action would be this ACTION movie's saving grace, right?
Hahaha, no.
The action we get is just painfully bland and clichéd. Basically stuff we've seen a million times before.
Think about the original for a bit, and easily, you can pick out at least three stand-out action set-pieces from it. For me, its the opening sniper scene, the thrilling car chase and of course the final confrontation at the construction site.
What those three stand-out scenes had in common was an innovative style in portraying the action. For example, the sniper scope view we get acts as a point of view shot of the sniper as he picks his target, or the sheer grittiness of the car chase in all of its smashing and crashing indicated how realistic the damage caused was.
The sequel here had none of that. Not even a pinch of it.
Gosh, this movie missed McQuarrie so much.
That's really all I had to say about it. I didn't enjoy the movie and sadly, I couldn't pick out anything in particular which I liked.
All in all, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was a painfully bland action movie riddled with genre clichés and some of the worst character interactions I've seen all year at the movies.
The script had more holes in it than a colander and it was just all-round disappointing considering how interesting and fresh the original was.
It was lacking of any style or substance for that matter, and it was probably the easiest paycheck Tom Cruise has earned in recent times. I mean, there's this scene where he's topless and the dude was nowhere near as ripped as he's been before. A clear indicator at how much he cared about this project, perhaps.
This movie needs to be renamed. Instead of 'Never Go Back', switch it to 'PLEASE GET MCQUARRIE BACK BECAUSE WE SORELY MISSED HIM'.
On the bright side, at least McQuarrie and Cruise are re-teaming up again for Mission: Impossible 6 in 2018. Considering how well they combined in Rogue Nation, I can't wait to see what they'll bring to this upcoming instalment.
3/10.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the sequel to the 2012 film Jack Reacher - a film which I actually enjoyed quite a lot despite it being quite a generic action film.
What made the original film enjoyable for me was how innovative its writer and director Christopher McQuarrie (who wrote the brilliant film The Usual Suspects and also directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) told his story. Just think about that sniper scene with Jai Courtney at the start, for example. That was just pure genius!
These intelligent ways of providing exposition to the audience made the original Jack Reacher very memorable.
The sequel we have here, however, has none of those things.
For one, McQuarrie only returns as a producer for this film, handing over the director's seat to Edward Zwick (whom star Tom Cruise had worked with before in The Last Samurai). The former doesn't even have writing credits on this one and it painfully shows.
With all due respect to Zwick, he just doesn't bring anything new to the table, whereas for McQuarrie, he was brimming with innovative ideas which really showed in the two aforementioned films he did).
Armed with a script without the McQuarrie touch, Zwick really didn't have much to work with to be honest.
Yes, the film is based on a book but surely the book's story can't be this bad?!
What we end up getting is a screenplay which felt as if it was glued together by a hungry ape who decided to eat part of the script because it was so hungry, leaving a massive gaping hole in it.
It's pretty much the case for the whole story. Story arcs are initiated and delved into but all of a sudden, another subplot pops out of nowhere and all these arcs aren't fully explored to their potential.
Of course, I'm talking plot holes here and there are so many. For instance, at the start of the film, we are abruptly introduced to Cobie Smulders' character, Major Susan Turner without being given any insight as to who she is or what the hell is she doing in Reacher's life.
And that's just the beginning of the film, folks. Later on, even more complications arise when a kid named Samantha (Danika Yarosh) pops out of the freaking blue to cause even more trouble.
Her presence in this film was so unnecessary and felt so shoehorned in. It's almost as if her inclusion in the movie was a last minute thought in order to add a little more substance to it.
Performance-wise, the kid did okay with what she had but sheesh, she could've been a lot less whiney and irritating.
On to the pairing of Tom Cruise with Cobie Smulders as the male and female leads which carry the movie, and they were on-and-off most of the time.
In terms of chemistry between the pair, well, there was barely any. Sure, it could be attributed to perhaps the age difference between them. After all, Cruise is 54 (unbelievable, right?) and Smulders is a whole two freaking decades younger than him. Overall, they were just awkward together.
There's also this clash of personalities between the two characters that goes on so often throughout the movie where one's ego or arrogance ends up offending the other and an entire verbal war ensues which is so painful to watch because it is so stupid.
Some of the things Major Turner (Smulders) says in her outbursts to Reacher are also just so uncalled for. Like, why so triggered??
There's this bit where Reacher tells Turner to stay behind and watch after the kid, which, to my mind is a perfectly reasonable thing to say which wouldn't cause any offence whatsoever. But no, Turner decides to get all triggered and ends up arguing with Reacher, accusing him of being sexist and/or misogynistic by saying the things he did.
Come on, man. Like, I get that you're trying to empower women in movies and that's great, but could you put more effort into doing that and not just slap on some pathetic reasoning to argue for the relevance of the female character? Jeez.
Okay, so maybe the movie fails in its story and in its characters, but surely the action would be this ACTION movie's saving grace, right?
Hahaha, no.
The action we get is just painfully bland and clichéd. Basically stuff we've seen a million times before.
Think about the original for a bit, and easily, you can pick out at least three stand-out action set-pieces from it. For me, its the opening sniper scene, the thrilling car chase and of course the final confrontation at the construction site.
What those three stand-out scenes had in common was an innovative style in portraying the action. For example, the sniper scope view we get acts as a point of view shot of the sniper as he picks his target, or the sheer grittiness of the car chase in all of its smashing and crashing indicated how realistic the damage caused was.
The sequel here had none of that. Not even a pinch of it.
Gosh, this movie missed McQuarrie so much.
That's really all I had to say about it. I didn't enjoy the movie and sadly, I couldn't pick out anything in particular which I liked.
All in all, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was a painfully bland action movie riddled with genre clichés and some of the worst character interactions I've seen all year at the movies.
The script had more holes in it than a colander and it was just all-round disappointing considering how interesting and fresh the original was.
It was lacking of any style or substance for that matter, and it was probably the easiest paycheck Tom Cruise has earned in recent times. I mean, there's this scene where he's topless and the dude was nowhere near as ripped as he's been before. A clear indicator at how much he cared about this project, perhaps.
This movie needs to be renamed. Instead of 'Never Go Back', switch it to 'PLEASE GET MCQUARRIE BACK BECAUSE WE SORELY MISSED HIM'.
On the bright side, at least McQuarrie and Cruise are re-teaming up again for Mission: Impossible 6 in 2018. Considering how well they combined in Rogue Nation, I can't wait to see what they'll bring to this upcoming instalment.
3/10.
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