Jack Reacher Never Go Back is the second movie that Tom Cruise has starred in as this title character. Lets hope its the last. Mr. Cruise deserves better as do his loyalists who have stuck with him through the good and the bad both in perfectly tailored roles that failed to impress audiences Edge of Tomorrow and in roles that were unworthy of all his work and our love Oblivion. In recent years only the apparently indestructible Mission Impossible franchise has provided him with a steady vehicle for his talents as well as for a ride to box office success.
The appeal of Jack Reacher seems obvious but remains elusive onscreen. The creation of Lee Child Reacher is one of those enigmatic, borderline mystical types who surface out of the haze to handle villainy with boundless intelligence, weapons mastery and annihilating violence. In the first movie Jack Reacher (2012 the menace begins with a multiple shooting that leads to a conspiracy false charges against Reacher a damsel in distress and swarms of villains. It’s an ugly, pessimistic world overflowing with so much wrong that of course it has spawned a sequel with the same dreary beats.
Genre fiction depends on archetypes and familiar iconography its white hats and black but this second Reacher flick recycles so much that its title feels like false advertising. Never go back? We were just there. Once again there are women who need rescuing even if one can handle herself nicely when bullets fly. There is yet another shooting yet more false accusations against Reacher and yet another conspiracy that leads from the power corridors of Washington to New Orleans. Its there during yet another of that citys conveniently colorful carnivals that costumed revelers dance carefree in the streets as Reacher battles evil which is a fairly jaundiced take on ordinary civilians.
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