Back in 2012, despite delivering solid thrills, Tom Cruise’s first stint as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher offered up a compelling argument for why size really does matter in respects to the 5’7″ trying to fill the shoes of the 6’5″ character. Yes, we got the first director/actor combo of Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise that would go on to literally alter the face of cinema, but Reacher’s first screen outing proved to be a strangely basic affair despite the fact that it featured a fingerless Werner Herzog in the memorable villain role.
While Cruise certainly delivered the no-nonsense, iron determination to convincingly carry the film, the lack of book-accurate, physical and mental attributes meant that the series lost its chance to deliver a truly original and memorable hero, rather than just a standard thriller experience.
However, considering that there was around seventeen Reacher novels available when the first movie was released, it’s hardly shocking that Cruise was willing to take another punt. Could the second Reacher film find the actor more settled as the character, or were the character’s cinematic adventures about to be cut short…
We catch up with the former Major in the military police turned drifter/crime fighter as he wraps up a human trafficking ring with his usual mixture of brains, intimidation and an ability to beat the fuck out of anyone dumb enough to stop him. With a job well done, we discover that the loner has been helping Major Susan Turner (who’s actually working at his post in Washington D.C.) whom he’s never actually met in person, but has worked up an easy rapport with. Maybe feeling that the lone hero act might be wearing a little thin, Jack opts to take Susan up in her offer and travel to the nation’s capital in order to finally meet her.
However, upon arriving, he’s hit with a blast of unexpected bad news when he learns that Susan has been arrested on suspicion of espionage after the murder of two of her US Army MP soldiers in Afghanistan. Immediately snapping into bloodhound mode, Reacher is quickly nailed with some more shocking news when Turner’s cynical lawyer reveals that a woman named Candice Dutton has filed a paternity suit that claims that Jack is the father of her 15 year-old daughter, Samantha. Pivoting on such a bombshell, Reacher gets to work both unraveling the conspiracy that’s jailed his friend and looking into his supposed spawn who apparently wants nothing to do with him.
But when the shadowy mastermind of this mystery criminal operation sics an ex-SOCOM turned mercenary known only as The Hunter on him, Reacher has to both bust Susan out of jail and keep his supposed daughter away from anyone who would get at him through her while simultaneously cracking this latest case. With so much on his plate, has Jack’s reach finally exceeded his grasp?
For all the talk of the first Jack Reacher being something of an overfamiliar, fairly substandard thriller, at least the dynamic duo of Cruise and McQuarrie managed to weed out the occasional memorable nugget to chew on, such as some interesting casting, snappy action sequences and a nice line of humour thanks to Rosamund Pike’s constantly flabbergasted supporting lead. However, with the sequel, we find most of those plus points missing and while no one was probably expecting a return from the grave for Herzog’s whispering Zek, the lack of McQuarrie and Pike is soon keenly felt. Taking over directorial reigns is Edward Zwick, a filmmaker who, on paper, seems like quite a natural fit for the material seeing as he’s wrangled Cruise before thanks to The Last Samurai and has previous experience with military-based thrillers such as Courage Under Fire and The Siege.
However, while watching Never Go Back (which is a deeply ironic subtitle because going back is exactly what making a sequel requires), there’s a deeply uncomfortable feeling that not only is Zwick noticeably phoning things in, but the dreaded spectre of contractual obligation seems like it’s reared it’s faintly disinterested head. It’s not that Cruise looks bored or isn’t giving his typical hyper-aware performance, but the movie doesn’t actually allow him to do anything he hasn’t already done both here and virtually every other thriller he’s attached his name to. Yes, his turns as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible aren’t exactly varied, but at least the physical challenges are wildly different. Here he’s merely required to run, punch and deliver ridiculously pointed threats before he hands a sceptical villain his own teeth in the blink of an eye.
So with its lead decidedly locked in Cruise control (I regret nothing), the story has to look elsewhere to change things up. It certainly doesn’t do it when it comes to the villains as the trifecta of Robert Knepper, Holt McCallany and Patrick Heusinger feel decidedly like the sort of stock baddies Jason Statham outmatches on a slow Tuesday. On the other hand, while it feels a little soon into the franchise to drop such a bomb on Reacher as possibly having an illegitimate daughter he had no idea about usually tends to be a recipe for annoyance, the scenes with Danika Yarosh’s Samantha could be far worse. It certainly treads a lot of familiar ground – sullen teen, vague self defence training that vitally pays off during the climax – but it mercifully doesn’t stop the thriller aspects of the film dead, although it wouldn’t take much. Also a nice touch is Cobie Smulders’ Turner being set up as something of a Reacher equal, refusing to play damsel in distress, able to hold her own in a ruck and even given a moment to literally keep up with Cruise during one of his infamous sprinting bouts. However, once again, there’s nothing Smulder does here that she hasn’t already done during her stint as Agent Maria Hill in the MCU and it just comes across as someone merely exercising old muscles.
Alas, this was to be Cruise’s final stint as Reacher before the character eventually resurfaced in a far taller incarnation thanks to the show on Prime that cast Alan Ritchson as the hulking hero. Despite never actually reading the books or even watching the show, it may seem a,little hypocritical to punch holes in the only Jack Reacher content I’ve actually seen, but it speaks to the character that even a relative novice to this world like myself can tell that something isn’t quite right.
Everyone shows up and does their jobs to a professional degree, but you can see that interest within the Reacher franchise seems to be fading with every moment of Never Go Back that passes. Less perky than it’s predecessor and more compromised than the TV show that eventually picked up the slack, you strongly wonder why no one involved heeded the subtitle and bothered to come back at all.
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