Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the kind of movie which I would probably have never seen unless I was on a trans-Atlantic flight, too tired to read but still sleepless, and prisoner of the Lufthansa movie list. I mildly admire Tom Cruise (mainly for past achievements, past meaning from another millennium) and I have no special rejection of action movies provided they make sense and offer something more than gun or fist fights and car races. So I went for this film, the result could have been worse, but also much better.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3393786/
Director Edward Zwick took a few ambitious themes in the past, with mixed results. Glory may have been his … moment of glory, but then followed The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and Defiance – all very ambitious projects but only partial successes. Here his ambitions are much lower, as Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the second in a series which tends to be quite repetitive – wild action with corrupt military portrait-ed as the bad guys and one (or even more) ladies in distress to help. An extra element is added here – Reacher may or may not be the father of one of the ladies to be saved and spared any pain at any cost. Not a very original story, to be candid.
(video source Movieclips Trailers)
What are we left with? A well made violent action movie and a moralistic story that seems even less credible than the amount of fist-beaten bad guys that are badly damaged during the screening time. The talent (and the price paid to enroll it) of Tom Cruise are not well spent here.