It’s not often that I can perfectly summarize an entire film with the phrase “what you see is what you get” without touching on some sort of underlying complexity within the nitty-gritty of its makeup but here we are today.
“Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” is the sequel to the 2012 film based on the literary character created by Lee Child. As somebody dealing in shelving books 5 days a week, I can attest to the popularity of the film’s titular character on the literary circuit but the realization that this film is almost 4 years removed from moderate box office success that got by on smart budgeting and coasting during a slow holiday release season kind of has me scratching my head.
Tom Cruise plays the aforementioned character, a former military police officer/private investigating drifter that has just enough little details to feel like a human being but a laughably intense demeanor that almost makes him feel like a parody of a Hollywood mystery action hero.
The first film had its clumsy spots within a bland and generic action movie structure, but managed to dedicate to a modern neo noir tone that gave it a somewhat unique sense of style. This coupled with Cruise’s absolute, unintentionally funny, straight-faced and hardnosed dedication to the role to the point that I’d buy this is how he views himself to the world when not on camera helped the movie average out to be a decent action flick that isn’t terribly original but still has plenty of unique and mildly entertaining stand out moments.
The most fascinating thing that I can really say about its sequel is that despite doing a total inversion of the qualities and missteps of the first “Jack Reacher,” “Never Go Back” more or less equates to being roughly the same caliber of film; a little more than passably diverting but not quite fully memorable.
This time around, Jack finds himself unearthing a corporate conspiracy covering up the corrupt actions of military contractors after saving fellow military personnel Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who was framed for involvement with the incident in question. The two work to unravel the mystery threatening their lives while also protecting the teenage Samantha Dayton (Danika Yarosh), who Jack learns may be his biological daughter after discovering he was pressed for child support payments that he was never made aware of while in service.
Although Cruise’s straight performance almost brings a level of unintentional camp to the film’s opening, it gets off to an otherwise solid start and sets a mostly brisk pace that carries through from start to finish. After about 15 minutes however, the aforementioned inversion of values kicks in.
For every flaw that “Jack Reacher” had in its technical make up, it mildly balanced out with a story execution that gave it somewhat of a sense of identity. This film better paced, better shot, even slightly better acted with slightly more impressive fight choreography.
Unfortunately, “Never Go Back” is also far less unique than its predecessor.
The benefit of the first film’s narrative being centered on a conspiracy directly involving its titular character through the lens of outsiders allowed for him to be shrouded in an air of mystery that drew extra scrutiny to his unpredictable actions, behavior and personality. Reacher in the first movie was so honor bound to do right by people that he paid no regard for the rules of establishment bureaucracy but pragmatic enough to do anything necessary to get what he wants, even fighting uncharacteristically dirty even by the standards of the most realistic of action heroes.
In this film however, he is reduced to more or less being a standard action flick badass but the missing feeling of him being slightly unhinged makes him a little bit duller to follow.
The occasional jokes about his quirks and oddities get thrown about in a few chuckle worthy moments almost as if the film needed to point out the absurdity of its own protagonist for the sake of keeping its own sanity but most of the weak screenplays lazy efforts to inject humanity into the film fall flat as you just wait for the next fight to start or the next puzzle piece to show up.
“Never Go Back’s” problematic dichotomy between its solid direction and pitiful writing is perhaps best captured by its third act, in which the mystery and core conflict is resolved at the 90 minute mark, bringing an end to an excellently paced feature, only for said feature’s actual climactic chase and action sequence to kick in, extending its length for another 20 minutes that it really didn’t need.
Bottom line, all of this goes back to the first thing that I said; “what you see is what you get.”
“Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” is a well made but unremarkable middle of the road action film. If you’re interested in it, you’d probably dig it if you accidentally stumbled upon on Netflix but you probably wouldn’t feel cheated if you watched at a matinee either. If you find the commercials for it to be the best comedy that Tom Cruise has done since “Tropic Thunder,” there’s nothing here to change your mind.
Unless a third one is green lit, this probably won’t even register as a blip on my radar years from now unless I come across a really bored afternoon and Netflix still carries content that it didn’t commission exclusively but I’ve seen far, far, worse this week alone, much less the rest of the year.
Jack Reaches for 5 Running Tom Cruises out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment