THOMAS Cruise Mapother IV is back!
Sorry folks, that’s Tom Cruise (“Top Gun”) to you and me . . . and he’s running and gunning his way through yet another sequel, this time in “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.”
Cruise plays a former 101st Airborne combat solider/investigator turned mercenary, and this latest action thriller starts exactly where the first film ended in 2012 — with bodies lay waste and, of course, not a scratch on our hero.
Don’t you just love Hollywood?
Only Cruise, who reigns supreme in tinsel town’s “A” male actors list, can command more than $20 million per film with just his name signed on a contract, and he’s the star of three (count ‘em) movie franchises at the same time — Mission Impossible, Edge of Tomorrow (the sequel is coming!) and now, Jack Reacher.
Reacher is the ultimate alpha male: the former solider earning a Silver Star, Purple Heart for Bravery under fire and more. He is today what Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were in the 1980s — a rough, tough, no-nonsense brute who tears up the screen while selling heaps of box office tickets. As Schwarzenegger and Stallone have aged rapidly and have pretty much faded into the sunset, Cruise is one of Hollywood’s hardest working actors, pumping out nearly one major movie ever year.
Jack Reacher is the hero of British book author Lee Child, whose written thrillers are monstrous worldwide bestsellers and perfect for a 30’ tall silver screen which Cruise fills by just standing there and
smiling.
If there is a fountain of youth, Cruise must be guzzling it by the gallons, as he looks great. Now 54, Cruise is incredibly fit — clearly he doesn’t smoke or drink liquor — and his youthful charm and appeal remains intoxicating.
I’d watch him with a paper bag over his face!
Director Ed Zwick takes the film’s helm from original director Christopher McQuarrie and was very “hands on” during principal filming — really getting the most from his second-tier of actors with the female role going to Cobie Smulders (“The Avengers”) as Major Susan Turner, who (of course) just happens to be sitting at Reacher’s old deck in Washington, D.C.
The two begin a playful verbal telephone dialogue with Reacher so enthralled that he runs for the nearest hot rod to zoom up to Washington, presumably to take her out on a dinner date.
Then, without warning (why would there be one), Turner was arrested for nothing less than espionage, setting up Reacher’s next rampage.
Of course, only Jack Reacher can just walk right into a highly secured US government facility on his boyish good looks looking for his new romantic interlude … when Turner’s “replacement” tells him, an ordinary citizen, what the good major has been
arrested for.
Oh, for goodness sake!
Let’s pause for a second.
Of course, arresting and locking up Turner is just the set up to pull Jack Reacher out of whatever cave he hides in during daylight hours. In this sequel, he is constantly being stalked by bad guys who wear thick Ray Ban sunglasses who, of course, are the instant object for his wrath.
Even when someone is beaten to a pulp, Reacher will still walk by and shoot them, just so they can’t get back up and chase him again.
Since Cruise’s Reacher is an alpha male who has no moral code whatsoever and does exactly and precisely what he wants … to whomever he wants, he is thus beholden to no one. Pull a gun on Reacher and he is more than likely to break your arm in two, pull it out of your shoulder and shove it right down your throat.
I just wanted you, dear reader, to understand a bit more about the world of Jack Reacher.
Now, here’s where the plot (stop snickering) gets really messy.
With Turner locked away, Reacher simply walks into a maximum security prison, knocks out a guard, puts on his uniform (of course it fits perfectly) and busts out his would-be girlfriend.
Then they are both are on the run to “clear” her good name.
Sure, like you or I could just waltz right into Quezon City Jail and bust out a drug kingpin!
How many times have we seen this movie?
Endless.
There is truth in the words that there are no original ideas coming out of Hollywood and in this continuation of the brutal exploits of Jack Reacher, bodies are endlessly scattered on the ground like head-severed zombies. Filmed on location in New Orleans, Louisiana, there are also numerous car chases and endless explosions along the way as Reacher and Turner undercover the “massive conspiracy” within the US Military Complex.
Oh my goodness what rubbish.
Did I say this movie is violent?
With a capital V!
Do not allow any young child or teenager under the age of 17 to watch this movie or as soon as it’s over, you will find them putting one of the concessioners in a headlock.
The first Jack Reacher film earned $200 million on a $50 million budget and except for the incredibly charismatic Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, who is a cottage industry unto himself, there is no socially redeeming value to watching “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.”
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