Jack Reacher Never Go Back Review

by Fanboy SEO · October 20, 2016

Thefanboyseo.com’s Bossman Earl Maghirang does his Jack Reacher Never Go Back Review. Movie stars Tom Cruise and Cobie Smulders. Now showing from UIP and Columbia Pictures Philippines.

tl;dr – Reacher is back and so are the tropes; but to hell with that, its a good enough action-packed ride with Tom Cruise once again running around the place.

For this out, Jack Reacher is out to help his “friend” Major Susan Turner who has been framed for espionage and has imprisoned. It goes deeper and deeper like a Scooby Doo episode that’s amped up to the 11ths. To make things more complicated, we get a subplot about Reacher having a “daughter”. Plus they’re being hunted by a guy who they refer to as “The Hunter”, pretty much the anti-thesis of Reacher.

The film had a nice balance of action (be it in car chases and fist fighting to gun fights); the pacing is slow and could be dragging from time to time but that’s where Samantha (Danika Yarosh) comes in, both to complicate things as well as make things more interesting for the pairing of Cruise and Smulders.

What We Liked

For our Jack Reacher Never go Back Review we haveto dissect what we loved and what we liked about the movie.

We loved Cobie Smulders here as Susan Turner. She kicked ass, looked amazing both for the part and for some of the more interesting set pieces in the film. While there’s very zero chemistry between Cruise and Cobie, they do look good kicking people’s ass.
Oh lord Tom Cruise is running again in this movie. That alone is something to put on our “liked” section.

It was interesting to thrust Reacher in a situation that he’s unfamiliar with. Being a dad and/or having somebody to take care of can be jarring and scary. I’m sure dads and would-be-dads in the audience can relate to this scary concet and responsibility.

A few “hehe” moments here and there definitely helped break the film’s intensity.

What we Hated

For a character that’s quick on his wits, there were moments where Cruise didn’t convince anybody that he was actually processing things.

They built up that final fight sequence to be personal and gritty and painful but it was half of that build-up, making it very… anti-climatic.

Some story beats and plot points were very predictable to a “T”.

The villain here, the so-called “Hunter” had moments but writing floundered towards the third act of the film. It’s like they sketched him up as this interesting bad guy and then the finished “artwork” looked like it was scribbled by a kid. I had so much hope.

While how the action sequences were placed smartly althroughout the movie, it would have went well if they added a few more scenes here and there. Not really a minus for the film, more like a critique.