Movie Review: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Of all the actors in the history of Hollywood, Tom Cruise could very well be the only one who has been the star of two ongoing movie franchises. His first franchise is the Mission Impossible movies that started 20 years ago and now consists of 5 movies, the 6th will be coming out sometime next year or in 2018. His next series is Jack Reacher and is about several books written by Lee Child about a retired and highly decorated military officer who is now a drifter. What is rather far fetched is how a drifter can get involved with so many highly dangerous criminals and situations, but then again these books are a work of fiction.

This new movie "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" is mostly a chase movie. There is nothing wrong with a chase movie, as long as it is done right and makes sense. The people being chased around are mostly Jack Reacher and his military friend played by Cobie Smulders and then they are united with a 15-year-old girl, played by Danika Yarosh. Of course, there are fight scenes, several of them, but nothing too different than what we have already seen in the first Jack Reacher movie that came out in 2012.

This movie is on a par with the last Jack Reacher movie and I would think that the continuing franchise of Reacher movies was not hurt by this latest film. This movie has far more chase scenes than the first one, and overall probably less fight scenes. The good parts of this film are the acting and special effects, the bad parts have to do with some of the convoluted logic in the story line and in some of the scenes; including once scene where Reacher and his friend leave a 15-year-old girl alone in a hotel room, downright stupid logic in favor of a dramatic payoff later in the story. From the reviews of this movie, before I saw it today, I was expecting a better film and I found the story telling of adding pieces to different scenes using too many flashbacks as the plot progressed, rather annoying over the course of a two-hour movie. For that main reason, I only give a mild recommendation to Jack Reacher, Never Go Back.