Jack (Tom Cruise) is an ex major living his life as a civilian. After contacting Major Turner (Cobie Smulders) in the hope of arranging a date, he finds himself dragged back into the action when he has to come to the aid of Turner following her arrest. On the run from the military police, and in order to clear her name, Reacher and Turner must find out what really happened that led to Turner’s arrest in the first place and kick-ass in the process. Meanwhile Reacher is being sued by a woman who claims he is the father to her 15 year old daughter. Reacher finds the girl, Samantha (Danika Yarosh) but her potential relation to him only puts her in harm’s way, meaning Reacher now has to also protect her while trying to clear Turner’s name.
I really liked it. I thought the action was cool, his character was interesting, and the storyline was pretty strong. In the case of JR: Never Go Back, I would have to say, although I did enjoy it, I didn’t feel like it was groundbreaking in any way and I probably will have forgotten the storyline in a few weeks. It was simply a decent action flick that failed to live up to the original.
There are 2 or 3 things for me that was disappointing. One of those was the storyline. The reason Turner was arrested was for her alleged involvement in something that happened overseas. At first I believed this was going to be interesting in the way an episode of ‘N.C.I.S.’ or ‘J.A.G.’ is interesting. Unfortunately I don’t think the story ever really developed the way that I hoped it would, instead focussing most of its time on action/fight scenes. I think the potential suspense/mystery element of the movie was taken away from us when the antagonist was revealed relatively early on, making the remainder of the movie simply a race for who could kill who first.
Despite the forgettable storyline I did enjoy the action. The movie was filled with chase scenes (typical Tom Cruise running), as well as shooting scenes and hand-to-hand combat. I thought it was well choreographed and I was never bored which is great. One issue I did have was believing Cruise as the character Jack Reacher. There’s something about an actor of his size doing all these fight scenes, taking everyone on as if he’s some kind of Jason Bourne/James Bond cross, which just didn’t work for me. I’d have liked to see somebody a bit bigger (perhaps Tom Hardy or Armie Hammer) in the role instead of Cruise.
There was also a major goof involving the event that led to Major Turner’s arrest. Without giving anything away, during her account of what happened she says one thing, yet when there’s a flashback we see what she said happening a completely different way.
If you’re a fan of action movies then JR: Never Go Back is a film you’ll probably enjoy while you’re watching it. I would call it a decent enough movie and if you are simply looking for a quick action fix then it’ll certainly do the job.
- Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/343611-jack-reacher-never-go-back?language=en-US
- Movie Critc: AA
- Movie Rating: 6/10