Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

There's one reason to watch Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. And her name is Cobie Smulders

Excluding the five film-strong Mission: Impossible franchise that has endured over the last 20 years, and an oft-mooted but as yet unmade return to the danger zone of Top Gun, Tom Cruise has tended to stay away from sequels. There's The Color of Money from early in his career, which saw Paul Newman reprise his role from The Hustler, and a cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember, but Cruise has, M:I aside, not made sequels to his own films. So, discounting paychecks and whatnot, is there something undeniably worthwhile about Never Go Back for Cruise's, uh, going back to the world of Jack Reacher to make sense as a change of artistic direction?

Short answer: no. That's not to say this is a bad movie, but it's one that feels perfunctory in almost every regard. It's a case where a first film was a moderate hit, and Lee Child's source novels remain popular enough, that a modestly-budgeted sequel seemed like a safe bet for all involved. As such, almost everything is played safe. There's nothing especially dynamic about Edward Zwick's direction of the action sequences, nor does Cruise ever really stretch himself.

They both do a fine job. Nobody here's really doing a bad job, actually; they're just competently delivering a very generic product. And that's something of a shame, because Christopher McQuarrie's first Jack Reacher film was surprisingly strange at times, with some bizarre tonal shifts and the decision to cast Werner Herzog of all people as one of the primary antagonists. Never Go Back is sorely missing that sort of spark to its villains, which is saying something when one of the bad guys in first film was played by Jai Courtney.

That all being said, this film does have one element keeping it from sinking fully into the sea of mediocrity: Cobie Smulders as Susan Turner, a major framed for espionage and on the run with Reacher. With Reacher and Turner's rapport, Never Go Back's screenplay goes about trying to address military sexism with a skill that can't exactly be called graceful, but it's at least a commendable effort.

Meanwhile Smulders herself is a far more engaging figure than the film's ostensible star, and proves accomplished in multiple fight sequences that only further serve to demonstrate how wasted she is as Maria Hill in Marvel's Cinematic Universe. If there's anything fruitful to come from this whole venture, hopefully it'll be that some more adventurous studio heads might try Smulders out in her own thriller vehicle.