Jack Reacher: Never Go Back returns to the life of ex-major military cop Jack Reacher and almost immediately one of his new allies, Major Turner his replacement as military police officer, is incriminated for espionage and Reacher's pulled into the mess and must prove both their innocence along with handling his past.
I'm not a huge fan of it's precursor Jack Reacher, but I will certainly admit it was a solid action flick and unfortunately that can't quite be said for this addition. Edward Zwick directs the sequel, filling in for Christopher McQuarrie seeing as he's moved on to other Tom Cruise collaborations, and has difficulty pulling Never Go Back out of the doldrums considering there's little to no energy or charisma present in the painfully long hour and fifty eight minute runtime, trust me it felt more like two and a half hours.
The cinematography from director of photography Oliver Wood looked stale compared to the previous Reacher film and evokes modern action genre tropes by utilizing shaky-cam. The actions sequences were admittedly exciting in the moment but were rather forgettable because I can't remember much beyond the punching I've seen Cruise execute a million times in the trailer.
The screenplay cooked up by Zwick, Richard Wenk, and Marshall Herskovitz based on Lee Child's novel Never Go Back finds itself overcrowded with extraneous plot lines, and unnecessary characters that just seem forcibly inserted in the story. Trust me, nobody that enjoyed the first Jack Reacher wants to add an angsty teenage girl to the mix and that's just what the screenwriters did.
Tom Cruise puts on a steely gaze as Reacher, putting in tons of commitment into the stunt work but almost sleeping through his dialogue delivery. Cobie Smulders has a nice show in supporting capacity as Major Turner, certainly living up to the physicality of the role and performing up to par with Cruise in regards to combat sequences. While it was nice to see Cruise and Smulders run alongside each other, since Cruise is notable for his action sprint in many an action film, the duo don't have much chemistry whatsoever. All their moments and humor intended to bounce off one another fell flat and simply felt forced.
Danika Yarosh plays the obnoxious teenage girl to a tee, serving as a one-note plot device, but her character detracts more from what's in play than what she brings to the table. Really no other performance was worth noting because they were all so bland and devoid of energy, especially Reacher's dull foes.
Like it's predecessor Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is an uninspired action movie filled with predictable clichés and genre tropes but also features some notable action sequences worth watching. It fulfills it's purpose of being a by the numbers action movie but it never really exceeds that, and in some cases is even worse. If you really want to see a better film that was released this year about two investigators and a sassy young girl, I'd highly recommend checking out The Nice Guys.
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