Jack Reacher was one of 2012’s more pleasant surprises. Written and directed by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie ( The Usual Suspects, The Way of the Gun) , this tightly scripted and surprisingly funny thriller featured a compelling, no-nonsense hero in the form of Tom Cruise’s Reacher and a surprising, chilling, Teutonic villain in the form of legendary director Werner Herzog. It may not have been high art, but it was damn fun.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is, unfortunately, a far inferior sequel, one saddled with bland villains and a meandering plot that tries, and fails, to get us to care about Reacher’s personal life.
After a prologue in which Reacher takes down a corrupt Texas cop selling illegal immigrants into indentured servitude, or something, our wandering hero hits the road again. He’s headed toward Washington, D.C.—hitchhiking, taking buses, staying off the grid—to meet up with Major Susan Turner ( Cobie Smulders) , the head of the military police unit Reacher commanded before he quit the service.
