Jack Reacher, Christopher McQuarrie’s 2012 adaptation of the popular Lee Child novels, opened in theaters a week after Sandy Hook, despite its horrific mass shooting scene. There was nothing inherently wrong with it as a throwback 1990s action film, it just had the worst timing since Vaughn Meader’s Christmas record. There’s no end in sight to the mass shootings that made the first Jack Reacher seem in such poor taste, but Paramount is giving it another go this fall, with Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Edward Zwick, who worked with star Tom Cruise on The Last Samurai, is taking over the directing.
This time the filmmakers have set their sights back a little further than the 1990s: the trailer opens with Reacher facing off against a redneck Southern sheriff who seems to have beamed in from decades earlier. As before, the film looks like it’s powered by Reacher’s almost comical willingness to use violence as a first, last, and only resort. In a world where action heroes are allowed to be as violent as they like as long as they’re charming, there’s something refreshing about watching Tom Cruise play a character who bluntly threatens to rip someone’s arm off and beat him to death with it. But there is one warning sign: The best part about the original Jack Reacher by miles was Werner Herzog’s gonzo performance, and the only person on the cast list who seems capable of something as delightfully over the top is, well, Tom Cruise. Since he’s already cast in another role, here’s hoping Reacher discovers he has an evil twin.
