I like Tom Cruise. I like some of his panned films such as the remake of The Mummy. For the most part I find his films to be entertaining even if he is a bit of a weirdo. I didn't have high hopes for this one and I got exactly what I expected from it: A watered down Borne film with typical action elements existent in every film of this type.
I don't really suppose an plot synopsis is very necessary because they are all the same. Jack is an altruistic super-human who used to work for the military and then the very organization that he has a stellar reputation with decides to turn on him and bring him down. However, they weren't counting on him being the super-ninja-tough-guy that he is and all their plans to eliminate him back fire horribly because he is unstoppable!
Because there really isn't much of a story here, someone decided that they would introduce an element into the story that the formulaic and stoic Reacher can't possibly ignore his tiny bit of existent emotions about: he has a child that he was unaware of and she is now 15 years old.
This entire situation is made even more corny by the fact that she possesses characteristic awareness that is present in Jack such as being able to determine that he is trailer her despite the fact that he is meant to be an elite operative that even professionals wouldn't be able to detect. Of course she ends up being a major piece in the puzzle as Jack's objectives are complicated by the fact that the baddies somehow know about her and use her as a method of getting to Reacher.... It's dumb and as soon as she was introduced to the story it became immediately evident that this was precisely what was going to happen an hour later.
The situations that occur in this movie are just a sequence of one impossible scenario after another and none of them are particularly engaging. I wouldn't say that this movie is bad, but it also isn't good because the same damn thing has been done so many times before. Cruise is also showing his age as he wasn't in great shape for this. Perhaps he knew it was going to be a "meh" movie and didn't bother.
One anonymous reviewer wrote that the film is "Monotonously formulaic, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is one action-thriller sequel whose title also serves as a warning."
Despite all of this the film managed to make $100 million, so i suppose we can continue to see more of this in the future.
