Film review: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back fails to ignite the screen

Based on the novel Never Go Back by Lee Child, the plot involves a return by Reacher, a former Major in the military police to his old stomping ground, where he teams up with Major Susan Turner, the woman who took over his old job.

Tom Cruise and Cobie Smulders, the stars of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.Below, from left, Tom Cruise, Judd Lormand and Jason Douglas in the film. AFP / Shutterstock

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Director: Edward Zwick

Starring: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger

Three stars

Aside from his hugely successful Mission: Impossible franchise, Tom Cruise hasn't been hitting home-runs in recent years.

Films such as Oblivion, Knight and Day and Lions for Lambs hardly set pulses racing – but in 2012 when he took the title role in Jack Reacher, based on the Lee Child novel One Shot (the ninth in the series based around the title character), the results were impressive.

Here was a taciturn loner, a straight-arrow bruiser with a moral compass that always points him towards injustice. Together with director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise created an action movie for grown-ups – brains and brawn combined.

Given the success of the film, and a long-running series of novels (21 and counting) from which to draw source material, a sequel was inevitable.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has a different director – a methodology Cruise has employed to great success on his Mission: Impossible movies.

However, while Edward Zwick, who previously teamed with Cruise on The Last Samurai is an attentive, assured filmmaker, here he fails to ignite the screen.

Based on the 18th novel in the series (2013's Never Go Back), the plot involves a return by Reacher, a former Major in the military police to his old stamping ground, where he teams up with Major Susan Turner, the woman who took over his old job.

Reacher discovers she has been accused of espionage and arrested. He busts her out of prison and they go on the run to clear Turner’s name. They are joined by Sam (Danika Yarosh), a teenage girl who may or may not be Reacher’s daughter, and is targeted by thugs on Reacher’s tail.

The plotting is rather pedestrian and the action a little drab. There is nothing here you have not seen before (although Cruise punching through a car window with the help of a salt cellar is impressive).

Zwick is more proficient than inspired, here. Even a colourful finale, as the mismatched trio end up in New Orleans at Halloween, feels like a cut-price version of the Day of the Dead festival that opened last year's James Bond movie, Spectre.

What the film lacks is a villain to match the one portrayed by Werner Herzog in the first film. The German director was the embodiment of pure evil – but the sequel has nothing like him. Instead, Patrick Heusinger plays a relentless assassin on the trail of Cruise and friends. He’s good – just not Herzog good.

At least Smulders acquits herself well. The former star of sitcom How I Met Your Mother takes to the action scenes with ease (perhaps thanks to her continuing role as Shield agent Maria Hill in Marvel's Avengers movies), effortlessly matching Cruise's moves.

Knowing Hollywood, a major Turner spin-off might well be in the works.