What we don't understand.......why did Cruise even go to the trouble of launching a secondary action franchise, forcing himself into a lead role that he's clearly ill-suited for? (And by that , we don't just mean the foot-and-a-half height difference between Cruise and the Jack Reacher of Lee Child's books......Cruise also can't come close to achieving Reacher's world weary gravitas and thoughful silences.....when he tries, he still looks like Tom Cruise, only blandly staring off into space....) How many more millions does Cruise need anyway......unless he's funding a spaceship to ferry himself and fellow Scientologists back their original planet.
With the Mission Impossible and Reacher films, Cruise has created his own movie supermarket shelf with brand name and generic products side by side.......it's like picking between General Mills Cheerios and the big white box that simply reads "Round Oat O's"
For his "M.I." adventures, Cruise sculpts his body to perfection and gamely dangles from Dubai skyscrapers and airplanes.....for the Reachers, he's content to look like a reasonably fit middle aged guy and sprint through the streets like he's trying to catch the last bus out. No far flung, exotic locales for the Reacher films.......Tom makes do with holding punchouts and firefights in the ever popular TV show staple......The Abandoned Warehouse.....which though abandoned, always contains a plentiful supply of huge barrels, boxes and machinery to duck behind, when the automatic weapons commence firing.
We don't begrudge a lower budgeted Reacher series (we can easily live without the 500 CGI planes, trains and automobiles crashing into CGI buildings..), but we humbly offer Tom Cruise these vital steps to keep his secondary franchise alive and well.....
Tom,...Fire yourself and find a new Reacher You're no Jack Reacher, Tom....time to hold auditions and seek out a suitable 6 foot-and-change guy with serious acting chops to bring Jack to genuine life. You playing Reacher reminds us of sitting through a Broadway show where the star's been replaced by a only a moderately talented understudy.....
Start picking better Reacher books to film.... We've read a bunch of the Reacher novels and the best of them by far are the ones modeled after 'High Noon' or the Spencer Tracy classic, "Bad Day At Black Rock." In these, Reacher hitch-hikes himself into some Middle-Of-Frickin'-Nowhere heartland location.....and finds the whole community is a hotbed of evil conspirators arrayed against him....with nothing to fight them off with but his steely demeanor and a toothbrush. Now, that's a Reacher movie!
Hold on to the one brilliant casting idea from the first Reacher film....Film director Werner Herzog as the arch-villain? Inspired choice! Keep it up. Let's have the new Reacher slug it out with diabolical fiends played by Paul Verhoven, Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, Danny Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi.....and if you scrape up the bucks to film in France, Roman Polanski.
At all costs, avoid The Abandoned Warehouse... Look, we don't expect you to throw 'Mission Impossible' money at a Reacher film, and we don't expect to see Reacher conducting a blazing shootout on stage in the middle of a Taylor Swift/Beyonce Super Bowl Halftime show....but come on, Tom, it's a big wide world out there with lots of more picturesque places to film than a Tool & Dye factory that closed in 1936.....
As always,the BQ hands out these invaluable suggestions free of charge and we'll not send Tom Cruise our enormously expensive consulting fee. You're welcome, Tom. But sorry, your 2nd Reacher effort earns you only 2 stars.(**) Read this post, learn well, my boy..... and fix your franchise.......
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