Cinemavenger

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Get your pumpkins, candy and sexy ________ costumes ready, because Halloween's almost here.  Speaking of witch (ha!), isn't it about time someone rebooted the modern horror cult-semi-classic Leprechaun?  All respect to Warwick "Willow" Davis, but the only person who could play the demented, gold-hoarding couplet spitter in a big budget remake is Tom "Carnival" Cruise.  Who wouldn't pay to see that insane munchkin in a tiny green suit, derby hat and fake red beard chasing after the bouncing boobs of the next Jennifer "Yup She Was In Leprechaun" Aniston?

Next to being Lollipop Guild short, Cruise is most famous for being a secret salad-tosser.  No?  How about down low dick lover?  Ok, fine, for all of you politically correct fudge-packers and clam-slurpers out there, an allegedly* closeted homosexual.

I'm not saying Cruise is definitely, 100%, fabulous-interior-designer gay, but I'd bet all the towels in all the bath houses in all of San Francisco that he knows his way around a pair of assless chaps.  Blindfolded.

His filmography screams "overcompensating!"  From the poon-obsessed kid in Risky Business to the string of hyper-masculine cops, criminals, scammers and spies, pretty much every Cruise movie is a message written in 50-foot tall neon letters that pleads, "I'm not gay!"

Except for Top Gun.  That shit was gayer than Liberace sucking off Elton John in the middle of a Pride Parade in Provincetown.

Cruise's latest macho role is former military policeman and all-around tough guy Jack Reacher, who's returned for round two in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.  "Never go back" may not track to anything in the flick, but it's excellent advice for a Reacher sequel.  Too bad nobody took it.

Jack Reacharound wanders America Kung Fu-style looking for wrongs to right - usually by beating people half to death.  The loner lifestyle must not be all it's cracked up to be, because Reacher goes cross-country all the way to D.C. to try to hook up with his Army contact, Susan Turner (Colbie "Fox" Smulders), sight unseen based solely on her sexy voice. 

When he gets there, Turner has been arrested for espionage, so Reacher decides to break this virtual stranger and possible traitor out of military prison.  Because who wouldn't?  Then, both of them have to dodge hired killers and the Army while they solve the Big Mystery and clear both their names.  And because that wouldn't fill an average episode of NCIS, they're forced to drag along a 15-year-old girl who may be the kid Reacher never knew he had.

How can a story be Keira Knightley thin and Chrissy Metz flabby at the same fucking time?  At two hours, Reacher is 30 urethra-tearing minutes too long.  You might say its reach exceeds its grasp.  You know, if you were a fucking badass.

*Per Cinemavenger's crack legal team.  Pussies.

October 29, 2016