If 2012’s
Jack Reacher was a forgettable episode of a bland TV show,
Never Go Back is the episode that would convince you the show was about to be cancelled, and rightfully so. This time, former military investigator Reacher (Tom Cruise, also producer for what is a superstar vanity project) stumbles onto a big crime within the US Army, something to do with, maybe, decommissioned weapons from Afghanistan being sold on the black market. So he teams up with Major Susan Turner (an underutilized Cobie Smulders) to look into it. It’s a story with surprisingly low stakes for a would-be action blockbuster, requiring the addition of a tired cliché in the 15-year-old girl (Danika Yarosh) who may or may not be the daughter Reacher never knew he had, who can be threatening as a way to motivate him to Do the Plot. There isn’t anything here that isn’t lazy; it’s all shockingly rote and tired. The IMAX version is a particular insult to audiences: There’s nothing visually spectacular enough here to warrant paying a premium price for a ticket. There isn’t even anything remotely visually interesting.
By
MaryAnn Johanson