Jack Reacher 2: Never Go Back

RATING: D+

The last time we saw Jack Reacher, he foiled a plot involving... um... actually, I already forgot what it was exactly. I only remember minor specifics. Something involving an assassination. Something involving a group of bad guys with agents everywhere trying to cover it all up and frame people who get in their way. A good car chase scene. A few cool fight scenes. A little bit of amusing dialogue from Tom Cruise. And not much else.

Yeah, despite being a somewhat intelligent thriller, the first Jack Reacher movie was still quite slow and quite forgettable. In my mind, there wasn't a whole lot of hope anyway for a good sequel. I'll start with this: most of the better parts were in the trailers. And if you hated the trailers, boy are you in for a rough ride.

Unlike its predecessor, this movie was quite disliked--even though in some ways it's a bit more like the first one than many would care to admit. Something involving an assassination. Something involving a group of bad guys with agents everywhere trying to cover it all up and frame people who get in their way. Not really any proper car chase scenes, but still a few cool fight scenes. A little bit of amusing dialogue from Tom Cruise. And not much else.

In this particular installment, a military contract of Jack Reacher's--Major Turner (Cobie Smulders)--is framed for the murder of two of her own guys. Reacher gets involved, and the two end up working together on the case as fugitives. And this rather annoying teenage girl named Samantha gets involved as well--because she might be Jack's daughter. 

Here in this one, they made a bit of a bigger deal of there being some kind of dark conspiracy; which does sound interesting, but then the reveal about the identity of the evil group is rather underwhelming. The conspiracy is unmasked, the "big bad" is taken into custody... but there's still 20 minutes left. Why? Well, because this random hitman goes after Samantha. He really, really, *really* wants to get back at Reacher because... why, exactly? It seemed as if the hitman just wanted to do it for kicks. Which, in this particular scenario, is rather stupid. But we do get a pretty sweet fight scene out of it, so there's that I guess. 

One thing that this movie *does* differ from its predecessor on is that it's less intelligent. It's a much more by-the-numbers action/crime/thriller movie. (Well, there is a surprising twist in the final few minutes... but at that point no one really cares anymore.) Also, the dialogue in general got worse. There are still a few fun moments--such as the perhaps infamous "telephone scene"--but once again they're not enough to elevate the film.

Ultimately, this movie is just as forgettable as its predecessor. And slow-paced again, too. (Seriously, almost literally nothing interesting happens during the entire first hour.) But at least the first one was more smart. At least it was trying. Here, we just have a cookie-cutter "action/thriller" movie. And I use those two genres rather loosely. Ironically, this sequel's subtitle actually applies rather well to most people's feelings about this movie. Indeed, let us "Never Go Back" to this franchise.