Review of Jack Reacher (2012) by Crusader . — 24 Feb 2014

Wasn't sure Tom Cruise (at five-seven) would pull it off but he did okay playing Jack Reacher (six-five, 200+ pounds) and carried the movie, which otherwise was mediocre. Lots of camera-angle tricks helped with his lack of height and it appears Cruise spent some time at the gym getting his upper body buff because his bare chest appeared to be hard as a rock in the movie, which is good for someone his age.

As generally happens when books are turned into movies, fans of Jack Reacher will probably be disappointed. I am not a Reacher fan, but did read "The Killing Floor" (Book 1) and "One Shot" (Book 9), the latter of which this movie is based on, prior to watching the movie.

I don't want to give away any spoilers, but the movie was a far cry from the characters Lee Child created in his books. According to news reports, Tom Cruise owns the rights to ALL Jack Reacher novels, so he will run the show (with Paula Wagner).

In this first Reacher movie, more time should have been spent including characters from the book that are left out in lieu of the cheesy what-seemed-to-be-30-minute car chase, that is for sure!

What amazes me is that the John Grisham movies (which the author claims to have little if any involvement in) are much closer to the books he wrote than most movies that are based on other books I have read. Not sure why that is, but there isn't one "mediocre" Grisham movie, to date; they all rock!

Hopefully Cruise/Wagner Productions will pay attention to some of the criticism so future Reacher movies they make will be closer to the story told by the author.