Jack Reacher: Never Go Back More Than Earns the Distinction of Being One of Tom Cruise's Most Tedious Movies

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the perfect movie for people who were chomping at the bit to see a Tom Cruise blockbuster worse than The Mummy. It's a total snoozefest for everyone else, one that can't even muster up enough competent fistfights to satiate action film junkies. This Edward Zwick directed project looks and acts like a USA Network TV movie that inexplicably managed to cast one of the biggest movie stars of all-time in its lead role. While I found the first Jack Reacher to be a mixed bag, that very same motion picture looks like a John Wick movie in comparison to this turkey of a sequel.

A Movie Called American Assassin Really Shouldn't Be This Deathly Dull

Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) has a chip on his shoulder. That chip didn't come from any Pringles can though, no, it came from watching his girlfriend (and for a moment, fiancee) get brutally slaughtered at the beach by a bunch of gun-toting terrorists. While Mitch, who serves as the lead character of director Michael Cuesta's new movie American Assassin, survived that attack and every day since then, he's been training like a madman in order to make sure he's in peak physical condition to take down as many terrorists across the globe as possible. While trying to kill a group of terrorists, he gets his plans interrupted by a group of U.S. government agents who take him in for some questioning by Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan).

An Inability To Lend Depth To Its Hefty Themes Hurts Courage Under Fire

Given how hesitant American moviegoers seem to be in terms of embracing foreign cinema, I'm thoroughly pleased with the notable ways Akira Kurosawa has impacted mainstream American cinema. Seven Samurai has been remade in an American context multiple times while his motion picture Rashamon has become the default example for a piece of storytelling involving multiple people offering different versions of how a certain chain of events occurred. It looks like Rashamon was a primary source of inspiration for the 1996 Edward Zwick directed Denzel Washington vehicle Courage Under Fire just by taking a gaze at its basic story.