Next week I’ll start down the path of Oscar hopefuls, but for now, I’ll let you know how Tom Cruise’s latest vehicle is rolling along. Let me just start out by saying my expectations were not very high. However, I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m not familiar with the Jack Reacher character, who evidently was tall and blonde; so it didn’t bother me to see Tom Cruise step into his shoes. And although I could guess the direction of most of the plot, there were still some surprises in there. Overall, I give the movie a 5.5 (just to tip it over the halfway mark).
And so you can make the most of your Jack Reacher experience, here are the:
Top Ten Things to Look for in a Tom Cruise Film:
10. The obligatory shirt-off scene. Maybe I shouldn’t suggest watching for this. I, like the attorney lady, felt slightly uncomfortable.
9. The cocky “I’m going to kick your butt” moment. You know what I’m talking about. The moment when he actually tells the other person that he’s going to hurt them, and then he follows through.
8. The smile. He doesn’t smile much in Jack Reacher. Reacher is a brooding, lonely guy who doesn’t have a lot to smile about, so the smile is kind of hard to find. It’s more like a smirk.
7. The slow turn. Watch for it. It’s that moment of revelation when something dawns on him and he has “the” answer. His back is to the camera and then he slowly turns around with the last piece to the puzzle.
6. Ogling girls. Jack Reacher is packed full of them. Every time Reacher walks by a female, she can’t help but take a good, long look. It’s almost comical, especially when 20 year old Sandy, played by Alexia Fast, makes eyes at him. Thirty years is a lot, especially when you’re 20.
5. His eyes. Tom Cruise has good eyes. And he inevitably looks straight at the camera at some point during the movie.
4. The moment he’s not in command of a scene. You won’t find this one. He controls every scene, although Robert Duvall and David Oyelowo gave him some competition.
3. Depth. Despite all the ogling, overdone fight scenes, and surfacey Cruise stuff, Jack Reacher has a decent plot with a very bad guy and enough twists to keep an average viewer hooked.
2. His love interest. I couldn’t really find this one in the movie. I mean he sort of goes out of his way to help the attorney lady….what was her name? And he cares about little Sandy, but he’s a loner. No romance darkens the frames of this flick. Despite his good looks, etc. I don’t really think of Cruise as a romantic lead anyway. Haven’t most of his movies been about so much more than getting the girl? I haven’t seen all of his movies, but my favorites (Mission Impossible I and IV, A Few Good Men, Minority Report, Rain Man, and the Outsiders) were not about the romance.
1. His “everyman” moment. That’s the moment when he blends into the crowd and becomes just like any of us. In Reacher, this moment comes while he’s being chased by the cops. He hops out of his still moving car and steps into a crowd of onlookers. One of them even gives him a hat to wear. The “everyman” moment juxtaposes against his cocky boy persona, and it’s valuable because it reminds us that even deadly, man-hunting ex-army investigators need a little help now and then.
Have fun at the movies!
