Tom Cruise has been electrifying audiences since the ’80s, an action mainstay spanning several franchises – most notably Mission: Impossible, which will see its eighth and final entry release in cinemas this summer. Before you say goodbye to Ethan Hunt though, you might want to say hello to a vastly underrated Cruise character: Jack Reacher.
Before Reacher was a TV star played by Alan Ritchson (but after he was a literary star written by Lee Child), Cruise played the former soldier twice. First, in 2012’s Jack Reacher, based on the novel One Shot, and again in 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (based, as you might have guessed, on Never Go Back). It’s this sequel that has arrived on Amazon Prime and has shot to the stop of the streaming charts.
Audiences Didn’t Appreciate Tom Cruise As Jack Reacher
Never Go Back was relatively successful in cinemas, making $160 million off a $96 million budget, but is seen as a footnote in Cruise’s filmography. The original fared better (making over $200 million off a $60 million budget), but is still well below the $1 billion of Top Gun: Maverick, the $790 million of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, or even the $400 million of The Mummy. Still, Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, and since its arrival on Amazon Prime yesterday, Never Go Back has been in the top five most watched movies on the platform.
On Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie fizzled with a 37 percent Critic Rating and a 42 percent Audience Score, fans are calliing it everything from “awesome” to “absurd”, though the most frequently used descriptor seems to be “watchable”. Hey, that’s something, right?
Despite being a sequel, the Jack Reacher stories are designed to be standalone experiences, so you can watch No Way Back without seeing Jack Reacher. They aren’t exactly known for being thematically dense. The plot sees Reacher go on the run with an army major (Cobie Smulders) who has been framed for espionage, which ends up revealing a conspiracy. The first movie is also about Reacher on the run, someone being framed, and a conspiracy. That’s just like, the whole deal of these movies.
Another movie soon to soar to success on streaming is Companion, which will make its hotly anticipated streaming debut this week. You can even use your phone while watching, although some theatres are encouraging that in the cinema now, too.