good stuff, except...

Rating: 6/10 (6 May 2015)

Jack Reacher has some solid action set pieces - when they do occur, which includes Cruise beating up a group of guys, a high-speed (really electrifying) chase across a city, and a climax has its moments for sure. The film is above-averagely (no, excellently) shot and edited in this regard (thanks Caleb Deschanel!), Christopher McQuarrie keeps things at a brisk pace, and of course for the precious minutes Werner Herzog is on screen it's electrified with his presence as a true horrific being - almost to the point, perhaps, where I was laughing to myself at just HOW EVIL this man is, The Zec = The Prisoner, as in Syberian prison.
But there's so much more time I wish he had had when it's mostly the Tom Cruise, who is fine, neither great nor bad, serviceable more than his usual charming self (it's like, we get it, you're a super-hero bad-ass, what else is there to you), and Rosamund Pike show. The latter has proved herself elsewhere to be a fabulous actress, full of vitality and old-school Hollywood power as a star and even with comic timing (Gone Girl and World's End specifically). Here, I blame the writing for just a very, um, 'okay' actress, more fit for a CBS primetime show than a big blockbuster.
If it's on TV it's not a bad watch, but I was glad to get Herzog with his glass-eye on a huge screen. If he had played the guy Max von Sydow meets in the beach in The Seventh Seal, he would've gone running to the hills or swimming off to the ocean. Chess? Hell with that.