"BIG" shoes to fill

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2012)

As a big fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series of books I feel qualified to voice my disdain for this movie. I've no problems with the plot, action or supporting characters but I've a big problem with little Tom Cruise playing the 6 foot 5 -fifty inch chest title character. The whole joy of reading the books came from knowing Reacher was a giant bad ass whom most men could look up to, a guy who would always do what he deems as justice but Tom Cruise just can not be that, not now not ever, he isn't Reacher.
I cant remember the last time I was so disillusioned after seeing a movie, Spiderman 3 comes close. I hope they reboot this series in 5 to 10 years with Chris Hemsworth but until then I am done with Lee Child, he has lost a big fan for insulting his fans and giving his approval for Cruise to make a joke out of a great character.
As for the movie, it has a Bullitt style car chase which wasn't even in the book, in fact the book version of Reacher rarely drives anywhere, he admits to not being a very good driver yet here we see Cruise driving around like Days of Thunder 2. Admittedly that chase is the best part of the film only to be ruined by Reacher merging into a crowd of onlookers and those people helping him hide from half a dozen cop cars. Reacher could have been an escaped lunatic or serial killer and the guys in crowd help him hide, I mean what the heck?,
Speaking of Days of thunder, Cruises co star in that Robert Duvall shows up to help Cruise in the finale. Robert Duvall is always a likable presence and here is no exception I've stopped referring to Reacher now as this movie should be called Tom Cruise instead, Cruise storms a quarry to defeat lame henchmen except Jai Courtney who gives a promising performance.
Only other plus points was a very menacing alley scene where The Zec played nicely by Werner Herzog gives a minion the choice of death by execution or chewing his own fingers off and be let live.
Rosamund Pike is just an exposition character and a plot device to move story along, I notice that she's two inches taller than Cruise in real life yet they have them same height or Cruise slightly taller in scenes together, if the filmmakers were so conscious of that then why not have Cruise wear shoe lifts so he wouldn't look so tiny in the scene when the five guys call him out to lay a smack down on him.
Alexia Fast plays a character called Sandy and I found her scenes with Cruise to be very engaging especially the bar scene where Cruise insults her leading up to the street brawl. Some great dialog in that sequence.
Overall I can not recommend this to any Lee Child fans and for anyone else .well just imagine if Hugh Jackman was Jack Reacher. Now that's what id pay to see.-