Did anyone bother to read the book?

Rating: 3/10 (2 July 2013)

Lee Child's Jack Reacher is 6'5", 250 lbs. Tom Cruise is 5'7". I'm not really a purist by any stretch; I'm all for changing the story up a bit to keep the movie from being too predictable, but TC is not a convincing Reacher. Tom Cruise is best when he's playing Tom Cruise, which is definitely not needed here. As for the rest of the cast, they were all pretty good, most notably Alexia Fast as Sandy and Rosamund Pike, whom I have always liked, as the defense attorney Reacher ends up working for. Werner Herzog should have had more screen time. The bad guy Zec is one of the most frightening bad guys I've read in a long time. The writers should have read the book a bit closer, because there was much more material for them to use. Robert Duvall was his usual curmudgeonly self and Richard Jenkins was equally good as the play-it-safe prosecutor. All in all, this was an OK Tom Cruise movie, but a very bad Jack Reacher movie. The next time, cast someone who can see over the steering wheel without needing a pile of phone books.