Jack Reacher

Reacher Feature

Jack Reacher
USA 2012
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Playing at cinemas now.

Well this was a lot better than I was expecting.

I’m not the biggest Tom Cruise fan although, to be fair, I did think he was pretty great in Minority Report. I’m not indifferent to him for any particular reason (although I think scientology is probably a bad thing to be involved with and that may tint things a little for me) but because he just doesn’t usually make the kind of films that are a blip on my radar. Consequently, I haven’t seen that much of his work although, I will add to that to say that, whenever I have seen him on film, he usually comes across as a more than credible, perhaps even great, actor. So I have no doubt he’s eminently watchable in whatever movie I would choose to see him in.

Jack Reacher is, again, a movie which probably would have not made it onto my radar except, I always take my folks to the cinema on my birthday and, frankly, there was nothing else of even the remotest interest being shown at my local on the day of said occasion, which we hadn’t already seen. Having said that, I’m very glad I took a chance on this movie... and here’s why.

Jack Reacher is not the high octane, modern action thriller you would expect from all the hype and advertising. It’s a little better than that, for the most part, although there are some action scenes for the sake of action scenes which do seem plugged in to just hit a peak with the audience at various points... but even those are tastefully done to the point where the action never really becomes dull or boring.

What you have here, instead, is a more old school approach to a film that slots into the term “action thriller” with a much more “what it says on the tin” attitude than you would normally hope for. It takes it’s time to build up character and plot points, for a start. One character, who is just a lead into an action scene and then becomes a link to the next puzzle piece has far more screen time than you would expect her to, for example, and turns up a few more times than is necessary compared to the way most modern films would short cut past those scenes and just have her as a quick, verbal link to move things on.

Another thing I will say about this film, and you may think I’m a looney making this comparison, is that Jack Reacher felt to me, at times, very Hitchockian in its execution. There is some interesting stuff happening and there are some camera angles, for instance, like a birds eye view of a character walking into an establishing shot cut in amongst the rest of the footage, which is exactly what Hitch would have done. In some ways, this movie feels like somebody asked Hitchcock to make a slick, fast paced, 2012 high testosterone action movie... and Hitch failed and instead delivered something way more interesting.

The picture opens with a, perhaps clichéd at first, sniper sequence.... you know the old chestnut where a killer sets up his kit, moves in position and you start tracking what the killer is tracking through this gun site. Well this is a pretty good set up in this one, as it happens, because you start seeing potential targets over a leisurely amount of time, and you start trying to put their stories together in your head as the site pauses on them, moves on, moves back to them etc, before finishing with them and moving on to the next person. It’s a little bit like Rear Window where James Stewart is staring out of the window with his binoculars at the apartment building opposite and you try to figure out which characters are going to be important to the story. Once you figure out who you think the target is, though, the rug is pulled from you and, without spoiling the sequence for you, the rug is pulled in an unexpected manner and, although the reason for what happens is blatantly apparent to the audience right from the offset, an hour or more before the main protagonists seem to know what’s going on, it’s a little unexpected and becomes quite poignant in a little “flashback” scene illustrating something the title character is explaining later on in the film and he begins to put all the stories of the people in the opening sequence together for you.

Tom Cruise plays Reacher as a confident superman of a person... A modern day Doc Savage in a world he has chosen to drop out of but has to “ride into town and clean the place up”... yeah, you got it, Jack Reacher is very much a western dressed in action-thriller clothing but then again, half the films made these days share similar tropes to the movie western so this is not a criticism of the film. Cruise’s Reacher is under control most of the time and the only thing I will be slightly critical of, and Alan Ladd had the same problem back in the day, is that for someone who has so much physical presence (and the way Cruise plays him, he does), Cruise seems a little too short for the role. It’s the first time I’ve noticed that in his films, it’s never made a difference before... but something made me notice that in this one. That being said, though, Cruise makes the character work for him and you can’t fault the actor for making a very good job of a likeable, confident character (although, I’ve not read the book this was based on so I can’t tell if the character as portrayed here is true to the book, I’m afraid. Sorry).

At the end of the day, Jack Reacher is a really well put together film and it’s one that I think a lot of audiences, even the youngsters, will appreciate. It’s not something I could watch over and over through the years but I did really enjoy it and would welcome a sequel if it does the business at the box office. Very much something I would recommend if you like a bit of proper sleuthing tied-in to your action movie.

Wrath Of The Titans

Manic Minotaur

Wrath Of The Titans USA 2012

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Playing at UK cinemas now

Hmmm... you know I loved Ray Harryhausen films as a kid... loved ‘em... and still do. The original Clash Of The Titans, however, left me feeling a little chilly. I’m going to have to grab a copy of that last one at some point to see if I still feel as disappointed with it as I did when I was a kid or whether my tastes have mellowed over the years.

The remake from a couple of years ago, however, I really enjoyed.

I know I’m in a minority here but I felt it was one of those rare remakes which improve over the original material somewhat, although I have to admit I did miss Bubo the mechanical owl a tad... he was relegated to a joke for a few seconds in the remake (although I have to equally point out that it was a brilliant little reference for us “kids” who are old enough to have seen the original in the cinema). I even liked the ending to that last one... Andromeda was somewhat a non-character I felt, but the ethereal Gemma Arterton sacrifices her immortality (if i’m remembering this right) and comes to earth to “settle down” with Perseus at the end of the movie... and Gemma Arterton is clearly a foxy lady and deserved that ending with her character.

In the sequel, Wrath Of The Titans, Arterton was unavailable to take on the role due to scheduling conflicts and so, much to my disappointment, we join Perseus more than a decade later as he is just putting the last couple of stones on Arterton’s character’s grave. He is now bringing up his young son Helius (which actually does mean son in Greek, it turns out... Thanks, tonights episode of Eggheads!) on his own, after he has promised his dead wife to keep him out of trouble.

After refusing a request for help from his father Zeus on a flying visit, Perseus is forced to go to the aid of him anyway, in that roundabout gather and rescue quest kinda way, after his home village is invaded by some kind of giant, fire-breathing bird. Pegasus arrives to take Perseus to enlist the aid of Andromeda and the secret demi-God she has inadvertently imprisoned, and it’s off on a quest for “Weapons of the Gods” and business as usual.

Andromeda herself is a little more palatable this time around as she’s played by tough beauty Rosamund Pike, replacing Alexa Davalos. However, although she’s definitely got a little more to do this time, including a share of the fighting duties, it has to be said that she’s kind of wasted in this role. This really needed to be a much more meatier part for an experienced actress like Pike to get her teeth into. She does what she can in the role but the character is just not present enough for her to really do anything too interesting with it.

This film starts off quite well, though, and the first half an hour or so, which includes Perseus’ battle against the aforementioned giant, fire-breathing bird and a chase and bash sequence involving a few cyclops’ and their traps in the forest... although the cyclops here are just not as terrifying as the ones in The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad, I should point out.

After these initial sequences though, things do seem to go down hill a little, which is a shame because the director, Jonathan Liebesman, previously directed Battle: Los Angeles which I thought was a great movie. Alas, while this movie tries hard to keep the pace going... it does tend to get dull and lifeless towards the end... the new John Carter movie walks all over this film in terms of heroic-fantasy as an all encompassing genre umbrella which can include things like Greek mythology themed peplum such as this one.

I was told that Bubo was in this one more but it turned out to be a bit of a fake. He is in it for just a few more seconds than the last movie... but only as an inanimate object who is being deferred to in conversation. Frankly, this appearance in no way matches the charm of the previous movie and was a huge disappointment to me. Seriously, writers and directors of pseudo-Titanic movies... I want my R2D2 substitute, mechanical owl flapping around in the air and making funny noises please! Is that really too much to ask in these days of CGI? This is just not on!

This sequence is followed by a fight with a minotaur which is decidedly lacking in interest and was a character who was surprisingly easy to beat. And then we have a big battle at the end of the flick between hell’s armies lead by Chronos against the small, Greek armies. Now Chronos is a pretty good idea as volcanic inspired monsters go and looks quite impressive throwing all that lava around... but, again, like the infinitely more impressive and real life special effect that is Rosamund Pike, it gets kind of weighed down tonally against all the other stuff that’s going on and ends up looking a bit mediocre in comparison.

There’s no real problem with the editing on this one... it’s all fairly competently put together, especially during the action sequences which are all well handled in terms of being easy to understand. You won’t be inundated with edits which are too fast to figure out whats going on.I think sometimes that action directors/editors employ that tactic deliberately because they’ve not remembered to get all the footage they needed to make it understandable... Wrath Of The Titans suffers from no such trouble, I’m pleased to say.

Alas, although Wrath Of The Titans (and its poor 3D transfer which wasn’t as good as the previous movie either, in my humble opinion) is certainly a rip-roaring adventure, I’d have to conclude that there’s certainly a lot more roaring than ripping going on in this one... I did get really bored with it towards the end and almost nodded off in a couple of sections. I don’t think the directing’s to blame on this one either... I thought the scripting could have done with a little rewriting and tightening in places. It was like the movie was almost split into two halves by different writers and the second half got the short end of the trident. If you liked the previous movie you probably won’t hate Wrath Of The Titans and may be willing to forgive it a lot of things (including Perseus’ hair cut) but I suspect you won’t be singing its praises for long either. Despite it’s famous flying steed, bizarrely coloured black instead of white, this movie doesn’t really have the wings it needed.