Reacher - Never Go Back

[Blue One]

Well as bit of a Reacher fan I went to see the second outing of our hero portrayed by pintsize Tom Cruise, oh dear...

The first film he did kind of worked because they seemed to stick (within reason) close to the book and Cruise seemed to play the role well (despite his physical challenges viz height, heft and presence).

This second film mashes the plot the book 'Never Go Back' quite badly, with the child playing a bigger role, too much running and plot baggage and characters that didn't appear in the same way as the book, also just too much in your face car chases and a plot that was barely there.

Lee Child did his second cameo appearance, and is presumably still too happy with his bank balance so isn't yet questioning the wisdom of trashing his franchise by allowing Cruise to take it over. Hopefully he'll do the same as Ian Rankin did with Rebus and pull the right for this to carry-on (Rankin did this with the ITV series Rebus which saw that hero as a non-smoking/drinking/designer suited character, although Stott was a great choice of actor).

So Never Go Back gets a 3/10 from me.

Anyone else share this view of the film?

[Blue One]

Halmyre said:

I think you're confusing the two iterations of Rebus. The first starred John Hannah and was roundly slagged off because Hannah was seen as wrong for the part. The second iteration starred Stott (most definitely NOT a non-smoker/drinker!). Rankin deliberately hasn't watched either version, not wanting to let them influence the books' Rebus, and didn't veto either of them, AFAIK his only beef with the Stott series was that the episodes were too short; each was a self-contained 45 minute episode. I'd agree with that, they always did cram too much in. I have read that a third iteration is on the cards, but that was some years back.

I don't know the 'ins and outs' of the Rebus series, but have read all the books and that Rankin pulled the plug on the TV series. What gets me, as primarily a reader of this stuff, is when real liberties are taken when a book is taken to screen and whole aspects of the character are changed to fit with the PC, or otherwise, view of the production. I was linking what I saw as some of those liberties with the Stott series that I was speculating may have been partly behind Rankin's decision, but sounds as though you know more than me on this. Shame in one way, as Stott seems to really personify Rebus, he just needed more leeway to become a slightly more seedy and deeper character as portrayed in the books.