Tom Cruise Stars In A Revenge Thriller Climbing The Streaming Charts
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is one of only two Tom Cruise sequels, and it's now #3 on Paramount+.
Keep an eye out for Tom Cruise jumping up and down on a couch because his 2016 film Jack Reacher: Never Go Back just popped up to the number three spot on Paramount+, seemingly overnight. This may come as a surprise since the film only has a 6.10/10 rating on IMDb and a 38 percent rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, according to FlixPatrol. After climbing 12 spots in just one day, the movie sits on top of the streaming service along with other popular movies, including 80 for Brady, the classic comedy Old School, and Tom Cruise’s newest blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick.
In Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, a sequel to the 2012 film, Tom Cruise continues his role as Jack Reacher, a badass former Army investigator. This time, he must uncover a huge government conspiracy to protect his former colleague, Army Major Susan Turner, who was arrested for a crime she did not commit. The action-packed movie follows Tom Cruise and his co-star as they fight for their innocence and attempt to take down the powerful organization after them.
Army Major Susan Turner is played by the talented Colbie Smulders, known for her role as Maria Hill in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and as Robin Scherbatsky in the How I Met Your Mother TV series. General James Harkness, the film’s main antagonist, is played by Robert Kepner, who has been in many action films, like Hitman, Transporter 3, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. The character of The Hunter is played by Patrick Heusinger, which is his biggest role to date, though he has had a few recurring roles in popular TV shows, including Law & Order, Absentia, and Quantum Leap.
While Jack Reacher: Never Go Back did well at the box office and fans enjoyed seeing Tom Cruise perform his own big stunts, the film franchise called it quits after just two films. This was partially due to the fact that Tom Cruise was in his fifties when cast in the lead role, which doesn’t bode well for a long-action franchise. However, the now 60-year-old actor is continuing to crank out Mission: Impossible films like he’s still in his thirties; a seventh film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, is coming out this summer, and yet another one is planned for 2024.
Aside from the Mission: Impossible franchise and the Top Gun films, this is the only other movie where Tom Cruise has reprised his role in a sequel. It is also the fourth film in which he plays a character named Jack, with the other movies being Legend (1985), Oblivion (2013), and of course, the first Jack Reacher (2012). Throughout the film, Tom Cruise famously performed his own stunts, as he always does, but his co-star Colbie Smulders trained in martial arts for eight weeks so that she could also perform her own stunts too.
In 2022, Amazon released a new TV series, Reacher, with a younger actor, 40-year-old Alan Ritchson, as the main character. Some fans feel that the tall, muscular actor is better suited for the role of Jack Reacher. At 6’2”, Ritchson boasts a strong and commanding character who towers over Tom Cruise at only 5’7”.
So far, there has only been one season of Reacher, complete with nine episodes, and it has received an 8.1/10 rating from IMDb and an impressive 92 percent from Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. The show follows a fairly similar narrative as the films, with Jack Reacher being wrongly convicted of murder, forcing him to kick ass and take names to defend his honor and destroy the conspiracy theorists. The Amazon Prime series has been renewed for a second season, where we can expect plenty more action and drama.
The Jack Reacher movies and TV series are both based on the book series by British author Lee Child (whose real name is Jim Grant). So far, there are 27 books in the series, with another one on the way. Throughout the series, the protagonist travels all over the United States, following suspicious activities and dangerous jobs while getting caught up in the occasional love affair.
Since Lee Child is still writing crime thrillers, we will hopefully see more Jack Reacher content without Tom Cruise as the lead.
