Review Roundup (12/20): JACK REACHER

Review-Roundup-1220-JACK-REACHER-20121220

Tom Cruise is back on the big screen, and back in a big, action-packed way. The actor's latest blockbuster, JACK REACHER, is set to hit theaters tomorrow, Dec. 21.

JACK REACHER is based on Lee Child's best-selling novel "One Shot." The thriller also stars Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Alexia Fast, Robert Duvall, Jai Courtney and Werner Herzog and was directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a script by Josh Olson and McQuarrie.

Check out what the critics are saying below!

A.O. Scott, The New York Times: "And so 'Jack Reacher' lumbers through a series of beatings, shootings and bludgeonings on its way to a climactic, not terribly surprising showdown. There is a pretty good car chase and a lot of very bad dialogue. Mr. McQuarrie, on his second outing as a director (his screenplays include "The Usual Suspects" and "Valkyrie"), seems more suited to action scenes than to the ostensibly simpler task of filming people talking. Nearly every conversation is stilted and lame, laden with the kind of repartee that might strike you as witty if you had no sense of humor...The self-confident, supercompetent Reacher is a character Mr. Cruise could play in his sleep, which is pretty much what he does."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "This is Cruise's show. And he nails it. The patented smile is gone, replaced by a glower that makes Jack Reacher a dark and dazzling ride into a new kind of hell."

Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune: "And here's the truth. The truth is, we cannot drain a moviegoing experience of its context. "Jack Reacher" is not an easy movie to enjoy at this particular moment. Not in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school killings and the 28 dead...But it's not easy to take "Jack Reacher" in the intended escapist spirit. Not with so many close-ups of so many bullets, and so many guns given their glinty moment in the sun."

Christy Lemire, The Associated Press: "Besides being a mind teaser, "Jack Reacher" offers the muscular thrills of a `70s action flick, including fight scenes that mercifully aren't over-edited messes and a thrilling, prolonged car chase through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, with the grinding and screeching providing its own rhythmic soundtrack. Cruise dials down the megawatt charisma and instead relies on a no-nonsense world-weariness which has its own appeal. He also has a dryly funny give-and-take with Robert Duvall, his "Days of Thunder" co-star, as the gun range owner who becomes Reacher's ally."

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