Jack Reacher trailer - meh to the max

[Lonemagpie]

Well, I think of myself as being open to be proved wrong by what may look like even the most horrendous miscasting - hello Daniel Craig as the best Bond since Connery - but this does not prove me wrong. Cruise is an OK action star, in this it looks like he fights the way I do, but he is not, in any way shape or form, Jack Reacher. He does not look, or talk like the 6 foot 6 drifter of the books. They should just rename the character in the movie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvQzb1YMdtY&feature=share

Both as a fan of the books, and an open-minded cinemagoer who doesn't mind the Scion of Scientology, this trailer puts the movie straight into "wait for the DVD to turn up in a charity shop for £1" territory...

 

[flandry84]

I love the Reacher books(kinda wish fulfilment stuff but smart with it).
I like Tom Cruise(I actually feel sorry for the guy).
But this movie looks gak.There is a scene in the trailer where Cruise is surrounded by baddies and he is looking up at them...hilariousfor anyone who knows the books,Reachers physicality is so vital to the stories.
Such lousy miscasting,I'm guessing this will feature in many of those "top ten"lists in the future.

 

[Lonemagpie]

There is a scene in the trailer where Cruise is surrounded by baddies and he is looking up at them...hilariousfor anyone who knows the books,

That's pretty much the shot that hit the "well, fuck this" button for me... Sure it looks like Cruise will pull some great action from there, but... Everybody on the street being bigger than Reacher is just too much of a stretch.

If they'd just called the character something else and said it was a new Lee Child creation for the screen, or something...

 

[Temis the Vorta]

You guys are vastly overestimating the percentage of the potential audience for this movie has ever heard of Jack Reacher, much less knows how tall he "should" be or how he "should" talk.

This reminds me of all the people who complain about Abrams Star Trek because the nacelles are the wrong color. Or the original BSG fans who got bent out of shape because Starbuck's gender was changed (certainly a bigger change than height.)

Details like that don't matter. The draw here is: Tom Cruise doing an action movie. That's more than enough for any movie to be a huge hit (the bar is definitely not set high).

 

[Lonemagpie]

You guys are vastly overestimating the percentage of the potential audience for this movie has ever heard of Jack Reacher, much less knows how tall he "should" be or how he "should" talk.

This reminds me of all the people who complain about Abrams Star Trek because the nacelles are the wrong color. Or the original BSG fans who got bent out of shape because Starbuck's gender was changed (certainly a bigger change than height.)

Details like that don't matter. The draw here is: Tom Cruise doing an action movie. That's more than enough for any movie to be a huge hit (the bar is definitely not set high).

Oh, I'm sure all the viewers who don't know the books will be perfectly happy, and good for them. Even if I didn't know the books, though, this still would look like a pretty average movie. I guess I'm saying it'd actually work to their advantage to not try to market the movie as a new medium for an existing character...

 

[Professor Zoom]

I don't know the books. Hadnt heard of them until this movie. But... It looks DULL. Been there done that. In other words: pass.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

So this is kinda like the opposite to Hugh Jackman as Wolverine?

I don't know anything about the books, but the trailer looked alright.

 

[Holdfast]

Don't know anything about the books or the character, but the trailer was unremarkable. Was that just a teaser, or an actual proper trailer? If the former, OK. If the latter, underwhelming.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Never heard of the books or the charactor, but the trailer looks ok......i will see it on DVD at some stage.

 

[Harvey]

(1) Don't know anything about the character or the books; I suspect the audience that is familiar with them is small.

(2) The trailer makes the movie look rather dull; I like Cruise as an action star, even if he's lost his marbles in real life, but this looks like Netflix to me if I ever see it.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

hopefully this means Tom Cruise has no chance of playing Vince flynn's Mitch Rapp since he'd be totally miscast there too.

 

[Samurai8472]

Tom just doesn't look intimidating. He even looks small behind the wheel of that muscle car

It looks more like Ethan Hunt stopped in a small town to take care of some business


My choices

-Kurt Russell
-The Rock although it would probably be "Walking Tall part 2"

 

[auntiehill]

YAWN. This looks stupid as hell. I'll pass.

 

[Trekker4747]

Is it my imagination or in that trailer are the first few notes to the "Mission Impossible Theme" from the most recent movie playing? Not enough to really start the theme but to just suggest it.

 

[JarodRussell]

There's something about Cruise that I don't find believable, both in real life and on screen. That trailer made me laugh. Maybe there's something about his body language, can't put my finger on it. Couldn't take him seriously in Collateral either, or Last Samurai, or War of the Worlds, can't really say why.

 

[Trekker4747]

There's something about Cruise that I don't find believable....

That he's straight? Yeah, we've all felt that way since the '80s.




I get what you mean though, in movies and in public appearances it's always like he's "playing a character" and while that's a given when acting but it's not like he's playing a character that fits into the movie it's more like he's playing a character that's not connected to anyone or anything. It's more like he's an alien trying to pretend to be human and no one is buying it.

 

[Holdfast]

Is it my imagination or in that trailer are the first few notes to the "Mission Impossible Theme" from the most recent movie playing? Not enough to really start the theme but to just suggest it.

Yes, I had exactly the same impression, so whether the notes are an exact match or not, the impression is still there for at least a minority of viewers. I'm assuming it was a deliberate to create that musical echo, but IMO it's a big misstep as it created exactly the "looks more like Ethan Hunt stopped in a small town to take care of some business" vibe that Samurai8472 mentioned upthread.

If I want MI, I'll watch MI, and that's part of why I felt a bit underwhelmed by this trailer as it (obviously) didn't deliver MI and it didn't really deliver a unique separate vision for this movie either.

 

[Captaindemotion]

This movie has a good writer-director in McQuarrie, good source material and an excellent cast (Cruise is assisted by Miranda Pike, Warner Herzog in a rare Hollywood outing and Richard Jenkins). So it will probably be a good movie. But - as a devoted Reacher fan, I just don't buy wee Tom (who I like as a leading man) as Reacher.

A Reacher fight scene should involve a huge barroom brawler of a man taking out his opponents by dint of his physicality and dirty tricks. Seeing him doing Bourne-type kung fu or krav megrah moves just isn't Reacher.

Many of Reacher's lines are corny as hell but work in the context of the books and with the delivery I give them in my head (I always cast Adam Baldwin in the role). But hearing Tom say 'Just remember, you asked for this' just doesn't work for me.

And yes, the use of very Mission Impossible-esque music was very strange...

 

[Brikar99]

This played in front of 'Amazing Spider-Man' a couple weeks ago. My father's response to this trailer: "Where's Steven Seagal when you need him?"

 

[Lonemagpie]

This played in front of 'Amazing Spider-Man' a couple weeks ago. My father's response to this trailer: "Where's Steven Seagal when you need him?"

OK, somebody's thought of *worse* casting for Reacher than Tom Cruise. I'm impressed.