Jack Reacher is a really fun movie! The story, while certainly not deep, is well-conceived and well-written. It has a surprisingly good and extended set-up, decent pacing, and makes old-school use of dialog in telling its story. Tom Cruise is not exactly a favorite of mine, but I loved him in the Jack Reacher roll, which to my surprise was an interesting combination of low-key humanness and Taken-style ass-kicking. Plus the film has a really nice, subtle sense of humor, not very common in the world of Hollywood action blockbusters. I will definitely be watching Jack Reacher again, at some point.

I think Jack Reacher didn’t do well at the box office because it was just too measured and involved too much talking for modern audiences. It also had two different but equally ineffective trailers working against it, both determined to sell it as something it was not. I think it was probably the best film of its particular genera (light comedic drama with an ass-kicking protagonist) last year, in 2012. Netflix it as soon as it’s out – I highly recommend it!