Jack Reacher 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Even when the film is cool, it manages to be wrong. Read more

Dan Kois, Slate: Jack Reacher is an absurdly self-confident, sociopathically laser-focused detective-bot. That is to say, he's a hero that only Tom Cruise could love. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Movieline: It's the Tom Cruise paradox; he's a great actor who's stopped acting. He can't vanish into a role, but then he doesn't have to. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: If Cruise's fantasy superhero garners as many staunch fans ... we may be witnessing the birth of a new franchise. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The self-confident, supercompetent Reacher is a character Mr. Cruise could play in his sleep, which is pretty much what he does. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: This film is deader than the corpses that litter the screen. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: This movie is a turkey gone rancid. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Reacher is limited by a lack of originality and hampered by thematic cliches and generic action sequences. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A workmanlike action thriller, competent but never particularly thrilling. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Jack Reacher isn't much of a man, and Jack Reacher isn't the story of a man. It's mythmaking for self-satisfied sociopaths. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: It's intended to expand a popular fiction franchise into film, but the workmanlike direction of Christopher McQuarrie, although sporadically entertaining, may doom this flick to one-off status. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: This movie is the height of by-the-book dullness. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: This is brisk, attention-grabbing, and generally unpretentious -- basically an old noir programmer inflated to blockbuster proportions. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Jack Reacher" does its work sleekly and well. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Werner Herzog, better known as one of the finest living directors, plays a bad guy with Teutonic relish. If he doesn't watch it, he'll have a whole other career for himself playing dead-eyed villains. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: As the details mount, and the star does what stars do, it starts to seem like a good bag of potato chips. There's no nutritional value, but darned if you don't keep eating. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: See Tom fight. See Tom shoot. See Tom in some other movie. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Jack Reacher stumbles around looking for a unifying narrative tone, while the star soldiers on, offering up his generic action-hero stance of calm, opaque concentration. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Tom Cruise is in fine form. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The actor can do cool and calculating, it's the meaning behind it that never flickers to life. "Jack Reacher" plays like Cruise on cruise control. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: What the movie sorely needs is a more intriguing detective - a hero human enough to sometimes make mistakes. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: There's a fine line between macho wish fulfillment and delusional fantasy, and "Jack Reacher" crosses it. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: There is a dogged leanness to Reacher's pursuit that lifts his adventures from the generic rut ... Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It only ends up reminding us of how much better Cruise's riskier, more personal work - particularly his outside-the-box performances in pictures like "Tropic Thunder," "Magnolia" and "Rock of Ages" - truly is. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, NPR: The picture is joyless and perfunctory. Call it Mission: Possible. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: [Cruise] doesn't turn in his finest work, frankly, but he's still a solid presence who holds together an otherwise generic thriller. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: It's touching beyond measure to see an ex-jarhead and a former soldier putting aside their differences in a display of mutual respect, understanding and shooting bad guys in the face. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The violence is plenty, and pointless. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie that offers little more than every other clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: The dialogue is often unintentionally funny and Cruise's performance is all wrong. Read more

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. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: An average action film, made slightly better by Cruise, and more bizarre by Herzog, and more watchable by Pike, but still within the average range, a silk purse that still says oink. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Besides being a mind teaser, "Jack Reacher" offers the muscular thrills of a `70s action flick ... Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The movie is muscle-car chase-scene Chevy heaven, with Reacher tearing around in a cherry vintage Chevelle. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Cruise is too mature, diminutive and fine-looking for the role, even if he has gym-sculpted abs, which he manages to show off. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: No worse and maybe a little better than most of the vigilante movies that clutter the multiplex. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: My enjoyment of Jack Reacher winds up outweighing my dislike, but it was a bumpy road to get there. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: It's hard not to laugh. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Whereas the hyperkinetic actor looks best on the run, Reacher is a slow-moving, six-and-a-half-foot enforcer -- the kind of guy Cruise should be outwitting, not playing. Read more

Chuck Wilson, Village Voice: Logic is rarely the point in movies like this (and the novels that inspire them). There's much to enjoy here ... Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Jack Reacher already feels as if it belongs to another era. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A wildly ill-advised miscalculation, with Cruise's virtually unstoppable appeal butting uncomfortably against Reacher's alternately cocky and downright crude cynicism. Read more