I didn’t expect to enjoy 2012’s Jack Reacher at all. Based on the initial ads, the movie seemed like it’d be a generic action movie. When I eventually saw it upon its Blu-ray release, and I was roundly proved wrong. It was a smart, twisty detective story in the vein of old pulp novels by the likes of Jim Thompson and Mickey Spillane. Lee Child’s military investigator with a penchant for elbowing people in the face is perfect for the big screen, and he’s back for more arm-twisting carnage in the IMAX trailer for the sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
Tom Cruise’s nomadic detective returns to his military unit four years after the events of the previous movie only to find that he’s been accused of a 16-year-old murder, but it’s only part of a much larger plot to keep Reacher out of the way. I’ll give you three guesses as to who doesn’t take kindly to being framed, and it ain’t the Mona Lisa. [Editor’s note: Did you get that this was a “framed” pun? I didn’t. Kyle had to explain it to me.] Cobie Smulders costars as an ally in the whole endeavor.
This trailer definitely makes the movie seem more action-oriented than the original, which really only had a couple action sequences. The Never Go Back trailer gets all kinds of explosiony, and it features a lot more of Cruise uttering those tough-as-nails one-liners to the people he’s about to pummel. My favorite is when the baddie on the phone says, “Is that fear I sense in your voice?” to which Reacher replies, “What you hear is excitement.” Elbows and knees will be a-flyin’.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is directed by Edward Zwick (of Glory and Blood Diamond) and is produced by Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie, the first film’s writer-director. We’ll get to see how much guff Jack Reacher refuses to take when the movie hits cinemas on October 21!
Are you in? Let us know in the comments below!
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Images: Paramount
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
