[Movies/Books] - Jack Reacher fans I need your help!

[Deleted]

I've not yet seen the film, nor have a looked into anything about it - although I am aware of casting as such. For those of you who have read the books and have been to see the film, would you say it's worth watching?

Thanks in advance!

Gamebetter

[Skippy88]

I have seen the movie only and it was okay. Not great but not bad either. Sort of in the middle of the road action flick.

[Deleted]

Sounds OK to me. I'm mostly interested in the character 'Jack Reacher'; in the books he's displayed as a 6ft 7ish (probably wrong height but oh well) giant and I'm worried that Tom Cruises' stature is going to put me off. That said if he nails the mannerism's that Reacher has - it'll probably be the kind of middle of the road flick I'll go and see!

[Skippy88]

Well, he certainly doesn't look 6ft 7ish that's for sure. As for what Reacher is like from the books to the movie I can't tell you. In the movie Reacher was good with a gun, intelligent, good in combat, has a bit of charm with a bit of wit. Aside from the storyline it's not too different from other actions films he's been in.

It should be on PPV in a month or so so you can catch it for $5 and then make up your own mind.

[RoKPaNda]

I've not yet seen the film, nor have a looked into anything about it - although I am aware of casting as such. For those of you who have read the books and have been to see the film, would you say it's worth watching?

Thanks in advance!

Gamebetter

Jack Reacher in the books is intelligent, and he's pretty badass but it's a fair bit more realistic than most action/adventure novels. What I mean is a lot of the time Reacher realizes that he lucked out, and a lot of the time he comes very close to getting killed. There are some far fetched things such as in one of the novels he narrowly avoids being shot in the back because he's somehow trained himself to be able to hear the distinctive 'click' noise of a firearm being readied while in the middle of a crowd. However one of the things that I most enjoyed about the novels was that Jack Reacher, while he has a pretty scary reputation, isn't really viewed as unstoppable.

In the movie? He's displayed as a total action hero badass beyond reason. Everything is just very exaggerated and over the top. It was all very ... reaching. Pun intended.

Also Tom Cruise being cast as Jack Reacher was weird, because as you said Jack Reacher is portrayed as being a giant of a man. In every novel someone mentions his size. Tom Cruise being a very small man was just kind of weird and it really distracted me during the movie. I was worried about it when I'd first heard that he would be playing Reacher, and yeah it ended up just being weird.

I'll say the film wasn't quite as bad of an adaptation as The Relic was of Relic *shudder* but as a fan of the series I really didn't enjoy it. I probably would have if I hadn't read all the novels first.

[cubby]

Sounds OK to me. I'm mostly interested in the character 'Jack Reacher'; in the books he's displayed as a 6ft 7ish (probably wrong height but oh well) giant and I'm worried that Tom Cruises' stature is going to put me off. That said if he nails the mannerism's that Reacher has - it'll probably be the kind of middle of the road flick I'll go and see!

I've read the books and, while Cruise is sort of opposite Reacher's stature, he pulls off the character surprisingly well. The height thing just isn't played up or down very much. Good flick overall.