The Short Opinion: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

I can't respect a film that hires on talent and still comes up with something so vanilla. I've never read one of Lee Child's books, but I don't think I need to in order to enjoy a film like this. I enjoyed the first one immensely. From the opening scene, which is the bar scene we get to see in the trailer, the writing is just so bad. Jack Reacher is constantly spitting out one-liners that just don't hit the eat correctly, some even cringe-worthy. There are two plot lines at play here. One involving Cobie Smulders and the other involving Danika Yarosh. The Dankia plotline was an absolute mess. I don't know why they felt the need to add this because in the end it doesn't pay off and you don't care. The movie is completely devoid of emotion. The villains are a company of innumerable soldiers with unlimited funding (even though the movie mentions they lost billions prior to when the movie begins).

The fact that the first film was good just makes this failure so much worse. The seem to have a good central character that works (books sales say that much). I hope the novels don't actually have Reacher saying the cliched lines he has here. The direction was just competent. There was nothing special. No style. Just...vanilla? I think by the end of this film I understand Jack Reacher even less. If this is what they are going to do with the character then they should have stopped after the first one.

The Short Opinion: Session 9 (2001)

I almost appreciate what Brad Anderson was going for here. The plot line is very well laid out. You might have some ideas where it is going and you might actually be right. To mention the movies like this one will ruin the twist so I will stay away from that. The characters are all good in my opinion. They are simple. You know what drives them and you probably wouldn't want to hang around with any of them. They are also acted very well. I don't think any of the actor actually did a bad job. It is always good to visit an old mental institution in films. This venue has been used many times over, but it works here. The title of the film refers to a stack of tapes of recorded therapy sessions with a patient that has multiple personalities. Here is where the film can't decide where it wants to go. The tapes are actually very well done and do have a creepy vibe to them, but in the end the tapes have little to do with the movie.

It is 2016 (as I write this) and we have seen this movie be done in better ways. I will say this: it is one of those movies where you should be able to look back and say "oh yeah, it was there the whole time" except it wasn't there. The movie doesn't give you enough. At times it even goes out of its way to show you things that shouldn't be possible in order to sell the twist. By the end, the logic isn't solid and the movie suffers.