Jack Reacher (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012)

Much fuss was made by fans of the airport shop thriller novels about casting hobbit Cruise as the giant ex-military policeman, whereas more concern should have focused on the character's duff name, suitable only for an elderly groundskeeper, or the star's ego, which has reached alarming levels of self-delusion in his unwilling descent to desk job status as far as action films go.
Here, the plot, which has Cruise applying his own maverick brand of justice while seeking to clear a former army sniper of a civilian massacre, is of course perfunctory, with the usual tiresome car chase. And while some of the action scenes work through reasonable choreography, others are purely gratuitous and off-the-shelf. Regardless, lingering star power has vouchsafed us an imminent sequel.

4/10