Jack Reacher (12A)

The film Jack Reacher puts an ex-military, highly trained, decorated, homicide investigator into what would, on the surface, be an open and shut case. A military sniper has randomly shot five people dead. The man’s finger print has been found at the scene and he has previous history. It’s this past which is Jack Reacher’s, played by the almost legendary status Tom Cruise, connection and he turns up out of the blue to assist the now beaten and comatose suspect.

The character who enables Jack Reacher with some authority and drags him into the plot is defence lawyer Helen Rodin played by the elegant Rosamund Pike (Surrogates). Pike’s natural intensity suites the storyline well and she seems more than capable of facing up to the intimidating Cruise. In fact their good on screen chemistry keeps an energy running through the film which keeps you guessing at how far their relationship will develop.

The film has two distinct halves. Key information is revealed at the midpoint which changes the perspective and the course of the plot. The first half perceivably moves slowly at times and the viewer is probably right to question why we need to know certain facts about the victims but holding on to the trust in the writer come director, Christopher McQuarrie, is worth it. All comes to a crashing conclusion which enables Cruise to switch on his action gene. 

Perhaps the weakness in the film is the villain known as The Zec, played by Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn), who comes across as a bad stereotype, with no fingers, and at one point steps from the shadows to explain some gruesome act. He proclaims he is everything bad and is more comic book than thriller novel. It’s a shame because his henchman Charlie, played excellently by rising star Jai Courtney (A Good Day to Die Hard), suffers by association.

Jack Reacher is a Tom Cruise production. It is about the actor and his mega superstardom, and people try and point this out as a negative but the fact is the film is very entertaining and Tom Cruise, who also does many of his own stunt scenes, is once again highly effective.

73/100

Wrath of the Titans (12A)

The squeal to the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans appears out of this first film’s success. The Director, Jonathan Liebesman, the relatively inexperienced director of Battle Los Angeles, has an extra 25 million dollars to play with, making a massive budget of 150 million. Like a Titan rising from a mighty fire it lurches into life but is consumed by the over use of visual effects and poor make up. It strings together a mish-mash of scenes based upon sections of the first film, using the same characters and similar ideas. 
 
Sam Worthington as Perseus and Liam Neeson as Zeus seem to be on auto pilot and largely stone like as if Medusa had been on set. The interesting Danny Huston, Poseidon, is quickly expelled, and the excellent Ralph Fiennes fails to impress partly because he appears in his theatrical Harry Potter mode. Rosamund Pike appears as Andromeda and here we feel she may be a foil for Worthington’s often shocked expression but she is not allowed to share out her class and we lose track of her.

The main problem with Wrath of the Titans is the plot; find the very powerful weapon and kill the angry mega god. There are no twists or surprises and it really lacks the mythical magic of the original 1980s film. We do not come to know Perseus’s son, played by John Bell, who had an acting break by winning a Blue Peter competition, or really feel that we understand much at all about the characters. 

Having said that if you love special effects then there are some great examples here, especially the two headed hell hound which Perseus single-handedly dispatches. This aspect of the film must have been the reason why it grossed over 300 million dollars.

42/100