If we limit ourselves to Swedish actors, this is more what Reacher looks like in my opinion: http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&as_st=y&biw=1024&bih=619&tbm=isch&tbnid=YRGV4vxkGNoRTM:&imgrefurl=http://www.bestmastersdegrees.com/author/3admin&docid=VU7wU0_cSsehBM&imgurl=http://www.bestmastersdegrees.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1.-Dolph-Lundgren.jpg&w=500&h=600&ei=fftSUOmJM6Oh4gT3loC4AQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=445&vpy=249&dur=40&hovh=246&hovw=205&tx=89&ty=127&sig=107821222095641573253&page=2&tbnh=149&tbnw=127&start=22&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:22,i:223
Because A) Foreign box office is not always readily available and B) I did talk about foreign box office about 2 posts later. Now Lions for Lambs probably shouldn’t have been included, but as I mentioned that wasn’t Cruise’s fault that failed. Rock of Ages however while an ensemble piece certainly had Cruise as the main draw. He was the center of the pre release publicity shots. Neither of which Magnolia or Tropic Thunder would claim.
And if anything my post was complementary toward Cruise.
Agreed, but again I’m seeing too old. Why is it so hard to find somebody in their mid/late-30’s for this role? I don’t even think we’d be having this discussion if somebody had read the damn book. I’ve only read the first one, and what I know thus far is he is a BIG man, 6’5", and blond. That is NOT Tom Cruise.
I’m no expert on Jack Reacher, but going by what Mr. Child said, I wouldn’t get married to the tall and blond part, and would focus on the intimidating part. There are plenty of short guys who are damned intimidating – the Navy and Marine Corps are full of them. What’s needed is muscle and attitude. For that matter, is there really any reason he can’t be black?
Well I’ve read several of the books and completely missed the blond part. Mostly it’s big, intimidating. Also quiet, still, intent. No charming repartee or raffish grinning. No meta-snark. I think Ray Stevenson would be good–the guy from Punisher sequel–but he’s not a big name. Liev S could probably pull it off. The problem with Cruise, aside from his height, is that when he does intense, he looks demented. The Reacher character has nothing to prove. If you don’t like him, he’ll shrug and think that’s your problem. I don’t think TC can convey that much dispassion.
My personal choice would have been Tom Hardy for Reacher.
Yes, I thought about Hardy.
How about this guy?
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays Jamie Lannister. He was born in 1970, and is 6’2 1/2".
Now the movie is out - what do people think?
Haven’t seen it and likely won’t until it comes out on cable (if then). But the review I read was pretty ‘meh’. Basically, it’s a formulaic Cruise popcorn flick that he hopes will become another franchise for him. His fans will probably like it, but it has a lot of silliness. He’s just not believable as someone who can kick ass on six assailants (but who is), and fans of the books are probably going to be dissatisfied enough with Cruise in that role to stay away.
I so totally don’t get this thread. The one thing movies can do is make a midget tall or a tall guy short, as need be, simply by creating under- (or over-) sized sets, and by casting short (or tall) people in other parts, and by paying attention to relative heights in two-shots, etc. It would be an interesting, and not too difficult, technical challenge to create the illusion that Tom Cruise is a 6’6" behemoth and one that would impress viewers beyond the technical challenge. I would see it just to notice how well or how poorly they rose to the challenge.
Sven-Ole Thorsen would have been good if he was younger.
Sure, if it was an unknown actor, anybody could buy it. But it’s the ranking box office midget, who everybody knows is a runt. I can’t manage to suspend belief on this one.
I saw it last night. I never read the books. They do not try to pretend that the movie character is physically large. He is portrayed as really tough and Sherlock Holmes smart. I give the movie a B. It was enjoyable. Robert Duvall was in it. As usual, he was the best part.
I’m a big fan of the Jack Reacher series and I agree with chefguy - so much of the protagonist’s persona involves his size that I’m not tempted to pay to see this movie.
Another aspect of the Jack Reacher persona is his refusal to own or carry more than he needs at any given time. In fact he never washes his clothes - he just buys new ones when he needs them. And what he needs is no more than what he can carry in his pockets. He does not have a home, will not settle down (even in books where he’s clearly become attached to a place or a person) and moves around the country by Greyhound bus, or hitch-hiking.
Are these aspects of his persona conveyed in the movie?
I think Mission Impossible 4 showed he can put American butts in seats.
Yes. All of them.
I saw the movie on Friday and quite enjoyed it. I didn’t go to the theater to see it. I was on my way to see The Impossible, but the bus got bogged down in traffic and by the time I got to the theater the previews were over and the movie started. I never go into a movie after it’s started so I looked to see what else was playing. The only thing that worked without waiting around an hour or so was Jack Reacher. It had been extremely low priority but I figured, oh hell, might as well. Hey, it has Werner Herzog as the bad guy! That’s gotta be worth a matinee price.
I’m glad I did. To me Cruise is an idiot cult dupe in his personal life, but I do like his acting, and I liked him in this. I haven’t read the books, and don’t care about how big the guy’s supposed to be, but I liked the character of Jack Reacher as portrayed in the movie a lot. I liked his way of working, his subtle humor and dry sarcasm, his intelligence and his expert physicality. I liked his sense of fairness and justice. I liked how he really tried to talk people out of messing with him. I liked how the character was very respectful to the women he dealt with. I also liked the convoluted but interesting story. I liked the other characters, especially Robert Duvall, as mentioned by The Second Stone. I like that Rosamund Pike is finally in a high-profile film looking like herself (Wrath of the Titans does not count) because I’ve liked her for years and she should be better-known.
It was a great surprise for me. I’d give it a hearty B+. If I’d gotten to the theater in time for The Impossible I probably wouldn’t have seen Jack Reacher for weeks, if at all.
Yes, 100%
I saw the movie today and enjoyed it. It was exactly what I was hoping for, a fun action adventure move with an interesting mystery that wasn’t that difficult to follow. I haven’t read any of the books so had no preconceived notions of what he was supposed to look like. I’d give it a good solid B.
Well, I never heard of Reacher before this thread started, but my library had all the books, and I’ve just finished reading them.
I have to say, with the exception of a couple (strangely, including the first of the series), they were enjoyable page-turners. But any fan of the series who says he will have trouble suspending his disbelief about ANYTHING has got to be kidding.
Reacher is basically Conan, set in modern times. He’s bigger and stronger and quicker than everybody else, even though he never exercises, and his diet is mostly donuts and coffee. (To be fair, there are occasional opponents who are bigger, but in those cases, his lack of exercise is an advantage, because anybody bigger than Reacher MUST be full of steroids and artificially bulked up, without truly usable strength.) He’s unbeatable in unarmed combat, no matter what the odds, and he’s unbeatable with any weapon. Bullets cannot penetrate his bulging pecs (that is not hyperbole, that is straight from one of the books). And no matter where he goes, no matter how small the town, he runs into a dastardly plot and has to save the world, or at least the country, typically by killing half a dozen people. I was constantly reminded of the old Rifleman series, where peace-loving Lucas McCain lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, trying to mind his own business and raise his crops, but still has to kill three or four people every week.
And the police force always has a hot babe, who has been celibate for years but is in bed with Reacher within a day or two of meeting him (and who is fine with him killing suspects rather than turning them over to the authorities), and the feds are always inept, if not totally corrupt (comically so — in one of the early books, the FBI threatened to give his girlfriend up to a guy known for torturing and killing women if Reacher didn’t help them solve a big case. Reacher solved it almost entirely on his own, and after he solved it, the FBI didn’t thank him, they threatened to frame him for the murder of the villain; I guess, just because they could).
Child is a good action writer. He’s a horrible mystery writer. In a later book, a very small town was next to a military base, and three stunningly beautiful civilian women all had an affair with the same army captain, and they were all murdered shortly after the affair ended. What’s more, whenever this captain goes overseas on some mission, beautiful civilian women are murdered there. The sheriff of the tiny town (also a stunningly beautiful woman, of course) has no suspects, but fortunately, Reacher solves this impossibly difficult puzzle. You’ll never guess — the Army captain killed them. And the senate, Army, and marines are all helping the captain cover up his crimes, to the point of murdering anybody who comes within a hundred yards of the base (that should allay people’s suspicions!). Of course, Reacher’s not satisfied with finding the guilty parties, he has to kill them all. Because the violence must end.
And he’s not just a big tough guy, he is also the most amazing genius since Einstein. He is a human computer, able to do any kind of mental arithmetic instantly. He knows the area, population, zip code, and area code of every city in the country, and probably the world. He knows the etymology of every arcane word you never heard of.
And best of all, if somebody he’s looking for checks into a random motel, Reacher knows where he is. I don’t mean a random motel in the city he’s in, I mean anywhere. In one of the books, a little girl had been kidnapped, she had hours to live, and Reacher had to find her. The kidnappers are from out of the area, the girl lived hundreds of miles from a big city, so she can literally be anywhere in any of three states. But Reacher puts on his thinking cap, figures that since the crooks are from out of the area they’ll stay next to a tourist attraction, picks an attraction that nobody in the world has ever heard of, picks a motel near there, and bingo, that’s where she is.
Surely anybody with all those powers could cloud men’s minds to make himself look short. What’s the problem?