What is the correct way to review Ed Zwick’s Jack Reacher? Do we apply the cine-literary criticism one might employ to the latest Scorsese or Apichatpong Weerasethakul film? Or do we judge the film based on its own blockbuster criterion? A measure of our primal cinematic wants: explosions, one-liners, and some neutered sexual tension. Arguably, the critic’s duty is to assess it on both levels; but it’s precisely the latter critique Jack Reacher invites. In fact it practically begs for an audience’s ironised low-expectations. Because while Jack Reacher offers a few bangs for your hard-earned buck, it certainly doesn’t deliver anything close to cinematic.

Let’s take its locales. Sure, it’s set in Washington, but so generic are the interior and exterior shots they might just as easily have set the film on Studio 1 on the Paramount lot. A move to New Orleans in the film’s final act (clearly exploiting the city’s favourable tax breaks) similarly anodises the city’s carnival splendour. All shots of Cruise are in hotel rooms, dark alleyways and, most notably, scaling roofs. The party is in the streets, not on the roof. A potentially interesting juxtaposition is squandered between the defiant ebullience of an American city that survived destruction versus the surreptitious destruction of America’s international reputation by errant mercenary groups in Iraq.

Oh, sorry, errant mercenary groups I hear you ask? America’s sullied international reputation? These don’t sound like observations fitting of a brainless Tom Cruise action ‘epic’. Well, so keen is the film to ground itself within a contemporary political landscape these are ideas you’ll be forced to reckon with. Pointlessly. Is Jack Reacher: Never Go Back slyly subverting attitudes of America’s conduct abroad or excusing its interventionist strategy, blaming any misdoings on the whims of a greedy few? Who cares? You’re not here for political satire in action movie packaging – this isn’t a Paul Verhoeven film. You’re here for the action, the bangs and booms that soundtrack your celluloid dreams. Well, you’re about to be disappointed.

Suffering from Batman Begins’ syndrome, action sequences are shot mostly in the dark and in close-up. Never has the impact of a punch felt so muted. Blood is for painting walls but is never seen leaving the body, as though the characters are filled solely with air and bad dialogue. As for stand out set-pieces, you’ll be hard pressed to pick one, all blur into one. One might cynically say that Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is trying to catch a PG-13 rating. One would be right.

But perhaps this isn’t the point. You want action, watch Mission: Impossible. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is about one thing, and one thing only. Tom. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Never has a film so crudely tried to pander to the star’s myths. Did you like A Few Good Men? Well, there’s a scene in a military court. Fond of Born on the Fourth of July? Tom – sorry – Jack shakes the hand of a paraplegic Iraq War veteran who looks uncannily like Ron Kovic. Fan of War of the Worlds? Jack wears a leather jacket and runs a lot. Perhaps Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was never about us and what we wanted. Maybe it was all about Tom, about reminding us why we love him. 

But it’s got Tom wrong. To cast Tom as a blank urban cowboy is to negate his appeal. Tom, master of the stoical squint n’ exhale of chronic constipation, loves to act. He likes to sweat for us, frown for us, laugh maniacally for us. When he dances, every sinew of muscle twerks for us. So why hide it behind a character so bland you’d think he was carved out of rock and butter? I want the old Tom back. Top of the sofa Tom. Barely Suppressed Scientology Tom. Not this one.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. I won’t.