Jack Reacher
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 21, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
17
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The PlaylistDrew TaylorDec 18, 2012
In terms of pure pop entertainment value, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more smartly constructed, beautifully shot, pulse-pounding movie this holiday season. Read full review
80
EmpireMark DinningDec 31, 2012
Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise deliver on their promise, with a witty, violent take on Reacher that makes up for its lack of height with an abundance of smarts and thrills. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 10, 2012
Tom Cruise is in fine form as mysterious tough guy Jack Reacher finally reaches the big screen. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramDec 10, 2012
A superior thriller, with Cruise and McQuarrie slotting together like a bullet in a clip. Like Reacher on the firing range, the aim isn't always true – but the misses are fractional. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 23, 2012
Werner Herzog, better known as one of the finest living directors, plays a bad guy with Teutonic relish. If he doesn't watch it, he'll have a whole other career for himself playing dead-eyed villains. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithDec 20, 2012
Cruise's Jack Reacher is a loner who doesn't smile, charm, love the ladies, aim his index fingers to the heavens or sing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" in bars. Here he just snarls and kills people. Yes, please, and let's have more of the same. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 18, 2012
This is Cruise's show. And he nails it. The patented smile is gone, replaced by a glower that makes Jack Reacher a dark and dazzling ride into a new kind of hell. Read full review
70
ScreenCrushMatt SingerOct 19, 2016
If you're looking for something lean and unpretentious, you should be pretty satisfied. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 19, 2013
A trim thriller with an enviable lack of grandeur. [21 Jan. 2013, p.79]
70
Village VoiceChuck WilsonDec 18, 2012
Cruise is definitely too short for the gig, but in this first fight, he proves his tough-guy chops. Outraged Reacher readers can stand down. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackDec 23, 2012
This violent, sometimes brutal suspense thriller was thus quite a surprise, both in how effectively Cruise creates a commanding physical presence despite his lack of size, and for how well the film works in general. Read full review
65
NPRStephanie ZacharekDec 20, 2012
The bigger problem is that Cruise, as Reacher, has no wit and no style, other than the studiously applied kind. He's so desperate to do everything right that nearly everything he does comes off all wrong. Read full review
65
MovielineAmy NicholsonDec 19, 2012
Beat by beat, Jack Reacher is just like Child's paperbacks in the best possible way: it's fast, fun, and smarter than it looks. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 20, 2012
McQuarrie... is a real writer; his banter has snap and bite. His directorial skills are still catching up with his writing skills; the movie loses steam in the final half-hour. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 20, 2012
Outrageous but entertaining pulp-melodrama thriller. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 20, 2012
Cruise's tightly controlled performance holds our attention all the way through to the tense finale. Still, McQuarrie's script never gets at the heart of a character who's already inspired such a passionate fan base. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumDec 12, 2012
That Cruise fails to make a case for Reacher's allure, though, has less to do with physical dissonance than it does with the film's inability - stupefying inability, really - to otherwise make a case for the character's originality in a movie so choked with visual clichés and dreadfully moldy dialogue. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 23, 2012
Despite a terrific cast, Jack Reacher comes up empty-handed. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 23, 2012
The whole movie is like an NRA wet dream, with Robert Duvall as a crusty gun-range owner who pitches in to shoot bad guys. Jack Reacher already feels as if it belongs to another era. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 23, 2012
Jack Reacher has the distinction of being little more than it initially appears to be: a clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie that offers little more than every other clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyDec 20, 2012
World-weariness is not really the energetic star's best driving gear. Nor are declarations of menace intended to identify Jack Reacher as a modern-day mythic avenger. When he tells an enemy, through his clenched choppers, "I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot," the effect is, unintentionally, popcorn-spitting funny. Talk about overreaching. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 20, 2012
An average action film, made slightly better by Cruise, and more bizarre by Herzog, and more watchable by Pike, but still within the average range, a silk purse that still says oink. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisDec 20, 2012
This movie is the height of by-the-book dullness. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 20, 2012
Reacher is so good at everything he does, and Cruise plays him in such a robotic manner, that the movie becomes a bit of a bore: The hero is practically omnipotent. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelDec 19, 2012
In the movie version at least, efforts to render the hero larger than life result in a story that is less than convincing. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissDec 18, 2012
Even when the film is cool, it manages to be wrong. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeDec 10, 2012
Reacher is a brawny action figure whose exploits would have been a good fit for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone back in the day, but feel less fun when delegated to a leading man like Tom Cruise. The star is too charismatic to play someone so cold-blooded, and his fans likely won't appreciate the stretch. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonDec 19, 2012
Jack Reacher isn't much of a man, and Jack Reacher isn't the story of a man. It's mythmaking for self-satisfied sociopaths. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichDec 23, 2012
Whether blithely comparing American prisons to retirement homes or gleefully recalling the time he chewed off his own fingers in Siberia, the moonlighting German New Wave auteur injects some much-needed black humor into what is otherwise a soporific star vehicle. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 20, 2012
So thrill-less, so chill-less is Jack Reacher that it is unlikely to spark interest, much less controversy. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 20, 2012
Apart from the car chase, the only real fun in Jack Reacher comes from Mr. Herzog and Robert Duvall, called in near the end for some marvelously gratuitous scenery chewing as a gruff former Marine. They enliven the movie's atmosphere of weary brutality for a few moments, but they also call attention to the dullness of their dramatic surroundings. Read full review
38
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 20, 2012
Jack Reacher is a wildly ill-advised miscalculation, with Cruise's virtually unstoppable appeal butting uncomfortably against Reacher's alternately cocky and downright crude cynicism. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 20, 2012
The violence is plenty, and pointless. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChris CabinDec 20, 2012
The film is as incompetent, manipulative, safe, and disposable as any number of nickel-and-dime actioners, but goes to great, unconvincing lengths to insist it's different. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedDec 18, 2012
Jack Reacher is mostly grim, violent and stupid. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 20, 2012
Jack Reacher, which Christopher McQuarrie directed from his adaptation of a Lee Child crime novel, is not just another dumb thriller. It's almost peerlessly self-important, weirdly incoherent and eerily smarmy. It's also mysteriously inept, considering that Tom Cruise plays the title role. Read full review
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