Jack Reacher: Never Go Back : Currently a 6.3, really???

Everyone can have their gripes about this movie, it's all fair. I haven't read the books, and don't plan to but I can understand readers not appreciating the movie version. I see the speed of the film wasn't great for everyone. Some don't like the kid, some don't like Cruise. Some don't like the acting etc. - whatever.

But a 6.3 rating right now? I just don't understand that. I thought it was a very solid movie, like a solid 7. But what really gets me scratching my head on the rating of this movie are other movies that have a higher rating and in no way would I ever say they were better. A movie I just recently watched again "Never Back Down" currently sits at a 6.6. Now I'm not saying Never back Down is a bad movie. Matter a fact I personally enjoy the hell out of it. But there is no way that I would rate Never Back Down higher than JR: Never Go Back. And this is just one example of what I would call a sub-par movie - Never Back Down - being rated higher than this second installment of Jack Reacher.

So is that it? Never Back Down is really actually a better movie than Jack Reacher: Never Go Back? Wtsf? The *beep* people are complaining about in Jack Reacher is even more relevant in a movie like Never Back Down and yet Better rating.

Of course then Star Wars: The Force Awakens in which I literally felt like I was watching a rehash of A New Hope has an 8.2 rating. Yeah, I enjoyed SW: TFA enough, but to give that an 8.2 and Reacher a 6.3? Don't get it. And I can't help but to compare the ratings of movies. And most of the time I'm left scratching my head on these ratings.

Yeah well just think about the user base here on IMDB. Lots of kiddies by now.
Just look at the Civil War rating which is better than scores of some real milestones in film making.

Maybe that's part of it. It's rather frustrating to me. I know my opinion doesn't hold much of any weight for anyone but I really thought Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was pretty *beep* decent.

You apparently have not watched Civil War. It was a truly spectacular achievement from a production aspect, AS WELL as screenwriting & directorial respects. It was a GREAT story and was significantly more than just being an entertaining and enjoyable superhero flick.

Haven't seen Never Go Back just yet, but if it's anything like the first, I'll probably be as annoyed with the 6.3 as I still am with the 7.0 for the original. Should've been a 7.5-7.8, IMO.

Civil War was pretty decent but Casablanca it isn't. Give me a great story with great acting over special effects any day

Did I compare it to Casablanca? I did not, and rightfully so. The ratings for each also bear that out.

I was testing you. You passed.

*Wipes brow* Pheeeewwww!

What Civil War did so well was actually make a story where I could believe the Avengers were on opposing sides. Other than that it was just your basic enjoyable action hero flick. I think I gave it an 8 where I would give Casablanca a 10.

I just loved how the overarching themes of brotherhood & loyalty were the major catalysts for all that transpired in Civil War, and filled the spaces otherwise occupied by superficial and run-of-the-mill plights commonly encountered in this terrain. Don't get me wrong I'm all for being entertained by a much less thought-provoking summer blockbuster like many of the Marvel movies that preceded that one. I just think the Russo brothers have injected so much more into the two films they have been at the helm of under Marvel's roof, and that one in particular definitely bridged the gap in a sense between a superhero flick and a true cinematic achievement. But not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

Have you watched Citizen Kane. That is considered a masterpiece, but I have never watched more than the first few minutes because I get turned off by the opening. If you have seen it is it good? Should I watch it?

In my very lowly and wretched opinion, IF you are a real movie lover (in the sense that you love the way they are made and their Classic history) you absolutely should watch it! And, with NO distractions or people screwing around and making noise around you. It is the 'Film Lover's' movie. To me, what makes it so frigg'n brilliant is the way Orson Welles (who is one of THE greatest directors who has ever lived) not only told the story, but the WAY it was photographed using at the time truly innovative techniques and such that were then further used and refined in following years with Film Noir movies.

Oh yes I'm not one who usually goes for 'Dramas' at all or Human Interest movies. Usually, I like Sci Fi, Horror, or great Action films like this one. BUT and it is a very BIG BUT like Mariah Carey's This film stands kind of uniquely alone, primarily in the WAY it was done and the brilliance of it's young director (25 yrs old)

Definitely highly recommended

Cheers mate!



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I think I will watch it, but I really hate that overdramatic narrator at the beginning. I have never been able to get past that.

Not a huge fan of Citizen Kane. I give it a 5-6.

Casablanca is downright garbage.

Shows your opinion is garbage. Brilliant movie possibly the best ever made.

Serious mateYou should not review films. Civil war was drivel and this is also drivel. To call this a 7.8 permanently disqualifies you from ever reviewing a movie ever again.

If you call excellent cinematography, tremendous directing, intricate & creative fight choreography, and a thought-provoking & MCU forever-altering plot driven by actors giving performances commensurate to the depth of the storytelling "drivel," then your standards are INSANELY high.

Also, I was referring to the first Jack Reacher film with my "7.5 to 7.8" assessment. Admittedly, I was less than pleased with the directorial misfire that was this disappointing Never Go Back sequel, so the 6.2 that it currently is rated as is more than deserving. In fact, I turned it off an hour in haha

lol.you should try stand up comedy. You're so ill informed it is hilarious.

Oh, yes. Sooooooo ill informed! You make it sound like I'm proclaiming that the two movies I'm defending are the two greatest of all time. I was simply saying one deserves it's place at 8.0 (but should be rated higher than the first Avengers, imo) and the other should be incrementally higher than it currently is. CONTROVERSY?!. I think not.

Hmmmm let's see now.

Uh, hmmmm, TROLL?



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Exactly. Barring the really annoying scenes with the kid (but that's just great acting on her part), this was a solid suspenseful action movie.

"If Mad Max Fury Road is an 8, then I'll use 8 for OK, 9 is better, 10 is best."

Millennials are ruining the rating and the critics playing along with them

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Never Back Down is really actually a better movie than Jack Reacher: Never Go Back?

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It is. I, personally, was able to watch the entire Never back down, while I gave up on JR2 half way through (I watched JR1 on FFWD). And Never back down is, IMO, an average B movie.

Besides this being a bad movie, there is such thing as expectations. People expect more from a Tom Cruise movie. Even I, who am not a fan. Most of his movies are great, and, even the ones that aren't, have a certain quality to them. This one doesn't. This was a bad episode of NCIS with a big budget.

Fighting a religious war is like fighting over whose imaginary friend is better.

I get the expectation argument, the problem with that, though, is the grading scale is the same for all movies on IMDB.

But maybe I need to start looking at these ratings differently. Instead of me grouping all these movies into the same category which is just the way it looks like IMDB does with their rating scale being exactly the same for each movie, I need to split them up. Big budget films with big name actors that you just know are supposed to be in the "A" movie category are rated based on other "A" movies. If that's the case, I guess a 6.3 on JR: NGB is fair.

Because on the flip side Never Back Down being in the "B" category, which I think is very fair getting a rating of 6.6 for "B" films makes more sense to me.

I just have to say though I don't know how you were able to sit through the entire showing of Never Back Down but had to walk out on JR2. Are "expectations" that damned important? As I said in my original comment whatever complaints there were for JR2, a movie like Never Back Down it's even more prevalent. The entire premise of high school KIDS fighting like that, and by like that I mean a parent isn't home, they run the show and there's a "street fight" of sorts going on in the back yard on the beach is really reaching out there IMO. And that doesn't even take into consideration the poor acting or the numerous questions that should be asked - like Max Cooperman going back to class all beat up after that brawl he had under the bleachers. Like I said, I like Never Back Down. It's a comfort movie for me and I love Djimon Hounsou.. But really? You could watch all of NBD, but not JR2?

You can't measure, for instance, Avatar and some ScyFy movie. So, of course, the rating system on this site varies and the movies have to be viewed within their own groups. Big budget doesn't always mean a better movie, but it holds it up to greater scrutiny.

As far as Never back down and Never go back go, I saw both at home, so "walking out" meant flipping the channel. However, I'm a martial artist myself, so give me a movie with decent training and fight scenes and I'm happy. Plus, Never back down is the kind of movie you watch to turn your brain of and, as such, it was on the mark.

One expects more from a Cruise movie. And this was bad. Cruise was trying too hard and it was very off-putting.

Fighting a religious war is like fighting over whose imaginary friend is better.

Maybe you should stop caring what rating a movie gets on here altogether since every movie is subjective to everyone, making any rating system useless overall. If something interests you, go watch it. If it doesn't, don't watch it. It shouldn't matter what anybody else thinks, especially on here.
Besides, IMDB is too full of pretentious film school wannabes and people who ignore "suspension of disbelief" when it comes to movies in general that love nothing more than to pick movies apart so they can fill a couple paragraphs with their carefully maintained vocabulary of film-related "industry speak."

I can't ask a question on what people's thoughts are on movie ratings? Because everyone's opinion doesn't influence what I like and what I watch.

Also based on the replies I'm seeing a lot of people feel the same way.

Heh, to be honest, if you had left your comment at just the first paragraph, I was gonna reply with a Smart@ss sarcastic 'Profound!'

BUT I have to admit that what you further said about people not being able to 'suspend disbelief' is actually a VERY good point along with your comments about their 'pretensions' FWIW I full agree with you

Cheers mate!




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People suspend disbelief all the time, even in amazing movies. Take the any popular action movie. You have a hero running through a hail of bullets rained on him by trained killers with machine guns, yet not one so much as grazes him. But, if the movie has a good story, if it is well filmed and acted, you ignore it, chalk it up to the fact that it is a movie, after all. Suspending disbelief is hard when you see things done poorly and people react to that.


Fighting a religious war is like fighting over whose imaginary friend is better.

Yep


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It has nothing to do with suspending disbelief. The film is the same generic action movie we have seen 100 times before and if Tom Cruise wasn't the lead this movie would never be mentioned. The film has some cool parts and Cruise is solid in it and it has a sweet ending but overall it is extremely forgettable, unoriginal, poorly written and the directing is just meh. If you do unoriginal (most movies are these days) you have to put some passion and extra creativity into it and this movie lacks those things.

It isn't a bad movie, it's just a very average movie and it's imdb rating matches that.



7/10=good()5/10=mediocre

"If you do unoriginal (most movies are these days) you have to put some passion and extra creativity into it and this movie lacks those things. "

Yep



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Movie was good. I think a big part of the negativity here are people who either
a) hate Tom Cruise
b) pissed that movie Jack Reacher doesn't look anything like book Reacher

I love cruise, would never read this series of novels and find the movie corny, cliche and boring. So there.

It was just horrible writing. A very lame and generic plot that was like a bad 1980s action movie. The first Jack Reacher film was great what happened??

A LOT of people feel like you do, going by the majority of the reviews and comments. I also really liked the first film, and after reading all these rather lackluster reviews, I was fully expecting it not to be very good. I HAVE actually read the book (along with most 'Reacher' books) and it followed the story very closely.

You know, what I THINK it is is that the first film REALLY focused on Reacher himself, his sense of humour, his fighting skills, etc. So, everyone pretty much feel in love with the character (except people who hate Tom Cruise, of course) BUT in this one, even though I was honestly waiting to be disappointed, my Dad and I just finished watching the Blu-ray and we truly liked it. I quite honestly did not find anything really 'wrong' with it at all. But, I think what it is is that THIS movie is almost ALL 'Plot' & Action, BUT there is very little focus on Reacher himself. So, people expecting the same 'charm' as it were also to exude from this film were very much disappointed and just saw the movie as a 'generic action film'

The book, too, was also quite different from most of the others. I felt that it was quite good, but the focus, again, just simply was MUCH more on what was HAPPENING than on the characters themselves. And, if you just look at the STORY by itself, you probably would think, 'Geez, there are a LOT better Action stories out there' and you would be right. The focus on this one was seemed to me to be more on the EVENTS happening and building suspense / tension around how these guys were gonna deal with it and get away from all these people trying to kill them. Again, NOT really a very 'deep' story, true But, for what the story was, I honestly felt that the director along with Tom, mainly (I wasn't really bowled over by any of the other actors) put the film together in a competent and basically entertaining fashion. I mean, it never struck me as 'mindless' as many of the Action films can be, but I thought the way Reacher acted / reacted was believable (nothing stellar, just decent) and I felt that the story was put together and told well.

Just my lowly and wretched opinion

I'm thinking that the main culprit here is 'expectation' based upon the first film (which I DO indeed like much better)



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I think the first one was more of a crime drama also. The new one is just packed with action, there is no real mystery or twist going on.

Yes, exactly. That is why we ALL like the first one better :)

This one was MUCH more simple. It basically was 'Oh $hit, these guys are gonna kill us, what the hell do we do now?" and that was about it.



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Tom Cruise is disliked by a lot of people because of his personal opinions outside of Hollywood, especially those dealing with Scientology. His films will always have a singificant number of people scoring his films lower due to this reason. Just add a point to IMDB's score and you will wind up with a much more accurate figure. So a 6.3 becomes a 7.3 and IMO, that is about right where this film should fall.

Personally, I don't give a rats behind what actors do outside of thier films. I don't go to see films based on what actors are or aren't in real life. I go to see actors films because I enjoy thier acting and thier films and Cruise has had PLENTY of films that I have enjoyed over the years. Given that science fiction is BY FAR my single favorite genre of film, I am actually likiing the films in his latter years to those in his early years. I absolutely loved both Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow. As for the Jack Reacher films, they aren't amazing films but they are enjoyable films. Its nice to see Cruise in more story based films without the crazy action sequences. Jack Reacher is a charachter drama with a side of action more than anything and again while thier not amazing films, they are still enjoyable films. I would give both a solid 7-7.5 and I hope he continues on with this character and makes at least 1 or 2 more films. Compared to most of the garabge that comes out of Hollywood, these films are a breath of fresh air.

Still Shooting With Film!

Yep

I also friggn' loved 'OBLIVION' & 'THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW'! I really also hope that he continues making awesome Sci Fi films, because with him you KNOW it's gonna be BIG budget and most likely good quality!

Yeah, I felt that this film was just fine. Didn't make me hafta change my pants or anything, but solidly entertaining. I did read the book too, and it followed it quite well.




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Compares to the first one, this one was a 5/10 imo.
The first Jack Reacher was awesome, this one was just bornig AF.

Cliche after cliche, gets boring after a few minutes. Stupid girl that
apparently has issues with everything and everything "forgets" to say
she's wearing a cellphone something EVERYONE FKING KNOWS CAN BE TRACKED..
how stupid can she be !?.

And the ending, lets trade punches for 5 minutes before i decide to kill you.

You are spot on: a 6.3, really???

A 0,3 would be more than enough

agree with OP, solid 7/10 movie, had a good time watching it








so many movies, so little time

It had a very weak plot. Generic and predictable. I don't think it was worth more than 6/10. Re-watch the first one and you notice the writing is much better. It is a much better movie.

IMO, it's a solid 5.

agreed, its just not a cool movie like the first one

The first Jack Reacher film was good and i was impressed as didnt expect much from it. This sequal wasnt bad but it was by no means as strong as the first film and was just above medicore.

It's all a popularity contest sort of.
I like movie A so I go to IMDB and rate it a 10. I am a clueless follower of movies you don't like and never watch.
You like movie B, go to IMDB and rate it an 8.
400 people rate A a 10.
4000 people rate B an 8 or less.


The pumps don't work 'cause the Vandals stole the handles
Bob Dylan

While i think Tom Cruise has the most all around impressive filmography of any anyone out there i think this movie, like the first one, while solid enough for a viewing has no re-watch appeal which is where movies are ultimately made or broke for me.

5-5.5/10 (Thumbs Down)

p.s. for the record Tom Cruise has thirteen movies i gave a 7/10 or higher as no one comes close to matching that figure (next closest to my knowledge would be roughly half of that figure). also, anything i score a 7 or higher is amongst my favorite movies which only 201 movies out of the 2,025+ total movies i have seen managed to pull that off. i still like 6/10 range movies though and i do re-watch those here and there to but they don't stand out enough to call them favorites.


My Top 100ish Movies = http://goo.gl/EYFYdz My Favorites = http://boxd.it/UkLa