Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Wolverine, the most popular of the X-Men and one of the most popular comic book characters in comic book history is also one of the shortest. According to thirty plus years of continuous publication, Logan - AKA wolverine - is 5'2" tall and somewhere around 200 lbs, with metal infused skeleton and claws, and a back as hairy as a Kodiak bear. When X-Men director Bryan Singer cast a slim 6'3" song-and-dance man named Hugh Jackman to play the short stocky Wolverine, comic book geeks everywhere said "What the f***?" Now anyone familiar with the Jack Reacher novels written by Lee Child knows that main character of the novels is a 6'5" 250 pound blond haired blue eye bruiser with the face of a professional rugby player. And likewise anyone who read the novels must have said "What the f***?" upon learning that the diminutive Tom Cruise was cast to play Jack Reacher. "He's too small. He's too Pretty." My wife, who's a huge fan of Lee Child's novels, was so irritated with the casting choice that she refused the see the movie. For those of you not familiar with Lee Child's novels, the title character is military veteran who hobos around America with nothing but the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket. He avoids relationships, responsibilities and even posessions that might tie him down. He doesn't even own a suitcase. When his clothes get dirty he throws them away and buys new cloths. He rides from town to town on Greyhound busses. He generally minds his own business, but always seems to find himself at the center of a mystery or conspiracy that requires his investigative instinct and brutal hand-to-hand skills to solve. The movie begins with a sniper shooting down four people in Pittsburg. The evidence quickly points to James Barr, a former Army sniper with a disturbing past. But maybe the evidence points at Barr too quickly. No sooner is Barr taken into custody when his is beaten nearly to death by other convicts and left in a coma. Now the mystery becomes one of whether Barr will even come out of his coma to be put on trial. Enter Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who despises Jack Barr from their shared military history. Reacher is only too willing believe that Barr did the crime he's accused of. But when Local criminals try to take out Reacher, he decides to give the case a 2nd look. Soon he's unraveling a much deeper conspiracy. Well, having just seen Jack Reacher at my local theater, it seems that the miscast Tom Cruise somehow made it work just as a miscast Hugh Jackman made Wolverine work. Cruise is believable as a retired military policeman who really doesn't care and just wants to move on. Tom Cruise may not be my favorite actor (I would have preferred James Caviezal) but he is a superbly skilled actor who knew just how to play the character. The movie also benefitted from a tightly written script which solidly conveys Lee Child's vision of the hardened cynical soldier turned drifter. It also managed to give us just enough backs story without getting bogged down in exposition. One last thing: Jack Reacher sports about the best fight choreography I've seen since Watchmen. I've had a few years of training in Wing Chun and a couple more in some other styles. I'm not easily impressed, but the moves Cruise used on the bad guys were a hell of a lot more realistic than most movie viewers will be used to. As for the diminutive Cruise playing the man-giant Reacher...6'5"...5'6"...what's the difference?