‘Jack Reacher’ Movie Review Roundup: Has Tom Cruise Found a New Action Franchise?

Is Tom Cruise too old at this point in his career is to jump start a new action movie franchise? While we won't have a formal answer from audiences until next week, the early critical reception for his latest movie, "Jack Reacher," certainly suggests the veteran actor has hitched himself to what could be the next big character of action films.

Based on the bestselling novels by British author Lee Child, "Reacher" tells the story of drifter and ex-military investigator Jack Reacher who travels the U.S. with just a toothbrush doling out brutal justice firsthand. When a sniper murders five people in Pittsburgh, PA, police arrest a man thinking they have an open-and-shut case, until the man tells them they've got the wrong guy and must contact Reacher for him. As Reacher works as an investigator for the man's defense attorney, he unravels a case involving a hired killer and a mysterious Russian villain known only as "the zec."

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously worked with Cruise on the 2008 war movie "Valkyrie," Tom Cruise (Reacher), Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, and Wernor Herzog star in the film.

Leading up to its Friday debut, "Jack Reacher" has been generating a mostly positive critical response with movie review site rottentomatoes.com displaying a current score of 76 percent.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the film may be a formulaic action franchise, but says there's still plenty of reason to be excited for "Reacher."

"The actual unraveling of the plot might contain limited surprises, but again, McQuarrie provides satisfactions with the surprise casting of director Werner Herzog as a creepy bad guy, introducing Robert Duvall as a late-appearing key character and setting his action climax at night in a visually arresting quarry that carries the connotations of both a wartime battlefield and an ancient combat arena. The writer-director... delivers the narrative and the visuals with clarity, dispatch and style, aided greatly by Caleb Deschanel's bracingly sharp cinematography, Jim Bissell's nuanced production design and on-the-mark editing by Kevin Stitt that never calls attention to itself and helps 130 minutes go by in what feels like less than two hours," wrote the Reporter in its review.

Noting his long resume, The Reporter said "Jack Reacher" was one of Cruise's best action performances in recent memory.

"At least in terms of his action-film portfolio, Cruise is in top form here; if he feels like working really hard as a star and producer, he could alternate big-budget 'Mission: Impossible' outings with less expensive 'Jack Reacher' installments for a number of years, with other projects slipped in between them. Other important castmembers are classy, led by the ever-welcome Pike as the smart but conflicted lawyer and not-quite love interest, Jenkins as her suspicious dad and Oyelowo as the lead investigator," The Reporter concluded.

Movie review site Total Film also found Cruise's turn as Reacher an inspiring return to form, and believed he may have found himself not just a new action franchise, but a new director to collaborate with as well.

"It can be exhilarating to watch when an actor finds a director they click with. The moment Tom Cruise strides into Jack Reacher, smoldering like an active volcano, that 'click' can be heard loud and clear," said Total Film.

"Cruise ... may be shorter than the 6ft 5in Reacher of Child's books - a topic that vexed some fans - but that doesn't deter from one of his most intense, determined performances in recent memory. From buzzing around town in a red Chevy muscle car to beating up a squadron of guys in a bar brawl, it's Cruise at his most rough-hewn - even if he does find time for a muted smile when a bus passenger lends him a baseball cap to evade police attention. Prioritizing intrigue over body count, McQuarrie keeps the action clean and clinical, even if that troubled finale feels like a Call Of Duty free-for-all. The Hollywood rumor mill has it that he could be in line to direct Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible 5'; on this evidence, their 'click' will be worth hearing again," added Total Film.

Speaking for the Brits, The Guardian liked Cruise, but lamented the discrepancy between his real life 5 foot 7 inches and their beloved character's distinguishing bulking size.

"Cruise does his best, swinging his arms, puffing his chest, clumping along with the physicality of a bigger man. But just as sucking in your cheeks can't make you thinner, nor does going through doors torso-first actually add inches," wrote The Guardian.

That said, The Guardian was enthralled overall by "Jack Reacher." The paper thought it packed in the kind of unique surprises you'd never expect coming from a traditional action film.

"The film fizzes to life when someone else with a bit of charisma gets a look-in. Luckily, there's two candidates here: Robert Duvall, as a gummy gun store owner, and, as our mysterious uber-villain, the documentary maker Werner Herzog. Playing it so straight you sometimes wonder if he quite knows what he's doing, Herzog keeps his accent, [and] adds a glass eye... When Reacher has a foe as free-wheeling as that, the smackdown is worth watching. Yet even when it's just a one-man show, there's something compelling here. It is, in its way, a curious sort of auteurist cinema, in which a lone wolf (Cruise produces as well as stars) has taken an impeccably mainstream product and made it strange around him. Fans might have hankered after bona fide strappers like The Rock. I wouldn't have missed this for the world," said The Guardian.

The first film adaptation of one of Child's "Reacher" novels, "Jack Reacher" arrives in theaters Dec. 21, 2012.