Jack Reacher (2012) – Encore Viewing

“There are four types of people who join the military. For some, it’s family trade. Others are patriots, eager to serve. Next you have those who just need a job. Than there’s the kind who want the legal means of killing other people.” – Jack Reacher

Number of Times Seen – 2 (18 Apr 2013 and 8 Sep 2013)

Link to original review – Here

Brief Synopsis – Former Army investigator Jack Reacher comes to Pennsylvania to try and find out why a former sniper apparently killed 5 people.

My Take on it – I don’t know why Hollywood is soo good at taking a good book (or story) and usually just kill it when they try to make the transfer to the screen.

This movie is a prime example of that.

I understand that it can be hard to adapt a book that uses many visual and mental notes that are very difficult to transfer to the screen, but there have been many writers who have managed to get it right: (The Godfather (1972), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999) and of course The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) are great examples of successful movie adaptations from novels.

What’s ironic is that many times, I have been inspired to read a book after seeing the movie and once I’ve read the book, I can’t watch the movie again because I know how much is missing from the storyline.

I still recall seeing The Prince of Tides (1992) and deciding that the movie was so good that I read the book.  I have only seen it twice since because the adaptation is missing many great aspects of the book.

I have so far read about 6 of the Jack Reacher books and have grown to like his stories.  When I originally saw this movie, I had only read one of the books, and enjoyed the movie.

Now that I read the book, the movie has lost much of it’s magic since this time I was very disappointed that many plotlines were now missing.

The only thing that I liked about the movie was that it actually expanded on the lives of the victims in a very touching way that the book completely glossed over.

I had originally hoped that they would make more movies with the Jack Reacher character, now I’m not too sure about that.

If you haven’t read the book, this is a good stand-up movie.

Bottom Line – Good story (only if you didn’t read the book)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (down one notch from original review)