![]() ![]() (Though crowbars oddly prove to be Reacher’s Kryptonite throughout the season.) There’s one bout at the end of the sixth episode that makes such specific use of Ritchson’s sheer mass, even the Reacher of the books would likely approve. The series best makes use of Ritchson’s size in the brutal fight scenes, which often take place in close quarters and demonstrate why it’s stupid to ever attack this guy. The show is adapted by Nick Santora (creator of CBS’ Scorpion) and the premiere is directed by Thomas Vincent (who helmed the 2018 UK hit The Bodyguard). He’s a generic vigilante who just happens to look like a mountain next to the small-town Georgia cops (played by Malcolm Goodwin and Willa Fitzgerald) who assist him in this maiden adventure(*). Ritchson’s 12-pack is a physical manifestation of a tonal problem: His Reacher is smarmy and pleased with himself, rather than casually secure in his own vast abilities. But whenever his shirt comes off (which is often), he has the smooth muscle definition of a man who spends four hours a day in a gym with a personal trainer, followed by another two getting touch-ups at the salon, rather than a slightly evolved caveman who came by his strength through scraps and brawls. Ritchson has played superheroes in shows like Smallville and Titans, and he’s statuesque enough to look plausible casually bursting out of a pair of flex cuffs. Those Cruise movies are good thrillers (the first especially), but they’re not really Jack Reacher movies.Įven more hilariously, Amazon has built the entire marketing campaign for its new Reacherseries around star Alan Ritchson’s build, stopping just shy of using the tagline: “Reacher’s tall again!” But this turns out to be a case where size doesn’t matter matter as much as you might hope. ![]() But Cruise lacked the mythical stature that’s long distinguished Reacher most clearly from his action-movie peers, and especially from his sleuthing counterparts. The films more or less captured the character’s intensity and self-sufficiency. Hilariously, pocket-sized movie star Tom Cruise insisted on playing Reacher in a pair of movies. Jack Reacher has many other notable traits besides being huge: He was a veteran Army investigator! He now lives as a hobo, wandering from town to town with little but the clothes on his back and a folding travel toothbrush! He’s a brilliant detective with almost superhuman powers of perception and time-keeping! Mostly, though, Reacher is big: a six-foot-five wall of muscle - with hands Child has at various points compared to the size of both dinner plates and supermarket chickens - who draws attention in every room he enters, and is the favorite in the many, many, extremely many fights he gets into. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Now, substitute the name Jack Reacher for “space,” and you essentially have the core conceit of the two dozen or so Reacher thrillers written by Lee Child over the last 25 years. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. The satiric sci-fi author Douglas Adams once wrote, “Space is big. ![]()
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