Go Hunting With These Three New ‘Jack Reacher’ TV Spots

Few things in life are as exciting as a new Tom Cruise action movie. We’ve all read articles declaring Cruise as the last true American movie star or marveling at his physicality even into his fifties, but even those pieces sometimes overlook the sheer pleasure of watching Cruise at work in any new Jack Reacher or Mission: Impossible movie. Five minutes of any basic cable police procedural should be enough to remind you that not every actor who holds a gun actually looks the part; actors like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves are on a level entirely their own.

So it’s not like I needed these three new Jack Reacher: Never Go Back television spots (via Collider) to ramp up my interest in the movie, but heck, I’ll take ’em anyways. Each trailer shares a handful of the same beats — Reacher punching in the car window or shooting the assault rifle over the roof of a police car — but woven together, they form the perfect tapestry of Cruise in action. He’s running! He’s shooting! He’s delivering terribly corny dialogue and somehow making it work! Man, I hope this guy never retires.

While the original Jack Reacher may not have set the domestic box office on fire, it does present Cruise with the perfect action foible as he moves solidly into his middle age. Jack Reacher is a character that Cruise can continue to play convincingly as a card-carrying member of AARP; even as he loses a step as an action star, it’s something that can easily be incorporated into his character arc as a down-not-out former government agent. As long as Cruise wants to make Jack Reacher movies, I’ll be there on opening night to cheer him on.

Here’s the full plot synopsis for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back:

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back follows the title character as he returns to Virginia to meet the head of his former unit. But she’s missing, he’s being charged with a crime committed nearly 20 years ago, and he may even have a daughter. Making things right will lead him on a cross-country chase to uncover the truth — and maybe even a family.

Jack Reacher will punch his way into theaters on October 21, 2016.