BEFORE: OK, so I figured out that the first movie I should see in the theaters this year is "Captain Marvel", because it could be the "Black Panther" of 2019 - the film that comes out a month or so before the big "Avengers" film, and is probably required viewing to stay current with the Marvel movies. So I'd figured out my chain up until March 15 or 16, and from where I left off, it's just three steps to "Captain Marvel", which opens on 8 - I'll only be about a week behind, that's not too bad.
All I have to figure out then is a chain that gets me from there to "Avengers: Endgame" in about 40 steps. I've been worried because it seems several films lately have been featuring people like Chris Hemsworth or John Brolin (or Cobie Smulders tonight) that are known for being in Avengers films (and two more next week with Robert Downey Jr.) so it seems like I'm disabling a lot of good linking possibilities in my film choices this month. I shouldn't worry, because that Avengers cast list is so huge, I'll probably be able to get there in any of two dozen ways. I've still got other films on my list with Bradley Cooper or Chris Evans or Paul Rudd or Michelle Pfeiffer - hell, I've got films on my list with Benedict Wong or Frank Grillo or Hiroyuki Sanada, so I'm not worried. I just need a few weeks to figure out the best way, or my preferred way, of getting from one Marvel film to the other. I certainly can't take 40 days off in March/April, or sit on the "Captain Marvel" review for 40 days, that wouldn't be sporting.
Tonight, Robert Knepper carries over from "Seal Team Six". If you don't know who that is, he played the C.O. last night, and a general tonight, I think he plays a lot of army guys. But he was also on the "Twin Peaks" reboot, as one of the casino-owning brothers, and Jim Belushi played the other. Character actors like him seem to have an arc to their careers, once I notice someone I start to see him everywhere, and then I might not see him again for a few years after that.
I don't know why I didn't get to this film last year - I watched both "American Made" and "The Mummy" with Tom Cruise - obviously that last one had to land in October for horror month, but why didn't I go from "American Made" to the Jack Reacher sequel? I must have had some other goal in mind around July 4, I guess I was trying to get to the film that was my entry to the rockumentary chain, and that meant I had to skip this film. Oh well, I guess since I needed it now, that means that everything does happen for a reason. And maybe that's what January is for, getting to those things that you meant to get to during the previous year.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Jack Reacher" (Movie #1,429)
THE PLOT: Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name. On the run as a fugitive, Reacher uncovers a political secret from his past that could change his life forever.
AFTER: From the opening sequence, we're led to believe that veteran Jack Reacher is this Ronin-like character who always seems to turn up wherever justice needs to be served, or perhaps wherever he goes, the need for justice seems to follow him around, it's tough to tell. Maybe a little bit of both. In my review of the first film, I called him a great, well-rounded character, both observant and smart, and I gave that film a "7". But I felt that his character was just a little TOO perfect, if that makes sense, but a lot of action heroes are portrayed like that. Here in the sequel, they've improved the character by making him a bit more vulnerable, a little less superhuman and a little more capable of making mistakes, but the surrounding story just isn't as good. Last time we had a military sniper who had apparently killed 5 people, only Reacher believed it was a frame-up, because his ability to "read" the murder scene told him that a military man probably would have not fired from that location - so that set up a challenge to find the real hitman.
Here, it's another frame-up, only the person being framed is Major Susan Turner, Reacher's connection to his old military base, a woman who basically has his old job who he talks to on the phone between one covert action and the next. He slowly works his way back to Washington, presumably to ask her out, only to find out that she's in the brig. Then HE gets framed for something, so he's got to break himself out of custody, and her as well. Long story short, they go on the lam with a teen who MIGHT be Reacher's daughter, to figure out what's really going on here, and who's behind it all. No spoilers here, of course, but I'm left wondering if it was all really worth it in the end. Probably this could not have been resolved with a long court case, and that wouldn't have been very cinematic of course, but I'm not sure that what is essentially just an extended chase scene was the best way to go, either.
It's been a big week for private military contractors, obviously, since they were also seen in "13 Hours", but here they're almost interchangeable with professional assassins, and I have a feeling that's a gross generalization, and (one hopes) not a common occurence in real life. Am I right?
Part of the last half of this film is set in New Orleans on Halloween - which is weird for me because I was in New Orleans last year just before Halloween. Of course, we didn't realize that Halloween is like the 2nd biggest party day of the year there, after Mardi Gras, but something tells me that probably every holiday is like the 2nd biggest party day of the year there. I can believe what was seen in this film, with a packed crowd on Bourbon St., fireworks and a whole lot of drinking - that seems about right. And though we didn't fly into New Orleans International Airport, we did depart from it, and it IS that confusing. We went through the TSA check twice, because nobody told us that there was more than one terminal with a different security line for each one, and that we were standing in the wrong one. If we didn't have the SkyPass we would have missed our flight and been eliminated from the race at the next pit-stop.
For that matter, it's a convention typical to movies, but I'm still going to count it as a NITPICK POINT that three people just go to the airport, and get tickets on the NEXT available flight to New Orleans. Who does this? I buy plane tickets months in advance to get the best prices - though who knows, sometimes they go up at the last minute, but maybe if there are still seats available you can get them reasonably right before the flight? I can't live like that, I was brought up believing that if you wait until the last minute, you're going to pay top dollar. But OK, they were using stolen credit cards here, so maybe they didn't care about the cost. But to find a flight on no notice, with three seats available - no, wait, three seats TOGETHER at the last minute, uh uh, I'm not buying it. It would have killed the movie's momentum, but by all rights, they should have had to wait around in the airport for hours.
I've determined that Jack Reacher is like the Marshall Crenshaw of action heroes. If you know anything about 1980's music, Marshall Crenshaw came on the scene just a little bit too late, and rode that wave of post-MTV anti-heavy metal when people didn't know if the next big thing was going to be folk-soul or synth-punk as the 1980's turned into the 1990's. (It turned out to be boy bands and rap, but for a little while, nobody was sure.) So people thought maybe Marshall Crenshaw might be the next Elvis Costello, or even the next Joe Jackson, but after three albums the industry sort of decided that it just wasn't going to happen. He had a hit song in 1982 with "Someday, Someway" and I kind of liked his song "Cynical Girl" from the same album, but I regretted making his next two albums part of my music collection because there wasn't anything even close to a catchy song on either one.
After the first "Jack Reacher" film, I said that I was hoping for more installments in the franchise, but after this tepid chapter, I think I'm OK if they stop after two.
Also starring Tom Cruise (last seen in "The Mummy"), Cobie Smulders (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Aldis Hodge (last seen in "Hidden Figures"), Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger (last seen in "Black Swan"), Holt McCallany (last seen in "Alpha Dog"), Austin Hebert (last seen in "12 Strong"), Darcel White Moreno, Robert Catrini, Jessica Stroup, Madalyn Horcher, Teri Wyble, Lee Child, Michael Papajohn (last seen in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"), Jason Douglas, Judd Lormand.
RATING: 5 out of 10 flagged credit cards
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