(EW.com) -- In the popular Lee Child thrillers from which "Jack Reacher" has been fashioned, the title character's physical dimensions are integral to his mysterious-loner-silent-drifter-violent-hero stature: He's 6' 5'', brawny, and blond. So Tom Cruise, who is not, has his work cut out for him in his mission to impress both those who already have strong notions about how Reacher ought to look and those just now meeting the freelance one-man justice league and trying to take his measure. That Cruise fails to make a case for Reacher's allure, though, has less to do with physical dissonance than it does with the film's inability — stupefying inability, really — to otherwise make a case for the character's originality in a movie so choked with visual clichés and dreadfully moldy dialogue. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie (who previously worked with Cruise on "Valkyrie"), "Jack Reacher" stumbles around looking for a unifying narrative tone, while the star soldiers on, offering up his generic action-hero stance of calm, opaque concentration. (An obligatory shirtless shot of Cruise confirms that his famous discipline in all things physical and mental still pays off.)
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"Jack Reacher" is based on the popular Lee Child thrillers
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The star, Tom Cruise, does not resemble the character's description
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EW gives it a grade of C+
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