NEVER GO BACK? NEVER SAY NEVER

running and started hunting.”

Turner keeps up with him every step of the way — the two skip past the romantictension stage of their relationship and go straight to old-married-couple-bickering — while Samantha proves the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree by providing them with stolen credit cards and a bit of 11th-hour bad-ass-ery.

These are standard movie tropes, it’s true, but Never Go Back is notable for the clichés it manages to swerve to avoid at the last second: a fight in a restaurant kitchen that involves neither a frying pan nor a pot of scalding water; a chase through a New Orleans parade that is not Mardi Gras; and one of the few Cruise movies in which he does not ride a motorcycle. (Honestly, even in the far future he’s on a Honda.)

The film is kitted out with a variety of respectable second strings, including Robert Knepper as a grumpy general; Madalyn Horcher as Sgt. Leach, Reacher’s unexpected ally on the inside; Aldis Hodge as Espin, who has a grudge against Reacher but is also on the level; and Patrick Heusinger, pictured at right, as Nameless, Unstoppable Killer.

All are there in aid of Cruise, who naturally has a producing credit as well as his starring role. But where the first Reacher was a plodding mess (even Werner Herzog as the villain couldn’t save it), this new one feels fresher and moves faster. And since both are based on the Jack Reacher novels of British author Lee Child — now at 20 and counting — there is plenty of room to continue. Never go back? Never say never. ΩΩΩ