Jack Reacher is an ideal action-hero name, following the punchy one-syllable-first-name/two-syllable-last-name rhythm of Stallone’s John Rambo and John Spartan, Schwarzenegger’s Jack Slater and John Matrix, and Van Damme’s Chance Boudreaux. (Get your own action name here!) Yet while Cruise’s character’s name itself works rhythmically, the filmmakers missed a major opportunity to have the name work literally as well. His name is Jack Reacher — he should be reaching for things, constantly. And not just any things: just things with “jack” in its name. So we envisioned the Jack Reacher that Mama Reacher hoped for when she christened him. If Cruise truly wants to be the biggest action hero of the next millennium, he’d be wise to start adopting some of the following jack-reaching scenarios for Jack “The Jack-Reacher” Reacher.
Werner Herzog drives off in a very German car. Jack Reacher finds a beat-up Dodge Charger and is ready to chase him down. Just one problem: The car has a flat! Jack Reacher knows what he must do: Using his trusted Jack Reacher jack-reacher, he reaches for a jack.
It’s Halloween in Reacherville (in our movies, that’s the name of the town), kids are trick-or-treating, and Jack Reacher is waiting for his next jack to reach. He hears screams from the street. An evil pumpkin has come to life to terrorize the town. Everyone knows the only thing that can stop a pumpkin is another pumpkin; however, the town’s jack-o’-lantern is on too high of a shelf and all the town’s ladders were destroyed after a plot by a local escalator tycoon. Jack Reacher knows what he must do: Using his trusted Jack Reacher jack-reacher, he reaches for the jack-o’-lantern.
All this jack-reaching has really put a strain on ol’ Jack Reacher, so he hits the bottle, specifically the Jack Daniels bottle. Jack Reacher falls down a Jack spiral. That is until Werner Herzog is back and ready to do bad/German stuff again. Jack Reacher knows what he must do: Using his trusted Jack Reacher jack-reacher, he must reach for the Jack bottles in order to put them on an impossibly high shelf, so he can fight his German villain sober.
Jack Reacher reaches for his telephone (using his jack-reacher, natch). It’s the police chief of Reachertown (it’s called Reachertown, now), telling Jack Reacher about a young boy who is aging much too fast and terrorizing the city. This boy, Jack, has the morality of a toddler but the strength and talking velocity of a young Robin Williams. Jack Reacher knows what he must do: Using his trusted Jack Reacher jack-reacher, he reaches for Jack’s inner child, by giving him the jack-reacher as a toy.
Werner Herzog has placed hundreds of (German) nuclear games of jacks all around Reacherville (they switched back). The hero, Jack Reacher, is lost without his jack-reacher, but realizes he must prevent the city from exploding using the original jack-reacher, his left hand. At this point in the franchise, this return to low-tech, old-school reaching methods will appeal to audiences in the same way that Skyfall did.
And here are a few more Jack Reacher jack-reaching photos, for you to come up with your own jack-reaching scenarios.
