inframan

I always thought the Reacher novels were kind of perfunctory. The kind of book you read in a waiting room or on a very short flight. I never thought a video or film version would seem even more lightweight and artificial. But here we are and I admit to having been proven wrong. What makes the series interesting (sort of, for an episode or so) is that the whole thing seems like an exercise in AI. Very basic AI. Plots, if you can call them that, are minimal. Characterizations even more so. The dialog is predictable and the characterizations shallow. No hard work here on guessing what's going on or where we are going. Mostly the people around Reacher seem to exist to tell him what a great guy he is. Then there is Reacher himself. The guy playing him looks like an animated action figure, created by an advanced 3D printer, right down to the one expression on his face.

I give it an extra star because it reminds me of my old Rock-em Sock-em robot game.

Two episodes in, but what a soap opera. There is no question Cate Blanchett is a remarkable actress and her fragile beauty is breathtaking. Here she does all the right moves and puts on all the appropriate facial and physical expressions, but in this venue I suspect an AI bot could have done as well. On top of which, as others have mentioned, her character is played by an entirely different (but less talented) actress in scenes taking place circa 20 years earlier. Yet her substitute looks no younger.

Opening scenes on a train and in Venice, also as mentioned by others, are superfluous and performed in an embarrassingly amateurish way. Kevin Kline and Leslie Manville are pros at what they do but totally wasted here.

All in all, what a mess, at least so far. Sorry, but I give up.