First Trailer for JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK Starring Tom Cruise

I feel like part of a small community that actually enjoyed Tom Cruise's 2012 adaptation of the Lee Childs' character that has allowed the author to sell some hundred million copies worldwide. Of course, this isn't really true as the film stills sits at a (barely) fresh rating of 62% on Rotten Tomatoes and clearly made enough of a profit ($218 million worldwide on a $60 million budget) to warrant a sequel, but still-when compared to the likes of Mission Impossible, Jack Reacher feels somewhat small. Though there was some controversy over Cruise being cast in the role in the first place it felt like the 5'7' actor (the Reacher of Childs' books is described as being 6'5') more or less pulled it off in writer/director Christopher McQuarrie's original film. With McQuarrie taking the reigns on the fifth Mission Impossible film after having worked with Cruise on Reacher and now hard at work on the sixth installment, Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, Defiance) stepped in to to fill the role of director while the sequel script comes from an early draft by Richard Wenk (The Equalizer) with a re-write by Zwick collaborator Marshall Herskovitz. This time around the story is said to follow Reacher as he returns to the headquarters of his old unit to find out he's been accused of a sixteen year-old homicide. Though this is part of the plot in the Childs' novel it doesn't seem to be the main narrative the trailer is promoting as the inclusion of Cobie Smulders as a new commanding officer in the military police takes precedence. Smulders plays Major Susan Turner who has been arrested and seemingly framed for espionage which more or less sets Reacher on an adventure to prove her innocence. While there isn't much context to these events or hint of the subplot from the novel being included it does seem as if Zwick latched on to the no holds barred style of old school actioners McQuarrie set in the first film. Let's just hope he keeps the action precise and the detective work heavy as this was my favorite aspect of the original in that it separated Reacher from his contemporaries like Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back also stars Robert Knepper, Aldis Hodge, Holt McCallany, Patrick Heusinger, Jason Douglas, and opens on October 21st, 2016.