Why Amazon's Reacher Series Struggles With Villains Compared to the Tom Cruise Movies

Casting the Titular Character: Cruise vs Ritchson

Amazon's Reacher might be a better adaptation of the books than the Tom Cruise movies, but they still beat the TV series in one area. Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels have been bestsellers for well over 20 years, but when it came to making a live-action adaptation, casting the titular character proved a tough challenge.

Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher Sitting in a Diner in Reacher Season 2

Reacher needs to be both keenly intelligent and built like The Incredible Hulk, and the pool of actors who can play both is real shallow. Ultimately, producers opted for star power instead and cast Tom Cruise for the 2012 movie. The Jack Reacher movies brought the character to a wider audience and only boosted the success of the novels.

Alan Richtson as Jack Reacher, Serinda Swan as Dixon, Shaun Sipos as O'Donnell, Dean McKenzie as Lowrey in Reacher season 2

However, Cruise never felt right for the role, with Amazon later recasting Alan Ritchson as Reacher in their series. The TV adaptation has proven incredibly popular, capturing the pulpy tone of the source material while organically expanding on them. Reacher season 3 has already been greenlit, and given that there are nearly 30 novels to choose from, the show won't run short of material for some time to come.

Jack Reacher (Alan Richtson) in Reacher season 2-3

Amazon's Reacher Lacks The Great Villain The First Cruise Movie Had

The show has yet to feature a truly memorable foe like The Zec. Reacher is essentially an unstoppable force of nature, which makes it tough to craft credible villains for him to fight. Child rarely pretends his hero is in any real danger, which is part of the fun of the books and the live-action Reacher adaptations. That said, both seasons of Amazon's Reacher have suffered from a lack of strong villains. The Kliners from season 1 or Robert Patrick's Langston and Ferdinand Kingsley's AM from the second season might be unlikeable and ruthless, but they're not very memorable either.

Ferdinand Kingsley as A.M. burning a passport in Reacher season 2

Reacher's lack of great villains is in contrast to Werner Herzong's Zec from Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher. Herzog is an iconic director and occasional actor, but while he doesn't have much screentime as The Zec, he's a truly menacing foe. He's introduced with a harrowing monologue about the lengths he went through to survive a gulag, and while The Zec may not be a physical threat to Reacher, his intelligence and ruthlessness make him a compelling antagonist. Of course, Herzog's performance is part of what made the character so chilling.

Werner Herzog playing The Zec in Jack Reacher 2012

Why Reacher Is Struggling With Its Bad Guys

The show doesn't seem interested in developing Reacher's antagonists. Child created an addictive formula for his Jack Reacher stories, and he knows that readers know the character will always triumph. That's why it tends not to spend much time crafting complex villains or trying to mislead readers into thinking Reacher could die. This is an issue with Reacher since the lack of development for the villains makes them hard to view as genuine threats. Chris Webster's Kliner from the first series was a smarmy antagonist who was easy to hate, but he had little dimension outside of just being evil.

Maria Sten as Neagley and Alan Richtson as Jack Reacher in Reacher season 2

The same is true of both Langston and AM in season 2, which adapts Bad Luck and Trouble. All audiences know about either is that they're ruthless killers and are motivated solely by money. This lean approach to character development works on the page, but when it comes to the series, it makes Reacher's villains feel like afterthoughts. Robert Patrick is a great actor, but Langston is a one-note bad guy who gives him little to work with. Even Patrick's T-1000 from Terminator 2 - a literal machine with a single-minded purpose - feels like he has more going on beneath the surface than Langston does. Cruise's Jack Reacher showed it's entirely possible to give the titular avenger a credible antagonist to overcome, but Amazon's series seems uninterested in giving its villains any real nuance. They exist merely to give Reacher something to punch/kill, which makes them feel somewhat hollow.

Robert Patrick as Shane Langston talking on the phone in Reacher season 2

Reacher Season 3 Can Fix Its Villain Issue

The next series should give Reacher a powerful foe. Reacher season 3 has already started filming, though it is unknown which novel it will adapt. The next series will likely break away from the formula of the first two seasons too, where Reacher is avenging the death of someone he cares about. The showrunners need to give Reacher a powerful villain to overcome and spend time giving them some dimensions outside of being nasty. The likes of Hook Hobie from Tripwire or human traffickers the Duncans from Worth Dying For are considered the best villains Reacher battled in Child's books, and they would make great foes for the next series. Again, it might be a given the hero will win, but season 3 should still give Jack a harder challenge to overcome. Herzog's The Zec set a high bar for Reacher villains - but that doesn't mean the show shouldn't even try to match him either.