Tag Archives: jack reacher

A Movie Observation – Older Men and Younger Women

Hey 3.5 readers.

I’ve seen three movies this week.

I know. I have no life.

But here’s what I noticed:

The Accountant – Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick – not sure of the age difference, Anna is in her thirties and Ben’s in his forties so I’ll guess maybe ten years or so.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – Cobie Smulders is in her thirties. Tom Cruise is in his fifties.

Inferno – Tom Cruise is sixty and Felicity Jones is in her early thirties.

Older men. Younger women.

I’ll say from the outset, in all three of these movies, the men and the women don’t boink.

Oh sorry. SPOILER ALERT- they don’t boink.  Sorry, I ruined it if you were hoping they’d boink.

There’s some minor flirting between Cobie and Tom, a suggestion maybe they’d hook up in a relationship if their lives weren’t so chaotic.

Ben’s character is autistic and troubled and probably wouldn’t know what to do with a woman though he finds some happiness just from talking to and opening up to Anna’s character.

Robert Langdon and Dr. Sienna Brooks have nothing more than a professional relationship. He’s a professor in trouble and she’s a doctor who decides to save him. There’s no love interest and SPOILER ALERT Langdon pines, in a first for Hollywood, for a woman his own age.

But its something I noticed just because it happened in three movies in a row.  Maybe its something. Maybe its nothing.

These movies probably aren’t even good subjects for the conversation since the men and the women only work together.

But it led me to a question – does art imitate life? Does life imitate art?

I’m speaking generally here but here’s my understanding of men and women:

  • Men seek pretty women because they make them feel important and powerful, life if they walk into a room with a hot babe on their arm them everyone must think that dude is awesome because he has snagged a hot babe.
  • Women aren’t slouches when it comes to wanting a hot dude but they also want a rich, successful dude.
  • Attractiveness is a young person’s game and success takes so much time that it is an old person’s game, ergo, you end up seeing a lot of older men with younger women on screen because Hollywood suits decide this is what people want. The older, successful men want that arm candy. The women want a man that doesn’t live with his mother and can pick up a check.

Am I right?  Am I wrong?

I don’t know.

I could be reading too much into it.

Much of it also involves the plot.

For example (just assume SPOILERS for all three movies and don’t read on if you don’t want them spoiled) in the Accountant, Anna plays a junior accountant who finds a discrepancy in the books that leads to a major conspiracy being uncovered.

So in that case, Ben as the more experienced accountant (and professional assassin in his spare time) has to help the younger accountant out of the jam she finds herself in.

OK.  It fits the plot.

And then in Jack Reacher you have a female Navy Major Turner who’s been through some shit and the ex-military policeman Jack who has been through some shit and if you don’t factor in their ages and consider that Tom is better preserved that most fifty year olds so perhaps he’s playing a younger character…yeah ok, the idea of those two ending up together isn’t that out of the ordinary.

And as previously mentioned, Langdon, like Hanks, is, well its rude to say old but older and Dr. Sienna is younger but the idea of a romance is never broached so I suppose if you start making rules then you could never have a movie where an older and a younger person team up against evil.

I have no idea where I’m going with this other than I wonder if I’m right or wrong – do women prefer old men who are successful and are willing to over look their saggy, wrinkly balls as long as they are loaded?

Do men prefer attractive women as long as they…nah I’m not going to finish that question we know the answer.

But I’d again reiterate I don’t think there’s a plethora of women out there who prefer ugly men and I should know because I am super ugly and I don’t think that I’d suddenly get a lot of babes if I were to become super rich and super successful because the women wouldn’t be able to get over my ugliness.

Oh and also Video Game Rack Fighter has sunk her hooks into me and she is a keeper as she ignores my ugliness and lack of success.

Discuss, 3.5 readers.

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Movie Review – Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

So a hot babe and a short man walk into a bar…

BQB here with a review of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

Author Lee Child has a loyal following for his Jack Reacher novels which chronicle the life of an ex-Military Police officer as he wanders the earth and solves mysteries, beats up bad guys, and rattles off quips and one-liners.

I’ve never read them but people who have tell me they’re excellent.  A few told me that when the 2012 Jack Reacher film came out, their main disappointment was that Tom “Shortest Man in Hollywood” Cruise was cast to play a man who, according to the books, is nearly seven feet tall and all muscle.

And just throwing it out there – there probably aren’t a whole helluvalot of parts out there for an aspiring actor who is close to seven feet tall so the Cruise Missile probably could have allowed some exceptionally tall actor to have this one but oh well.

My take on the first Jack Reacher film is about the same as this one – there’s lots of action that you can eat your popcorn to but then there’s also a lot of snore worthy information being thrown out you to the point where it feels like you’re watching an extended Law and Order episode.

Like most mystery movies, I, at some point, just start nodding at the screen. “Yup. Uh huh. So and so worked here, now he does this, and he was seen there and he transferred some money and a witness said this so uh huh…yeah…no please don’t draw it out any longer I’ll just take your word for it that he’s the bad guy because I am too busy to get a notebook and a pen and sketch this all out in a diagram.”

Cobie Smulders, as her name suggests, is smolderingly hot.  I’ve always liked her as an actress, going back to her How I Met Your Mother days.

Like her character Robin in that show, she seems intelligent and hot, a babe who has read a book or two.

Jack Reacher as a movie character is hard to pin down.  Is he the American anti-Bond?  He has little patience and does not suffer fools lightly so he does a lot of fighting and insulting but not much charming or beguiling.

Cruise is OK in the role if you can get over his lack of height.  At times, you lose track of the fact that Cobie and Cruise are supposed to be romantically interested in one another because it looks more like a hot chick is being forced to drag around her elderly yet well preserved due to Scientology alien worship uncle.

I won’t give away the plot, mostly because I can’t because I never did draw that diagram, but basically Cobie’s character, Major Turner, is framed for espionage by bad dudes doing bad things and it is up to Reacher to clear her good name.

Together, they go on the run and along the way, they rescue Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who may or may not be Jack’s daughter because Jack may or may not have banged her mother because Jack bangs a lot of chicks and doesn’t remember their names or anything.

So he is the American Bond!

There are some plot holes and questionable choices. Case in point – when Turner and Reacher are on the lam, Turner talks a cabbie into giving her his baseball cap.

From thereon, Turner wears the hat around town as if the hat provides her with some kind of cover but she’s still a hot chick with big boobs wearing military fatigues and the bad guys are aware that they’re supposed to be looking for a hot chick with big boobs in military fatigues so…I’m not sure the hat did her much good but oh well. She tried.

I’m happy for the Cobe-ster. She’s been plugging away at the Hollywood game a long time and though she has had a supporting role in The Avengers movies for awhile, this is her first lead role in a major film and hopefully we’ll see her in more.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but more of a rental.

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