Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.........really ?

So I must have missed this hoopla when it first was announced about a year ago but a major motion picture is finally going to be made from an adaptation of one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, Jack Reacher is a 40 something former marine officer who drifts around and inevitably gets involved in situations where he has to wrong some injustice, generally with a significant body count involved in the process. The books are much better than they should be because Child is a solid craftsman and the Reacher character is a classic, the lonewolf anti-hero, slow to act but invincible when he does take action, and usually short on both words and emotions but with a fixed moral compass that will not waver .

One of the real distinguishing features of Reacher is his size, he is a man mountain, 6 foot 5 inches tall and generally weighing in between 225-250 pounds with a fifty inch chest, he breaks bones with one hand and can endure all manners of physical abuse. Reacher's size and strength come into play in every one of the sixteen Reacher novels, they are one of the things that define the character and make him different. Naturally after ten plus years of negotiating to get a Reacher film made the obvious choice to play Reacher is ............Tom Cruise.

Seriously ?

Seriously, Tom Cruise, all five foot seven inch grinning, winking, shorter than his soon to be ex wife, frat boy charm Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher ???

Now don't get me wrong, I admire Tom Cruise as an actor, he has pushed limits on occasions, and made bold choices with films, I personally think he should have won the Best Actor Oscar for Rain Man rather than Dustin Hoffman. I also understand that he may be the single most bankable male star in the film industry, maybe Will Smith might challenge, and actually Will Smith would've been a really cool choice to play Jack Reacher but that's another story.

There are many lively internet discussions regarding better casting choices, Ray Stevenson, who played The Punisher and was brilliant in Rome is a frequent suggestion or something along the lines of Alexander Skarsgard after a year in the gym .  Lee Childs is enthusiastic about his support of the casting, and since the movie's profitability is important to Childs we can sympathize, but regardless of what this movie ends up being, and regardless of the title, it won't feature Jack Reacher .