Why Jack Reacher is the American James Bond We Need Right Now
To be fair, Alan Ritchson still had some praise for the character of James Bond, saying that he loves the way the classic pop culture figure can “play 4D chess and stay ahead of us and save the world.” Still, he thinks Jack Reacher is a little more human and fleshed out than the cool, collected James Bond — in that Jack isn’t as cool as Bond, and that’s what really makes the character work.
Jack Reacher: A New American Hero
“Reacher, to me, is like the American Bond, and I think it’s a cool way to go about doing it where it’s a little less purposefully cool,” Ritchson told the outlet. “He’s not in on how slick he is. I don’t feel like we can have characters these days that are in on the joke.”
The Uniqueness of Jack Reacher
As Ritchson put it, Jack’s lack of self-awareness is what makes him such a great character: “Either they know that they’re funny, they know that they’re smart, they know that they’re very cool or capable or invincible — I feel like it reduces the stakes of stories, and we’ve seen too many movies, we’re too savvy as an audience to be entertained by that.”