Director Edward (“Glory”) Zwick has done the near impossible, delivering a Jack Reacher sequel – “Never Go Back” – that is better than the original film. Based on novelist Lee Childs’ best-selling novels, the Jack Reacher movies feature a well-cast Tom Cruise as a former United States army major who personally secedes from the USM for reasons that remain murky (part of the creative tension of Childs’ stories). In the novels, as in the films, Reacher roams the United States as a semi-nomadic do-gooder with military skillz, challenging political corruption and local injustice whenever he hitchhikes into town. (See the first five minutes of “Never Go Back,” in which Reacher/Cruise sticks it to a corrupt local constabulary as only he can.)

On to the main event. “Never Go Back” features a plot line that could have been ripped from the front page headlines of any U.S. newspaper, assuming that corporate commercial “news” outlets (and I use the term loosely) like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal actually produce much in the way of critical investigative reporting. Here’s the deal. Rogue elements within the U.S. military team up with a for-profit mercenary corporation and set up an Afghan/American delivery pipeline to illegally sell weapons and opium and make obscene amounts of money at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. In so doing, they further U.S. foreign policy of “full spectrum dominance” (a term coined by the Pentagon, which burns 1 million barrels of oil daily to maintain the U.S.A.’s global “Empire of Bases” around the world) by leveraging some of the money and weapons to fund and arm “insurgents” (read “terrorists”) to help carry out U.S. imperial bidding. Can you say Osama Bin laden and Al-Qaeda? (I knew you could). “We left enough weapons over there to start another war,” boasts one character in the new Reacher film. Can you say “Iraq and ISIS – Art mirroring Life? (I knew you could).

All this alone would make this Zwick’ian production a solid B effort – the usual spycraft, chase scenes, and bone-crunching fight sequences are engaging enough. But “Never Go Back” takes on more compelling dimensions with the introduction of two powerful female characters. The first is Major Turner (played by the lovely and talented Cobie Smulders), a non-nonsense careerist/soldier who maintains a long-distance and occasional potentially romantic relationship with Reacher. When the two plan a rendezvous in D.C., things quickly go south – see plot summary above – but in an unusual Hollywood turn, sparks and one liners fly between these two characters throughout the film without so much as a kiss being exchanged. Wonderful to watch, and refreshing. The other character is a teenage girl (Danika Yarosh, compelling in her first major Hollywood role) alleged to be fathered by Reacher, who quickly complicates his life by leaping into the middle of the action.

How events play out I leave for you to enjoy. Suffice to say that “Jack Reacher – Never Go Back” proved to be a pleasant surprise for the autumn season after a sleepy summer, as well as a surprisingly accurate “take” on the corruption and violence that plague the real U.S. of Empire as we move into a 21^st century Age of Limits.