Alan Ritchson’s Sci-Fi Action Movie Is So Good, A Sequel Is Already Confirmed

The news that Reacher star Alan Ritchson’s Netflix movie is soon to receive a sequel proves that the original is better than many of its detractors claimed. Reacher’s leading man, Alan Ritchson, has been around a lot longer than readers might assume. It was playing Thad in the cult comedy series Blue Mountain State in 2010 and reprising the role in 2016’s feature-length movie spinoff, Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland, that made him a breakout star.

However, a decade earlier, Ritchson appeared alongside future Tracker star Justin Hartley in Smallville, playing Aquaman in a handful of episodes of the superhero soap opera. After Thad made him a known entity, guest appearances in everything from New Girl to Black Mirror to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Legends of Tomorrow followed. This eventually led to Prime Video casting Ritchson as Lee Child’s hulking soldier of fortune, Reacher, in the action thriller of the same name, catapulting the screen veteran to the Hollywood A-list.

As Reacher season 4’s arrival nears, Ritchson has become a major mainstream star thanks to the show’s outsized popularity. However, the financial failures of his 2024 drama Ordinary Angels and director Guy Ritchie’s war movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare prove that this streaming success has not yet translated to movie stardom. Luckily, the news that Netflix’s sci-fi thriller War Machine will earn a sequel soon proves that Ritchson’s leading-man potential can apply to feature films, too.

War Machine Perfectly Encapsulates Alan Ritchson’s Leading Man Appeal

War Machine focuses on Ritchson’s unnamed Staff Sergeant, known only as 81, as he attempts to complete an intense training exercise in the remote wilderness. A military veteran, 81 struggles with PTSD from previous combat experience and has a hard time connecting with the rest of his brothers in arms before the group stumbles across an alien spacecraft in the isolated woodland.

When this titular war machine bloody massacres many of the troops, 81 realizes this is a real life or death test of his skills and not merely a standard issue war game. Brutal, fast-paced, and unafraid to get nastier than many movies in its genre, Netflix’s hit War Machine is an effective blend of The Terminator and Predator that relies heavily on Ritchson’s gruff charisma in the lead role.

Since viewers spend large stretches of the movie alone with 81 in the empty wilderness, War Machine is arguably an even better test of the star’s screen presence than the first three seasons of Reacher. Fortunately, Ritchson proves to be more than up to the challenge as he offers a compelling, nuanced portrayal of a man pushed to his limits by an impossible sci-fi nightmare.

War Machine’s Netflix Sequel Proves Ritchson Is More Than Just Reacher

Although the next outing of Reacher is hotly anticipated, there is a limit to what Ritchson can do with the iconic Child character. Canonically, Reacher is unable to feel fear, and this explains how the highly skilled drifter manages to MacGyver his way out of certain death so often throughout the show. However, this also means he isn’t all that relatable.

The same skills and outlook that make Ritchson’s Reacher such an unflappably cool protagonist ensure that he isn’t a character viewers fear for or worry about. Reacher is almost as unstoppable as James Bond or any given superhero, whereas War Machine’s 81 is very much a mortal man who is appropriately terrified by the arrival of an alien spaceship during a training exercise.

Thus, the movie’s sequel could give Ritchson a chance to prove that he is more than just Reacher while still allowing the actor to operate in his strongest genre, R-rated action thrillers. Thus, the Reacher star’s Netflix franchise allows War Machine’s sequel to show a new side of him.