Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Jack Ryan: nine novels (15 if you include the Jack Ryan Jr series), five films, four lead actors (Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck & now Chris Pine) and two reboots. Tom Clancy's best-known character has endured and enjoyed a varied existence to say the least.

Intended as the second reimagining, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, is more a rebirth of the Marine turned CIA agent turned world-saving, death-defying, awe-inspiring, all American hero. Forget the books, ignore the timeline, disengage the brain, abandon reason, slice the pizza, sip the beer and settle down for a mindless romp. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is predictable fun with barely a toe in the world of reality but it is fun just as long as you forget to think.

Jack Ryan (Pine) is a student at the London School of Economics when terrorists fly two aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre towers. 9/11 prompts Ryan to make a career about-turn and join the Marines. Fast forward a few years and Ryan is undergoing intense rehab in a military hospital having barely survived after a chopper he was aboard was shot down in Afghanistan. Ryan is firstly observed and then recruited by the shadowy Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) as a desk-bound CIA analyst, but a trip to Russia to investigate the nefarious financial dealings of Viktor Cheverin (Kenneth Branagh) elevates Ryan very swiftly to role of field agent, and an action man is (re)born.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is neither as loud nor as brainless as last year's White-House-under-attack double act of White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen but it is about as much fun and has at least as many plot holes. The entire finale comes about as a result of a catalogue of unrealistically simple contrivances and there is no reason to have Ryan's girlfriend, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightly), anywhere near Moscow other than to sex up the film and redress the situation of the underused Anne Archer from the Harrison Ford years.

There are no prizes for acting here. Pine may have found franchise work for the next few years but Costner, Knightly and Branagh are here for the light relief and the easy pay cheques. Let's just hope that for each of them this is merely a short break from the superior work of which they are all capable.

Branagh, on double duties as actor/director, will have done himself a lot of favours here with the money men at the studios and it further cements his position as a gun for hire in Hollywood, but all these popcorn flicks he's turning out for the studios take him further away from shooting another series of Wallander for the BBC. And I for one am not happy about that.

It must be possible to make a thriller that is exciting, suspenseful, vaguely realistic and intelligent, but Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn't it. 'Fun' is fine but it isn't memorable or satisfying. Less a case of 'could do better', more a case of 'has been better.'

For more reviews from The Squiss, subscribe to my blog and like the Facebook page.

Fmovies: All in all, the story line, chronology, acting etc in this movie are okay, but too cliché as most scenes are predictable. Keira Knightley does not portray a natural chemistry in her role as a girlfriend or mission assistant. I find the awkwardness of her scenes has drowned the tension & intensiveness of the movie.

At a positive view, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) did a pretty good job. His cool, humorous kind of charisma paid off in this movie. There were some scenes where I actually felt funny & LOL.

My initial vote for this movie was '5' & he is the reason why I added '1' more vote.

I am not the most discriminating of action film viewers, avid reader of Clancy and his designated batters and thought Chris Pine did a wonderful job on the Star Trek films.

That said, this film was a load of rubbish....one of the few times that I seriously considered walking out mid-film.

The reasons: 1. Acting was wooden across the board and the selection of Keira Knightly as Dr. Cathy Ryan was abysmally bad;

2. Plot (contrary to some of the views I read) was non-existent and farcical. Unlike a good Clancy novel, no basis in reality;

3. There is one scene that is particularly ridiculous. All I will ask an intelligent viewer, do you ever think a Russian oligarch worth billions would seriously consider going out to dinner with a compliance officer.

I would seriously not bother going to see this film or even bother it renting it. In short, even if someone gave me free tickets with dinner included, I would now pass on the "opportunity."

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit fmovies. I've been a Tom Clancy fan for a long time. Loved the Hunt for Red October and Ford movies. This was just awful. I'm the type of person that has to finish what I've started so to turn off a movie means it was really bad.

This reboot feels like a knockoff similar to A Good Day To Die Hard. Both have chase scenes in Moscow and both were made relatively cheaply, well this one even more so. What disappointed me most was the attention to detail that Clancy was always famous for. A great deal is smoothed over to forward the plot in it's brisk pace. Previous Ryan films were capable of bringing depth to the peril and stakes as the players made their moves. Where previous Ryan films had large political stakes that brought real tension, the stakes here seem to be more economic than fear for great loss and limb, although the third act implies some mayhem. In general you can't really compare this cheap knockoff to a minor tent pole film that has a big enough budget to have a larger scope and sexier action scenes. The car chase is too generic in jump camera shots, etc. to feel much tension. But other spy thriller moments do thrill, so I will give this film enough credit to deliver on some of the goods. Another unflattering comparison is the Bourne Legacy reboot. It also suffered from lack of budget for a decent action punch.

Pine as Ryan is less inspired for me. Perhaps because his face has been seen quite a bit lately, or his characterisation has less depth. Same goes for the mentor character played by Kevin Costner. There is too little meat to chew on. A better move would have added a few more wrinkles (not necessarily plot twists), such as more than just a few shots of the terrorism plot brewing in the United States. I would support a sequel to this reboot if a better budget with some more meat pieces, and a story that is fleshed out better. I believe director Branagh is a capable but not exceptional director, and some scenes slightly miss the mark. The overall slick look that is also a trademark to Ryan films is missing here, although the production design is not lacking. My final analysis is that this is a film not based on a Tom Clancy novel that is an average of 900 pages of background, substance, and real drama. That lack of depth makes this thriller too transparent.

In 2002 the underwhelming The Sum of All Fears - with Ben Affleck in the lead role - put the Ryan franchise in the morgue. 12 years on and the famous CIA analyst is back on the big screen with a brand new story and a fresh face. Perhaps they should've waited another dozen years, as this reboot is utterly forgettable and offers nothing in the way of originality or inventiveness. The action has no pulse, the plot is straight out of 1980 and there's no thriller element to keep you guessing as the "Trust No One" tagline on the poster would suggest; which is all a shock when you consider Kenneth Branagh was at the helm and his last effort Thor, was such a gleefully entertaining motion picture. It also doesn't help that the latest incarnation of Jack Ryan, as portrayed by Chris Pine, has about as much charisma as a tree. Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner and Branagh are serviceable as love interest, mentor and villain respectively, however there's little any of them can do to boost the excitement levels. It's not a bad movie per se, just a run- of-the-mill affair you'll struggle to remember after the end credits.