Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was a been there, done that experience in terms of the story structure. The film lost me in the beginning when it haphazardly put together a motivation for Ryan, played by the always charismatic Chris Pine, to join the military after the events of September 11th. It all came together too fast, and before you know it Kevin Costner shows up, playing Thomas Harper, a cover CIA operative who wants to recruit Ryan to be a financial analyst for them on Wall Street.
Bottom line, it just didn’t work from the get-go with the believability factor. There needed be further development of what really drove Ryan to want to not just become a Marine, but also why the CIA fixated on him for recruitment. Perhaps that’s an issue with the film’s relatively short running time of 105 minutes. Maybe Director Kenneth Branagh felt studio pressure to cut down on character development, who knows? Additionally, the story itself felt all too familiar in terms of putting Russia against the US, along with setting the film’s ending in New York City– a place that’s been featured in far too many action films. It would have been a nice change of pace, and visual aesthetic to set the conclusion to the film in another major city we all haven’t seen much of in the movies. That would have gone a long way to making the ending feel refreshing versus giving audiences a case of deja vu.
That being said, it wouldn’t be fair for me to not mention the positives of this reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise. Number one, Chris Pine plays a convincing hero in this. He has the charm, the looks, and the wit needed to make you root for him as a leading action hero. I was a little concerned going in that all I’d be seeing out of him was another rendition of Captain Kirk, but he had enough nuance and subtlety brought to bare in this role that I wasn’t having flashbacks to his last two Star Trek films. And with that, I hope he gets to continue in this part, along with getting a stronger, more original storyline for the next entry in this series. Kudos should also be given to Kenneth Branagh’s villainous role of Viktor Cherevin. He played a very effective, and not to be messed with Russian character. Additionally, some of the dialogue he had between himself and Pine was fun, and almost felt like this could have been a spin-off James Bond film with Felix Leiter going toe to toe with a 007 bad guy. So there was some definite good, peppy moments, more specifically towards the middle of the film that really worked. As far as the lead love interest, played by Keira Knightley, although she had good chemistry with Pine I think the entire set-up of her ending up in Moscow, thrusted into the chaos during a key dinner sequence was a bit much. That goes back to my gripe of this film lacking a lot in the believability department.
In the end, the scenes set in Moscow, in act two of the film were fairly decent, but the beginning, and the end of this movie needed some rewrites. Perhaps Paramount Pictures pushed the release of this back because they had concerns of their own? That’s something we won’t know for a long time, but make no mistake, if this makes enough money, that may finally pave the way for a film adaption of one of the late John Clancy’s most famous novels, Without Remorse. So if nothing else, we all may have something to really look forward to if this series continues, but for now, it was a lukewarm time at the movies. Thanks for reading!
2 1/2 out of 4 stars
Leave Us Your Comments.