JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT 2.5***

 

    The Jack Ryan character in this movie has little to do with the Jack Ryan depicted in the Tom Clancy novels. In the books and the other movies,  Ryan is a CIA analyst who ends  up having to do some dangerous field work. In this movie, they try to  make him a Jason Bourne wannabe, which doesn't make much sense keeping in mind Ryan's lack of experience doing such dangerous field work.  

 

Here Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) is a student in London who, after witnessing the news of 9/11, enlists in the U.S. Marines. During one mission, his helicopter gets shot down and he gets badly injured. While he's in rehabilitation, he meets the movie's generic love interest, Doctor Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), and CIA agent Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner). Harper is amazed by Ryan analytical skills and enlists him into the CIA. Ryan starts working undercover on Wall Street looking for signs of terrorism.  He eventually  finds out about a villainous Russian, Viktor Chereving (Kenneth Branagh), who plans to destroy the U.S. economy following a disastrous 9/11 type terrorist attack. For this first movie, the filmmakers decided to try to tell the “how he got to be” story of Ryan.  As with most movies of this type, the primary problems  come down to the script. It’s just we've seen most of this stuff before, and done much better.

 

Chris Pine playing himself for the umpteenth time actually makes for a pretty good Jack Ryan, and Kenneth Branagh is convincing as the Russian Villain and also does a competent job of directing a rather generic action movie. K Knightly and K Costner are okay for what they have to work with.

 

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit ends up being a somewhat lame excuse of a reboot that will end up in the Walmart discount bins a few months after being released . Might be worth to checking  out on TV only if for free or a few dollars just for some good action.

 

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and intense action, and brief strong language.

 

Clark