Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

consp77 on 2/2/2014 Reply  ·  Like  ·  (0 likes)

1. How does a charisma-less actor such as Chris Pine inherit the mantle of not only the (AWFUL) Star Trek reboot, but the Jack Ryan reboot as well? 2. Ryan and Cathy go from meeting each other in the hospital (not even made into a "meet-cute") and then go on to live together in the course of a few minutes? We have no appreciation for how they relationship developed, we're just supposed to accept that it did. 3. Kevin Costner is an adequate requisite old-fart/mentor, but getting Harrison Ford to play the same role would have been oh so much fun. 4. Keira Knightley's American accent is BAD - robbing her of her natural accent robs her of her distinctiveness, and generalizes her into the girlfriend/wife role. Anyone could have been cast as this character. It isn't any different than the same role played by Bridget Moynahan in Sum of All Fears, and this film feels a bit like a cross between the (so-so) "Sum" and the better "The Recruit" which followed that January 11 years ago (also co-starring Moynahan). Robbing her of nationality also makes her character more colorless. 5. Kenneth Branagh can't direct action scenes worth a whit. 6. It's played too light to be a serious drama, and too serious to be fun. It's not tense enough to be a good thriller, but not invested enough in its characters to be an observant drama. 7. Conspiratorial explanations are given the short shrift - and what there was making me zone out (time for a bathroom break!). Who cares about the explanation if the film is exciting enough? (Like the original Mission:Impossible) It was not exciting enough, so, yeah, I did care that what was going did not make more sense than it did.

Ellemac on 10/16/2018 Reply  ·  Like  ·  (0 likes)

This Jack Ryan should have got a sequel. Great film. The Netflix series SUCKS.