Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Best movie ever!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Watching this movie leaves me absolutely stunned how one can mess this up. You have a line of charismatic and first-class Hollywood actors and, given Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, a successful franchise which provides a lot of story and background. In short - all the ingredients for a successful reboot are there. Given his appearance in latest Star Trek, Chris Pine also proved himself as suitable candidate to do so. Unfortunately the creators messed the whole thing up by overloading the story: Within the first minutes Jack Ryan watches the WTC fall, participates in war on terror in Afghanistan, get insures, learns how to walk again, meets his future wife and get recruited by the CIA. To much? - hey, wait for the main plot and the other characters. Kevin Costner (introduced as recruiter of Jack Ryan) reappears again as main contact and a sniper (!) on a mission in Russia. Keira Knightleys character is rather schizophrenic as she turns from jealous girlfriend into an undercover agent and then into the understanding spouse. The main villain's (a Russian oligarch - thank for trying, Kenneth) motivation is the one of a dying true patriot wanting to leave a legacy to his family. That does not stop him from getting distracted by preferably married women and wasteful dinners. Anyway, the legacy part becomes particular disturbing as one learns that his only son lives the life of a sleeper on US soil since he was nine and is now destined to execute a suicide mission on his father's behalf. Next, I sense creative disagreement whether his is supposed to be a spy movie, a character study or an action movie. Maybe one should have briefed the director and cutter on that. In its current state it is unclear which scenes actually contribute to the plot. The relevance of the action sequences are trapped somewhere between 24 and Transformers. A pity...

Tom Clancy re-heats the Cold War from the grave in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a streamlined reboot of a 1990s-rooted Paramount franchise in which the United States is saved from another 9/11-sized catastrophe altogether too easily. As the fourth actor to portray the title character in a five-film series thus far, Chris Pine adequately follows in the footsteps of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck in what also amounts to an origins story about the character's trial by fire in the CIA. Commercial prospects look solid, if not spectacular, for this efficient, if ultimately rote, political thriller. While it benefits from an attractive cast, the perennial allure of the spy game and the exoticism of the contemporary Moscow setting, the biggest problem afflicting this modest diversion is that it's the sort of film in which computers get to the bottom of every problem that comes up in about five seconds. It seems like half the running time consists of characters in cars, vans or planes, in their offices or hotels or just on their cell phones managing to download or send whatever secret information is in play with a click or two, and nevermind such cumbersome annoyances as passwords or user IDs. And no one ever needs to call a tech supervisor.What actually is in play here is the value of the American dollar, which is what Russian oligarch Viktor Cheverin (Kenneth Branagh, directing himself onscreen for the first time since Hamlet) aims to collapse along with Lower Manhattan in a coordinated terrorist attack. With the Kremlin in cahoots with him as a silent partner, the plan is to bring the Yankees to their knees in a way the communists were never able to do.Equally nationalistic is Jack Ryan, first seen here watching the attack on the Twin Towers while a student at the London School of Economics. Inspired to help his country, he's soon in uniform serving in Afghanistan, where he has the misfortune of being shot out of the sky in his chopper, but the good fortune to be nursed back to health by a beguiling doctor, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley, complete with an American accent), with whom he takes up as soon as his treatment is finished.There is a certain generation-spanning pleasure in watching veteran CIA handler William Harper (Kevin Costner, in low-key authoritative form) set Jack up as a financial intelligence analyst within a big Wall Street firm, where he spends a decade before being given five seconds to pack for his mission to Moscow. Despite living together, Jack can't tell Cathy whom he works for, and when she discovers a ticket stub for an afternoon showing at the Film Forum of the old thriller Sorry, Wrong Number in his pants pocket, she's convinced he's having an affair. Who knew that downtown venue for revivals and arty fare was a popular spy information exchange spot?Once Cheverin is identified as the key to the gross international monetary manipulations, Jack is charged with accessing the key files the Russian has hidden from view. In a scene that doesn't make much sense, Jack is put to an immediate physical test by his Moscow airport greeter, a mountainous Ugandan bodyguard who tries to take him out as soon as they reach the hotel. Unexpectedly, Cathy then turns up in Moscow and finally must be told what her husband does for a living, leading to the film's high point, a dinner scene at a fancy Moscow boite during which the couple enacts an elaborate charade that allows Jack the chance to steal secret info from Cheverin, whose vices -- vodka, vanity, women -- are neatly exploited.Such key plot elements as financial-based terrorism, lingering Russian animosity towards the U.S., sleeper agents and the electronic world providing the main battleground are aptly handled and the action is plentiful, if not terribly unusual. The relationship between Jack and the woman he dearly wants to be his wife is appealing, and Branagh's villain is shot through with deep historic bloodlines (his office is dominated by a huge painting of Napoleon being turned away by Russians).But there's at least one car chase too many and the climactic one, in New York as the seconds tick toward another downtown disaster, feels jerry-rigged specifically to include every cliché in the generic urban suspense playbook. Instead of embracing dramatic complexities and setbacks, all the better to make the most of them creatively, screenwriters Adam Cozad and David Koepp are intent upon steamrolling right over them, to uninvolving effect. Pine is fine as the uniformed-turned-covert patriot; he lacks the physical stature of his predecessors and it's not entirely believable that he could prevail over the African bodyguard who turns on him. Beyond Costner, Branagh and Knightley, all good to have around, the cast doesn't possess the sort of depth or number of prominent players that the earlier Jack Ryan features did. Technically, the film is sharp, with Moscow panoramas supplemented by scenes of Liverpool doubling as the Russian capital.

This was pretty average as far as action movies go, nothing stand out. Chris Pine does a decent enough job, I always like him even in something as generic as this turned out to be. I also enjoy Keira Knightley but her role as the girlfriend/fiancé was flat and could have been played by anyone. Which sets the tone for this whole movie.Dubbed an "explosive thriller" (not so much) Shadow Recruit is another addition to the Jack Ryan-Tom Clancy franchise. This reboot follows Ryan as an ordinary executive, who is also secretly working for the CIA. One day while crunching data he discovers a Russian conspiracy that will destroy the U.S. economy and spark global chaos. He becomes the only man with the skills to stop it and soon finds himself in Russia, caught between his secretive handler, his clueless fiancé and a brilliant Russian leader.Kevin Costner was decent as the mentor once again giving a Liam Neeson take on his role, Kenneth Branagh was very good as the Russian bad guy and there are a couple of fun cameos from Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nonso Anozie.I also enjoyed the early set up scenes where we gain background into Ryan's character; as a student pre 911, a marine, and his time in the rehab hospital. The ending went far into OTT land, getting quite silly as Chris becomes a full operative, saves America from financial ruin and rescues his girlfriend. All in this wasn't terrible, a decent time waster its just generic.

I know two faced in my review of this movie. On one had, it's rather dry as far as Jack Ryan movies go. Hell, it doesn't have a football stadium blowing up in it like Sum of All Fears. Chris Pine is good, Kevin Costner is excellent, Keira Knightley is playing sort of a damsel in distress at parts of this?!! OK, this kind of blindsides me after years of Pirates of the Caribbean movies where she could kick some person's ass if she wanted to. The director is the bad guy. Oh wait, sorry Spoilers! He's actually not bad as a sleazy Russian extremist terrorist. His end is however a letdown. The action scenes are great, but again the whole movie as a whole is a meh. I would watch it again, if I need a fast paced Spy Thriller to watch. I can see why this bombed and it never saw a sequel.