Review: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Another day, another Hollywood reboot. This time our fresh helping of cinematic goodness is courtesy of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a revitalized origin story of the famous novelized Tom Clancy character.
Is it necessary? Of course not, but from a financial stand-point it makes sense. 2014 has a mysteriously James Bond-shaped hole in it, right next to the Bourne-shaped grave dug by the latter's most recent misfire. Jack Ryan manages to blend the two fairly well, but it never really seems to confidently find its own identity, instead throwing clichés and stolen styles into the mixing pot, making for a rather dull and lifeless result.
A shame really, because the casting had such potential. Chris Pine, somehow the most likeable yet cocky actor on the planet, gives in a good turn as the titular CIA agent. Both a million miles away from his arrogant portrayal of Star Trek's Captain Kirk and yet handling the action scenes perfectly, Pine nails the inexperienced and out of his depth nature of the character whilst ensuring he never becomes whiny or a nervous wreck. Equally, the casting of Kevin Costner as Ryan's boss and mentor gives the film a little more dramatic weight and provides some surprisingly well-written excuses to have Ryan explain the plot in laymen's terms for the audience.
Sadly at the other end of the spectrum, we're given an annoyingly hammy and uncharacteristically pantomime performance from director Kenneth Branagh as the film's big bad (of course he's Russian because, well, aren't they all?) whose plot to collapse the American economy and cause the next big depression is about as flimsy as the USB stick the entire plan is held on. Last but not least, Keira Knightley rears her annoying head as Ryan's fiance in a tacked-on love story which was presumably shoved in to give the women something to enjoy while the men enjoy the action and the shooting and the racing and the fast, shiny motorbikes - an outdated and yet consistently used conception of modern cinema audiences that needs to be abandoned.
The best that can be said for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is that, depending on its box office success, it could pave the way for something bigger and better. It's a decent enough origin story and Ryan himself is an interesting character, with his reluctance and subsequent remorse over his first ever kill giving him some human believability - think of him as a mixture of Bond, Bourne and Batman - yet there's nothing to make him stand out from all the other CIA, vigilante or spy types that we've seen in other movies. His back story attempts to rectify this, giving him an injury from the war in Afghanistan which, while admirable, isn't exactly an original concept. John Watson much?
Those movies at least seem to have a better handle on their own plots - in Jack Ryan, Branagh's villain seems to be just generic cannon fodder for something bigger yet to be explained, while Knightley's love interest manages to be the most annoying and useless girlfriend on film.
Branagh, doubling up as director for this outing, seems to be using this as an audition to direct the next Bond movie. The action scenes are well handled, particularly the various car chases, however it's when it comes to hand to hand combat that Branagh unfortunately succumbs to the usual "let's make everything as shaky as possible" technique which becomes infuriating to watch after a few seconds. One moment, Ryan is on his feet and battling to stay that way, the next thing we know the camera's swung around a lot and someone's on the ground. For some cinema-goers, this works due to its fast and frantic pace but for this reviewer, an action movie is redundant if we can't actually witness the majority of the action.
Sadly at the other end of the spectrum, we're given an annoyingly hammy and uncharacteristically pantomime performance from director Kenneth Branagh as the film's big bad (of course he's Russian because, well, aren't they all?) whose plot to collapse the American economy and cause the next big depression is about as flimsy as the USB stick the entire plan is held on. Last but not least, Keira Knightley rears her annoying head as Ryan's fiance in a tacked-on love story which was presumably shoved in to give the women something to enjoy while the men enjoy the action and the shooting and the racing and the fast, shiny motorbikes - an outdated and yet consistently used conception of modern cinema audiences that needs to be abandoned.
The best that can be said for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is that, depending on its box office success, it could pave the way for something bigger and better. It's a decent enough origin story and Ryan himself is an interesting character, with his reluctance and subsequent remorse over his first ever kill giving him some human believability - think of him as a mixture of Bond, Bourne and Batman - yet there's nothing to make him stand out from all the other CIA, vigilante or spy types that we've seen in other movies. His back story attempts to rectify this, giving him an injury from the war in Afghanistan which, while admirable, isn't exactly an original concept. John Watson much?
Those movies at least seem to have a better handle on their own plots - in Jack Ryan, Branagh's villain seems to be just generic cannon fodder for something bigger yet to be explained, while Knightley's love interest manages to be the most annoying and useless girlfriend on film.
Branagh, doubling up as director for this outing, seems to be using this as an audition to direct the next Bond movie. The action scenes are well handled, particularly the various car chases, however it's when it comes to hand to hand combat that Branagh unfortunately succumbs to the usual "let's make everything as shaky as possible" technique which becomes infuriating to watch after a few seconds. One moment, Ryan is on his feet and battling to stay that way, the next thing we know the camera's swung around a lot and someone's on the ground. For some cinema-goers, this works due to its fast and frantic pace but for this reviewer, an action movie is redundant if we can't actually witness the majority of the action.
Summary
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit acts as a decent enough origin story for the character of Ryan himself, played very well by the surprisingly amicable Chris Pine. However, the Clancy adaptation is let down by a cringe-worthy pantomime villain whose plan is frankly ridiculous and various other plot threads which seem to be thrown in as an afterthought such as Keira Knightley's poorly acted and badly developed love interest which could make watching paint dry seem an exciting alternative. Add to that some very poor directorial choices and we're left with a good protagonist surrounded by bad plotting, characterization and directing. A damn shame, because Pine has clearly thrown himself full force into the character - perhaps, if there's a round two, there should be a reshuffle behind the scenes to ensure that Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was simply a wobbly start to something better.
4/10 - Disappointing
See it if you liked: The Bourne Legacy (2011), Skyfall (2012), Jack Reacher (2012)
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