Now Playing: Footloose and Clancy Free

Despite what Hollywood believes, not all successful film franchises need to be rebooted. Sometimes the success of a certain series has as much to do with the time of release as anything else. Case in point would be ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’. The Kenneth Branagh-helmed attempt to bring back Tom Clancy’s superspy isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just one that feels woefully dated and out of place despite all of the contemporary references crammed into the script.

When Paul Greengrass and co. pimped out their Jason Bourne sequels, they kept discussing the series as an anti-James Bond antidote. Well, since Bond was always depoliticized pulp, that series easily survived by upping the grit and cutting the tripods. However, the ‘Bourne’ movies could better be described as anti-Jack Ryan. After that politically charged, gritty and complex deconstruction of the traditional American spy hero, watching Jack Ryan face off against a bunch of evil Russians can’t help but feel dated despite all the shaky-cam and post 9/11 references.

The main problem is that Jack Ryan is a fairly personality-free boy scout who fights Russians, and that sort of thing is almost charmingly outdated these days. Chris Pine was a good choice for the role. He has the poster-friendly looks and lack of grit that defines the series for better or worse.

In this “Jack Ryan Begins” adventure, we see Pine’s ambitious grad student immediately drop out and join the Army for the good of America. He’s then subsequently in a helicopter crash that breaks his back, but also introduces him to a beautiful doctor love interest (Keira Knightley) and a spy father figure who recruits him to the CIA (Kevin Costner). Fast forward a few years and Ryan is working undercover in the exciting world of financial crime, only to stumble upon a potentially massive fraud at the hands of the Russians. So, he’s flown over to Russia for his first official mission. It’s supposed to be a quiet audit of an evil Russian suit (Branagh himself), but quickly turns violent when the man who picks up Ryan from the airport also attempts to assassinate him. The next thing you know, Pine, Costner and (weirdly) Knightley are caught up in a battle with Branagh, who’s planning to cripple the U.S. economy through stock manipulation AND stage a terrorist attack. Whoo-boy, what a jerk!

Even though this ‘Jack Ryan’ prequel isn’t based on a specific Tom Clancy novel, the screenwriting team of Adam Cozad and David Koepp manage to deliver a very Clancy-like Cold War terrorist plot, with a little 9/11 and economic collapse flavor to make it all seem fresh. It doesn’t work. The movie feels like it could have been made in 1992, and not in a good way. Back when Clancy was at his peak, geopolitics were just stable enough to make his ‘Jack Ryan’ adventures charming. These days, this one feels like listening to your grandfather talk about how awesome the CIA used to be. The cast is fine (especially the mugging Branagh, who clearly loves rolling his tongue around a Russian accent), but the film is ultimately dull when it should be immediate and exciting.

Branagh knows how to tell a story and work with actors, but he’s not an action director, despite ‘Thor’. That’s a major problem. All of the fights, car chases and set-pieces feel perfunctory and cranked-out through thoughtless handheld cinematography, just because that’s the post-‘Bourne’ trend. (That series may have been a breath of fresh air at the time, but it killed off visually-coherent action scenes in a tragic way.) Everything comes to a peak during a climatic car chase in which a phone conversation between Branagh and Pine is far more engaging than the twisted metal antics occurring simultaneously. It’s nice that the movie has a character focus, but when the action scenes are the worst part of an action movie, something went wrong.

Kenneth Branagh was probably the wrong person to direct ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’. Yet at least in hiring such an unconventional choice, the studio tried. Likewise, the attempt to cram contemporary politics into this reboot shows that everyone involved in this production was aware of the pitfalls of the character and wanted to deal with them. Unfortunately, the final film suggests that Jack Ryan probably shouldn’t be revived. The character worked in a certain time and place. That time has passed, and despite the best efforts of everyone involved in this blockbuster, perhaps Jack Ryan should disappear from screens as well. Some good movies were made about Jack Ryan and they’ll always be around for nostalgia, whereas ‘Shadow Recruit’ will probably sit next to ‘The Sum of All Fears’ on the obscurity shelf in the future. There’s still a place for spy thrillers in the multiplex, but it may be time to find a new hero and let Jack Ryan retire. He’s served his country and his purpose. Now bring in the new recruits.

Rating: ★★½☆☆

6 comments

  1. Cannot agree less. We went to a preview last week and thought it was the best Jack Ryan movie.
    I believe it is still ok to make these spy movies, because if you look at all the NSA sh…t that obviously goes on right now, there seem to be more spies around than ever.

    Highly recommended.

  2. Disagree with the review as well…I think this is a very good re-boot that manages to update the character to the modern age, but still make him very much like the Baldwin/Ford versions that came before.

    The film actually makes very little use of shaky/hand held cameras, so I’m not sure where that reference came from. This movie retains the look/feel of previous Ryan adventures. It’s not a great film, but it’s a good one.

  3. Sorry, Phillip – but I also have to disagree. I feel that this reboot updated the franchise for our times. The post-9/11 sense of terror is a prominent driving force. I’m certain that the villains were written as Russians just to appeal to the older audiences who know what the Cold War was, that and to nod to Clancy’s use of Russian villains.

    I love how true the film felt to the Jack Ryan character. Although he’s a little better at defending himself (and riding a motorcycle), he’s still the same Jack Ryan.

    I especially loved how much emphasis was placed into the Jack/Cathy relationship without making it feel like a stupid sub-plot. See ‘True Lies’ for an example of a movie that was incapable of blending the two. Knightley’s American accent was fantastic. She and Pine had great chemistry. It was great to see Pine NOT play Kirk.

    I loved this flick. Since Mrs. Hickman couldn’t join me for the press screening, we got a babysitter and went out to the IMAX last night. Loved it just as much the second time as I did the first. In my opinion, the only problem with ‘Shadow Recruit’ is that it flies by too fast.

  4. For what it’s worth, here are a couple other reviews that side with Phil in being underwhelmed by the movie:

    http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=196276

    http://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/01/fanboy_flick_pick_when_it_comes_to_tom_clancy_kenn.php

    The thing I like about the original Clancy books and movies is that Jack Ryan is an analyst, not an action hero. He saves the world by putting the pieces of the puzzle together. He’s not James Bond, or Ethan Hunt or Jason Bourne. He doesn’t run around with a gun, kicking all the bad guys’ asses.

    While I have interest in seeing this (will probably have to wait for Blu-ray), the trailers play it up as another Bourne wannabe, and that’s disappointing.

    • He’s very much an analyst in this movie as well. I think there are three big action sequences in the whole movie, and only one of the three involves Jack with a gun (and it’s not his gun).

      This has no more/less of Ryan as an action hero than the prior Jack Ryan movies did, and all the prior Ryan movies have a climax where Jack has to be involved in an action scene.

  5. Jaimie Max

    “Even though this ‘Jack Ryan’ prequel isn’t based on a specific Tom Clancy novel”

    Actually some of the plot elements were taken from novel Debt of Honor, I believe it’s the fifth or sixth in the Jack Ryan series. In the book, a Japanese business mogul tried to destroy the America’s economy and start WW3. In this film, they took some of the elements from that book and changed the villain from a Japanese business to Russian. I don’t get why the studio keep insisting there’s no storyline from any of Clancy’s books, but whatever.

    Anyhoo, I thought this new Ryan film was pretty great, no it’s not perfect but it’s a great entertaining action thriller. Like Luke said, it’s way too short though.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *