- December 24, 2024
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With almost as many different actors portraying the title character as Bond or Batman over the years, Jack Ryan is an action-movie icon. But his latest adventure, "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit," is actually not based off of a Tom Clancy novel.
The film stars Chris Pine ("Star Trek: Into Darkness") as the immortal CIA analyst. This time, he is pitted against — you guessed it — the Soviets, as they attempt to launch a plot to cripple the U.S. economy
But that’s all I will tell you about the plot. Read on to see how this latest iteration plays out on screen, where we get to see new aspects of the agent's life and a rebooted origin story.
Kevin Costner plays Thomas Harper, Ryan's recruiter, and he gives a good performance as a guy who’s been leading a double-life for quite some time.
The story is one of double-crosses and subterfuge — typical of an espionage tale.
However, this execution contains quite a bit superfluous side-information, which can make the story difficult to follow. But the action scenes? That's where you get your money's worth.
They're all excellently executed and lengthy enough to keep you distracted from the blotchy plot.
The story is very "Clancy movie," in that the resolution does have an operatic soundtrack at the enemy’s ultimate realization of fate. This movie definitely rings true with its predecessors, but in a time of game-changer hero stories (think Christian Bale's Batman, or Daniel Craig's Bond), it comes up a little short.
