Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit
"Where everything is bad, it must be good to know the worst." The British philosopher F.H. Bradley wrote that, and while he was surely not referring to the relative glut of bad movies that American distributor dump into theaters during the six-to-eight week winter/awards season lull at the beginning of each year, such is the state of things that while it may indeed be good to know the worst, it's kind of difficult to tell. There's also a kind of inverse correlative possible: with so much bad, how can you tell what's good?
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Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writers: Adam Cozad, David Koepp, 1 more credit »
Stars: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley | See full cast and crew
On the face of things, a studio reboot of the late writer Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character, a sort of American James Bond for the neocon/family values set, seems like an opportunistic and banal idea. And for the first minutes of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit," which rewrites the Ryan origin story by placing the young character in the London School of Economics for the terror attack of 9/11, opportunism and banality go hand in hand with nary a care in the world, it seems. Things get less blithe, and a little shaky, when appealing, square-jawed, eagle-eyed Chris Pine's undercover C.I.A. fiscal analyst Ryan is pairing off romantically with what seems to be a severely miscast Keira Knightley, who, try as she might, doesn't quite make it as a wholesome, uncomplicated young American woman of substantial backbone. So my question during the initial part of the movie was, "Just how bad will this be?"
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