Review of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) by Dcedmonds — 13 Nov 2014

"Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" 10 Scale Rating: 5.0 (Mediocre) ...

The Good: When they finally decide to get around to it, it's a solid little action/thriller. The trio of Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, and Kenneth Branagh turned in excellent performances and carried the film. Branagh was especially menacing as the film's chief antagonist and his interactions with Pine's Jack Ryan were the best parts of the movie.

The Bad: Pretty straight-forward film that we've pretty much seen a hundred times before. Takes way too long to get to the meat of the film and plods it's way through the first 1:15 before finally deciding to give us something remotely riveting. There was nothing wrong with Knightley's performance per se, but her character was under-developed and her relationship with Jack Ryan was the weakest aspect of the story. Lastly, while the film has "Jack Ryan" in the title and he is indeed the main character by name ... he never fully feels like the character that we know from previous films. His name could have been Chase McScooter and it would have had the same effect. Honestly, any character could have been dropped into the story and had the same result.