TORONTO — It was supposed to be released before Christmas but got bumped to the cinematic cemetery known as January. Does this mean Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn’t worth seeing?
The movie, directed by Kenneth Branagh (who also stars as the Russian bad guy), stars Chris Pine (Star Trek Into Darkness) in the role previously played on the big screen by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.
Shadow Recruit offers the back story for the character created by the late Tom Clancy. Ryan, a junior CIA analyst, is promoted to field agent and sent to Moscow to investigate a plot to cripple the U.S. economy.
The film also stars Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley.
Is Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit worth catching? Here’s a look at some of the reviews.
“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a stunningly generic and bland would-be thriller,” wrote Scott Mendelson in Forbes. “It has no real reason to exist other than its alleged value as a brand name character.”
Mendelson said the movie “lacks interesting characters being given interesting things to do or say.”
He added: “It lacks clever dialogue or even much character interaction. The screenplay is stunningly lazy, offering a paint-by-numbers narrative that hits all of the clichés and offers little deviation. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is as generic and formulaic an action picture as we’ve seen in quite awhile.”
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone seems to agree.
“As espionage thrillers go, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit skillfully marshals all the familiar elements. That’s the damn problem,” he wrote. “The movie feels deballed by its allegiance to formula.”
Travers said the movie “never really busts loose.”
He opined: “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has no personality of its own. It’s a product constructed out of spare parts and assembled with computerized precision. It’s hard to care when Jack turns operational and becomes a CIA robocop. The movie feels untouched by human hands.”
At the New York Daily News, Joe Neumaier said Shadow Recruit is “numbingly familiar” but “makes up in verve what it lacks in imagination.”
Neumaier said Pine does an adequate job of playing Ryan but, as an actor, “needs to get more original characters on his résumé or risk looking like a human restart button.”
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called Pine “acceptable” in the familiar role.
At the San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Hartlaub said Pine is convincing — describing him as “the third best Ryan.”
He was critical, though, of the movie’s overall look.
“Watch Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit with a cynical eye, and you’ll glimpse evidence that studio confidence might have waned,” wrote Hartlaub. “Adjusting for inflation, this is the cheapest-looking Ryan movie. The lean 105-minute running time doesn’t look voluntary.”
Variety reviewer Justin Chang said there “isn’t a bad performance in the picture” but “the beat-the-clock, save-the-day endgame feels disappointingly pro forma.”
Postmedia‘s Jay Stone singled out Knightley’s appearance in his review.
“Knightley, gamely essaying an American accent, has always been slim, but she is becoming skeletal, and her beauty — which the plot relies upon — is becoming frighteningly drawn,” he wrote.
Stone added: “Branagh the director is very tolerant of Branagh the actor — his hammy Russian could have menaced Rocky and Bullwinkle — and as a stylist he mixes the gritty improvisation of the Bourne movies with the glitz of the old Bond fantasies.
“The result is a wayward tone, fitting perhaps, for such an unformed hero. He’ll probably be back, but there’s no telling who might be playing him.”
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