Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Good idea lost in the noise

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

OK, maybe that's a little harsh. Chris Pine for one is a good, sympatico lead, but he's struggling against a rip tide in this formulaic reboot of an American Cold War wet dream. A chill went down my spine when Scots character actor (and a very good one, too), David Hayman, appeared as a Russian apparatchik. I know, a Scots accent is virtually indistinguishable from a Russian (I mean, it's all the same that side of the Atlantic, isn't it?), but it's not a good sign when the cliche of USA goodies vs Rest of the World baddies appears again. I thought we'd got past that naive world view with the Dubya era. Evidently not. The plot? Well, it has been done before, and better. Kenneth Branagh does his sinister thing, but it's one dimensional. If you want to see what he can really do with a script, have a look at his turn as Heydrich in "Conspiracy". Now, that is a very good rendition of evil as normality. So, what do we have here? Fodder to watch when you're chugging a six pack and a takeaway. If the dog starts howling outside, put the pic on hold and sort it out. Or don't put it on hold; I guarantee you'll pick up the story without difficulty when you get back.

Keira Knighley…She is always good as a caring girlfriend and showing wit… The other good thing here is the real locations of Moscow (and i wonder how do they manage to shoot it there relating to the plot ???). Beyond it's crap : either the story is unintelligible (do someone understand the bank accounts strategy ?) either the action is totally unbelievable : JPR excels in brawls despite his back, the computer protection, the sleeping agent, the terror attack, … it's too much and too lucky, too incoherent to have a real thrill… Clancy was very critical towards Sum of all fears so i fear he would be horrified by this poor production !

What Jack Ryan suffered most from, was a script that wasn't smart enough, to out-smart the the villains, pretty well thought out plan. The villain's plan is an "8" so to speak, but the hero's counter attack, is a 5... That compromises the films' integrity, logic and enjoyment.Jack Ryan couldn't live up to what I imagine was a plan roughly a decade in the making by Viktor Cherevin, but that probability wasn't portrayed too well either.All Kenneth Branagh did, to make Jack appear to be the smarter adversary, was him constantly making Jack inexplicably figure out Viktor's moves. Truth be told, given this particular story, Viktor had to win, but of course, he had to lose because of, because.Then there are all those badly edited scenes, so much so that, you can feel that, there is probably a good extra hour of footage that we'll never see, because it perhaps, was decidedly badly handled or it was directed into the ground and even more unimaginative. The final scene being the worst. The action is lack luster, the suspense is thrown to the wayside and it's end... Huh. Honestly,this is a movie, where if the villain won, it would've been so much more interesting, than Jack jumping out of a van, and then... Nothing exciting.Clearly it was meant to be a series... Sadly, it was seriesly (seriously), "non compliant, officer".When it started, it was lingering on 6. Then Mr Branagh engaged, enough to bring it to a 7... But then, somewhere, somehow, it plummeted.

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT is the latest 'reboot' of a film franchise, in this case the Jack Ryan films of the 1990s and early 2000s featuring Harrison Ford and then Ben Affleck. This prequel instalment sees a youthful Ryan on his first case, tackling some financial terrorists in Russia.It's not a bad film per se, and as a time waster it's likable enough, with a good techno-plot and some thrills along the way. There's a stand-out fight scene early on in the proceedings which is by far the highlight of the whole thing and brings to mind some of the BOURNE greatness. Elsewhere, though, the plot feels tired and contrived and certain ingredients are poorly judged.Take Kenneth Branagh, for instance. His direction here doesn't really work too well for the thriller genre as he has little grasp of the kind of pulses that make audiences react. His Russian villain is as clichéd as they come, but there's a worse actor to come: Keira Knightley. Knightley is condemned to the usual 'wife' type role, but unlike THE IMITATION GAME, where she was very good and full of warmth, she's shrill and unbelievable here. That godawful American accent doesn't help, either.As in the STAR TREK movies, Chris Pine isn't bad at acting, but he has little of the natural warmth or charisma that makes an acting great. The opening ten minutes of this film are poorly conceived and all over the place and should have been excised entirely, and the stuff at the climax feels overly familiar and a little underwhelming by modern thriller standards. That 12 certificate doesn't help much either: these Tom Clancy thrillers should be tough, gritty, realistic, and with a hard edge, and few films are up to that balancing act.