Even though the role has been played by four actors, split across five movies that were released within a a 24-year timeframe, it surely can’t be a coincidence that The Hunt for Red October remains both the highest-grossing and best-reviewed entry in the Jack Ryan film series.
Harrison Ford’s Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games were solid action thrillers, Ben Affleck’s The Sum of All Fears was perfectly serviceable fare, but Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was almost unforgivably dull given the level of talent attached on either side of the camera.
Rebooting a well-known character with an origin story is par for the course these days, and Pine’s Star Trek turns proved he was more than capable of headlining a glossy blockbuster with a charismatic performance. Throw in Kenneth Branagh pulling double duty as villain and director, a screenplay co-written by big budget veteran David Koepp, along with supporting parts for Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley, and plenty of solid pieces were on the board.
Instead, Shadow Recruit turned out to be one the blandest espionage thrillers to come out of Hollywood in a long time, hitting all of the expected plot and character beats without bringing a single iota or originality or inventiveness to the table. It’s not a terrible film by any stretch, it’s just a monotonously uninteresting one, which can sometimes be worse.
However, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has turned out to be a winner on streaming this week, with FlixPatrol revealing the painfully mediocre spy story has been rocketing up the Paramount Plus viewership charts. Until John Krasinski returns in the third season of Amazon’s hit show, it’ll have to do for now.