Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

What is one to do on a 7+ hours flight? Watch a movie, of course. Preferably, a film that does not require one to think too much about what is happening on screen. So, action flick it is.

This happened midway between London and New York and the film chosen was Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Actually, it was the second attempt at a film. The first try was Fading Gigolo, which sounded awesome on paper but turned out to be very dull and it also made Vanessa Paradis as ugly and uninteresting as it possibly could, so I turned that off after a mere 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, Jack Ryan wasn't much better. After serving up the oh-so-tragic-but-totally-heroic intro of the war wounded Ryan and his way back to strength, aided by the insufferable Keira Knightly character, Ryan is recruited by the shady Kevin Costner character (I couldn't be bothered to remember any of the names) and soon appears to be the only undercover hot guy with brains available to assist in a covert operation in Russia - because that is where the bad guys still operate because Russia = bad and Hollywood simply has no other concept of any nation serving that particular purpose while still seem somewhat believable as a highly sophisticated nation (all the other baddies are in the religious extremist/Muslim category and they all live in dug-outs, wielding machine guns manufactured in the US).

Anyway, as if all of the above wasn't cliche enough, the Russian is played by a Brit. Because, of course he is. Luckily, that Brit is Kenneth Branagh (the films sole agreeable feature). He plans to attack *gasp* Wall Street. And who is the one who figures this out? The Keira Knightly character. Because, of course she does. What other purpose besides distraction device could she possibly serve?

Jack Ryan and his cohorts save the day.

Because, of course they do.

2/10

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