Maybe this should've been released closer to Jack Reacher. Don't get mad, I'm not comparing those too, but it might have helped this with its Box office a bit. It wouldn't have helped story wise though. Or movie wise if you will. And while this is checking many boxes, it never really achieves anything special. Keira Knightley looks good and you know where this is going with her. Even added "dialog" and some story concerning her does not really add much depth.

Kevin Branagh has played in much richer roles, though he seems to relish the fact he can be bad in this one. And he has an accent (not British that is). Solid job as does Kevin Costner who also seems to bring some gravitas to it all. The "origin" story sounded nice on paper and has some charm, that's why this is not a total misfire (no pun intended),but it never gets really good to a point where you're like: I had to watch that

Tom Clancy's intrepid spy hero Jack Ryan is recast for a new generation in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Chris Pine who has already reincarnated Captain James T. Kirk for the big screen is now giving us a more youthful version of Ryan than we've previously had with Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin.

The novel that introduced Jack Ryan to the American reading public is updated to current times as young Ryan who is pursuing a doctorate at the London School of Economics sees the World Trade Center come down on television. Like many he quits school and joins the Marines where his analytical abilities impress folks higher up. After surviving a downed helicopter in Afghanistan Ryan spends months in the hospital and meets the love of his life in therapist Keira Knightley. He also meets Kevin Costner who becomes his handler and recruiter for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Pine's assignment is simple and unexciting. The CIA pays for him to finish his doctorate and gets him set up on Wall Street as a financial analyst. His job is to watch money come and go and where it accumulates. If that sets off terrorist alarm bells than he reports and the CIA goes to work.

It takes until the present day for alarm bells to sound, but sound they do when he notices Russians buying copious quantities of US Treasury notes. That sets in motion an investigation of Kenneth Branagh, a Russian who seems to have done well in the new capitalist Russia, but also has memories of his country's humiliation in the late Cold War.

More I won't say, but Branagh who doubles as director and villain is quite unforgettable as the Russian with a grudge. He's got quite a scheme involving a terrorist attack on Wall Street and financial panic resulting from same. He's even sacrificed his own family in the undertaking.

It's interesting that this story which is only based on Tom Clancy's characters is having Russians as villains and is in theaters at the same time that the Sochi Olympics are on and that Vladimir Putin's government is getting world wide condemnation for its new pogrom like policies against LGBT people. A lot of people forget that Putin back in the day was a KGB agent and a player on a team that lost. He like Branagh's villain is a man likely to carry a grudge.

Director Branagh directed a nice action film with some good performances from his cast. A far-fetched to say the least, but so were the events of 9/11.

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.