Escape to the Movies: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

[NortherWolf]

Eh, didn't except it to do anything else than suck, as it looked generic from the trailer.
However I am so damn glad that they butchered the Jack Ryan character, as he stopped being even remotely tolerable around Clear and Present Danger. He's the penultimate Gary Stu character, and why Clancy just didn't name him Tom Jesus Ryan, of Nazareth, is beyond me.

 

[JimB]

Oh, that's Kenneth Branagh as the bad guy? The commercials whizzed by so fast I was never sure who that was, and my best guess was Jeremy Renner. Good to know.

Or, well, I guess it's not good to know because I don't intend to see the movie, but you know what I mean.

 

[Rawbeard]

Stop trying to make Chris Pine happen. He is not going to happen.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I?m curious if moviebob knows that saxton hale is a parody of unstoppable badass characters.

No, Saxton Hale is not a parody of anything, he is a completely serious, down the line representation of an above average Australian.

Any conclusion is madness, pure hat-less madness.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Aughhhh, let's just hope they never make a Rainbow Six movie. Don't get me wrong, the games were fantastic, but the book was easily one of the worst (if not the worst) thing Clancy has ever written. From an author who can usually slap together decent, suspenseful political thrillers it was utterly cringe-worthy in terms of both plot and characterization.

 

[Triality]

Which his early work did. It seems like that you know nothing of the guy at all. Don't trust everything that ZP says about him. It has never been clear on how much Tom Clancy was involed with the video game bearing his name. Hell, he sold the right of his name to Ubisoft in 2008. It has been known, that a lot of his later worked was ghostwritten by other writers.

This just in from Ubisoft. Look forward to their new title releasing this fall: Tom Clancy's: Ghost Writers!

Yeah the instant I see any trailer with Chris Pine in it, I'm like, "And there goes another 50 million dollars. Money well wasted." I just can't muster any like for him. He's a 2nd tier substitute captain for the highschool football team. He has the emotional range of a patient under sedation. He has the likability of a wall erected right across your busiest highway to work. The National Academy of Sciences just announced a new element has surpassed diamond on the Mohl's scale of density. They are having extreme difficulty mining any of the substance from Pine's face muscles.

Okay, I got that out of my system.

Thanks for the reading recommends you guys. I'll look out for Without Remorse sometime soon, but I have a huge backlog of reading to get through.

 

[gorfias]

Don't forget Anna Karenina.

Lol, I was just talking to someone in another thread (the Movie Bob review of this I think). Is it always a mistake to give the movie a title that is just a character's name. No, I think not. Except maybe in this case (Jack Ryan coming on the heels of Jack Reacher). I actually had to jog my memory about that one.

I'll have to check Anna Karenina out too if you suggest it.

I know that Chris Pine isnt that great but he was good in Smokin Aces so at least lets give him some credit to that.

This scene is a bit on the spoiler side but its the best one I can find on Youtube

Yeah, he was hardly recognizable in that, and the single most memorable character for me.

This little movie, Carriers (2009) was very good, very interesting. Not a horror movie but a character study and he was fine in it.

 

[The_Longier]

Stop trying to make Chris Pine happen. He is not going to happen.

But if Chrise Pine makes enough shitty movies somebody will make him a real boy!

 

[MichaelMaverick]

Do Her.

Er, do the movie Her. Heard some interesting things and was kind of looking forward to it this week.

 

[MDSnowman]

The only Jack Ryan movie I ever really LOVED was The Hunt for Red October.

Now, I've watched all the other ones and agree that if you want to make an action movie out of the Clancy-verse just drop Ryan into the background and make the John Clark movie. He was far and away the best part of The Sum of All Fears, and I loved him as slightly unhinged in Clear and Present Danger.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Do we need another version of Jason Bourne, let alone one adapted from Tom "Salute The American Flag, Say The Pledge Of Allegiance Six Times Per Day" Clancy? Nothing wrong with the guy, but I'm just saying maybe we could get our spy fiction from somewhere more subtle. Something that focuses on the cloak-and-dagger fictional wetwork spy junk.

Which his early work did. It seems like that you know nothing of the guy at all. Don't trust everything that ZP says about him. It has never been clear on how much Tom Clancy was involed with the video game bearing his name. Hell, he sold the right of his name to Ubisoft in 2008. It has been known, that a lot of his later worked was ghostwritten by other writers.

All of Tom Clancy's work after Clear and Present Danger is gripping but ultimately extremely unsubtle in its political opinions. I draw the line there because Clear and Present Danger was reflexive enough to critique the USA's Latin American adventures. Beyond that point, every country on the planet is suddenly scheming against America and they deserve it when Ryan/Clarke stomp on their faces. Most of the opponents at home become secret Arab terrorists or liberal bogeymen.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I have so far only read two of his novels: The Cardinal of the Kremlin and The Sum of all fears. What I really enjoyed with the latter one, was that for 90% of the book, Jack Ryan doesn't know about the terrorist attack. Most of the book is focused on how the bomb is built and on Jack Ryans personal life. It is a perfect thriller for the early 90s, when many terrorist group had to come to term that they have lost (like the RAF) the cold war.

Um... Terrorist groups had to come to terms with losing the Cold War? The terrorists in the novel are from the Palestinean Liberation Front, so to lump them in as part of the side that 'lost' the Cold War is very naive.

 

[MaddKossack115]

I know MovieBob is questioning just what audience this (and other "brand-name reboots for this generation") is intended for, but my closest guess is hipsters. And not just any hipsters, but the specific kind of hipster that doesn't give a shit about putting any effort into anything, and demands all of their entertainment to not give a shit about what they're doing too.

Y'know what I'm talking about. How movies like "The Lone Ranger" and "Star Trek: Into Darkness" all try to be "Darker and Edgier" without ACTUALLY doing anything really Dark and Edgy (in the sense it doesn't inspire legitimate horror or tragedy, but just plain apathy), while only referencing original plot elements to laugh in a "haha, that's SO lame because it's old", even though the new generation would probably get more entertainment out of that old stuff compared to the absolute nothingness the new films offer.

So yeah, "brand name reboots of the 21st Century (except Marvel)" are designed for hipsters. And not in a "by hipsters, for hipsters" way, but in a "by corporate dumbasses who think the hipsters are a hot market, for hipsters".

Edit:
Oh, and also, the guys making this didn't try to put any effort into making the movies. That too.

 

[blackrave]

Nobody walks away from a helicopter crash like that. Nobody.

Except Toreno.

Or Santa Christ.

On a side note- we need movie about Santa Christ.

 

[Pinkamena]

"Freedom sense"
Pffft. That was a good joke.

 

[Jeyl]

1. Ride Along $41.2M
2. Lone Survivor $23.2M
3. The Nut Job $20.6M
4. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit $17.2M

Looks like Jack Ryan was a "shadow" at the box office this weekend.