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Created Jan 27, 2014 08:11PM PST • Edited Jan 28, 2014 09:13AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   The hero of many a Tom Clancy story gets rebooted in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a more than competent action thriller. Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Kenneth Branagh are much more than competent as its starring quartet, allowing the movie to draw from a deep well of moviestar charisma.

   Branagh also directed, capably if not brilliantly, delivering a new 9/11-based origin story for the onetime Cold War hero. Russia becomes the enemy again nonetheless, this time Putin’s post-Soviet plutocracy, with its oligarchs lording over sleek skyscrapers and expensive restaurants. Who says you can’t go home again.

   Branagh helps his own cause by powerfully – which is to say malevolently – playing the villain, an oligarch who seeks to take down the United States because he’s still pissed about the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. CIA supplied weapons for the mujahadeen, don’t you know. Fair enough, as action movies go.

   While Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is deeply surreal, a crutch that movies taken from Clancy’s actual novels didn’t resort to, its sins are easily forgiven given its sleek surfaces, charismatic stars and crisp action. Bring on the sequels!

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Chris Pine looks to have another movie series that he can star in for years to come. One year he’ll be Jack Ryan, the next he’ll be Jim Kirk. About the new role, his Jack Ryan follows:

   • Alec Baldwin’s from The Hunt for Red October
   • Harrison Ford’s from Patriot Games plus Clear and Present Danger
   • Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears

   Never mind Affleck or even Baldwin. Pine’s already up in Harrison Ford territory. The Lady Wick and I had to go to a second theater on the second weekend Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was playing because the first only had front-row available. Given box office like that and the fact that it’s a damn entertaining movie, Chris Pine is likely to get another at-bat. Harrison Ford oughta be worried. Just saying.

   Keira Knightley is sweetly charming as the woman Jack Ryan loves. A little Knightley goes a long way, and she’s on screen just the right amount of time here, rocking a convincing American accent to boot.

   Kevin Costner continues his late career resurgence as Jack Ryan’s CIA boss. Costner is a clear positive to any movie he’s in nowadays, a statement that would have seemed ridiculous just a few years ago.

   Kenneth Branagh essays a malevolent Russian villain with chilling effectiveness and ample charisma. The guy can play damn near anything, here in an action movie’s most important role outside that of the hero.

   Supporters who jump off screen include:

   • Lenn Kudrjawizki as a CIA operative
   • Alec Utgoff as a Russian sleeper agent
   • Peter Andersson as an evil Russian functionary
   • Elena Velikanova as a knowing executive assistant
   • Nonso Anozie as a genial hitman

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    This film is a cinematic Frankenstein creation “based on characters created by Tom Clancy.” Its two rookie writers aren’t going to win any awards, but they do deliver a sufficiently coherent story, albeit one that requires a fair amount of cinematic razzle-dazzle to bamboozle the audience, which films taken from the Great Clancy’s actual novels never resorted to, if memory serves.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

    Kenneth Branagh is now an accomplished big picture action director. Consider Thor and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit exhibits A and B.

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

17. Sex Innocent 1.3

18. Violence Brutal 2.8

19. Rudeness Salty 2.4

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.3

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.7

23. Biological Surreal 2.5

24. Physical Glib 1.7