Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Tom Clancy may have died, but his Cold War paranoia lives on—both in the ramblings of dark corners of the Internet, and in the newly revived Jack Ryan movie series. Much like he did with Captain Kirk, Chris Pine has been called upon to inherit the Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games character and remold him into a younger, rougher model better suited to Jason Bourne/Ethan Hunt-like running and punching, in a way Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and even Ben Affleck never realized. Pine plays Ryan at the very start of his career as he’s recruited into the world of espionage by a world-weary Kevin Costner—or rather, shadow recruited, as Pine not only has to deal with Kenneth Branagh’s Boris-y Russian terrorist, but also with the fallout from keeping his new job a secret from the world, which includes Keira Knightley. Branagh also directs what’s meant to be the first of several new Jack Ryan films, with David Koepp supplying the original story here that’s just based on Clancy’s characters, rather than a specific novel. And so long as there are other tales to be told about thrilling secret ops taking place amid the spouting of jargon-laden tough talk, Tom Clancy will live forever.