Amph Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime Series)

U.S. release date is January 17, 2014.

Two quick things. One, this seem like an attempt on making an American James Bond out of Jack Ryan. Two, this is nearly the same plot as the Splinter Cell novel I was reading a week or so ago (except this movie sounds a lot less complex and has no excuse for using Russians, unlike the book).

 

Yeah, when the trailer has some Russian croaking about "You Americans are so blahsky-blahsky, etc.", it sounds so close to "You British are so blahsky-blahsky, etc."
that it makes one wonder.

 

Once upon a time, Ken Branagh made good films.

Primarily Henry V and Dead Again. Actually I kinda liked Thor, and I dig all four previous Jack Ryan films, so I'm certainly here for this. Just interesting to see Branagh slumming like this.

 

I'm actually surprised by how good this looks. There's really nothing there we haven't seen a thousand times before, but what separates Jack Ryan from the Bonds and the Bournes and the Bauers is that Ryan is more of an everyman. He's not a lethal killing machine.

It seems to lack the over-stylized action and over the top CGI set pieces that have come to define "action" movies of late. Hopefully the success of movies like Skyfall are proof that there's an audience for this more grounded approach to the genre out there. The January release date is a bit of a red flag, though. That's kind of a box office dumping ground traditionally.

 

I'll probably go see it. I like Chris Pine a lot; he's got real star quality. And after Man of Steel, I really wanted to see Costner in something else, so that was kind of cool to me. Now that he's got two more movies coming out soon, I'm already feeling like he's getting overexposed again, but we'll see how good he is in this one.

Also, Branagh. Yeah, I love his Hamlet. This isn't going to be Hamlet or anything, but maybe it'll be okay. Though, yeah, the January date is kind of concerning.

 

Wasn't this movie supposed to come out this month?

 

Yeah it was supposed to come out Christmas, but Wolf of Wall Street got moved from Thanksgiving to then for awards season meaning Jack Ryan had to be moved to January. Kinda sucks since this looks better than the Ben Affleck one.

 

That does suck, this one looks interesting, might check it out.

 

This movie looks like garbage rotting on a hot summer day.

 

Kiera Knightley does a good American accent though!

 

This is the first thing Branagh's directed since Thor? Huh.

 

I kind of hate the fact that the guy who directed the definitive version of Hamlet, the greatest play ever written, is now known as "THE DIRECTOR OF THOR."

 

How was Skyfall very grounded? The part where a super villain plots his own capture, infects the entire British intelligence apparatus with a super computer virus, choreographs a chase so that a subway train drops on top of his pursuer's head, and then shoots at a senior government official on live television?

 

That adaptation was something else.

And Wocky, I believe they were talking about the action, not the plot.

 

This movie has nothing functionally whatsoever to do with Jack Ryan. The reason he was an everyman is because... he was not an operative; he was a PhD intelligence analyst put way, way, way in above his head.

This is just a total ret-con of that it seems and no one should want to see it based on any semblance of the Jack Ryan character.

However, the cast is amazing and makes me want to see it...

 

The two "everyman" things about Jack Ryan are the fact he got a BA in economics and became a certified public accountant. His list of occupations is almost marty stu-ish.

 

It's interesting that there are so many actual Tom Clancy novels that could have been adapted and yet the studios only wanted to use the name. I wonder if Clancy had any involvement with the plot/ story/ characterization of the film before he passed away?

 

"Almost"?

 

Clancy's involvement with the licensing of his characters and stories was pretty minimal. The "Tom Clancy's" video games last had input from him in...2002? And I think that was him complaining about the goggles in Splinter Cell before saying "this looks pretty cool" or something.

 

Yeah, I knew he was pretty hands off with the games and lots of the tie in novels and series novels. I was just curious if anyone knew if he was a bit more connected to Jack Ryan since that's kind of his main protagonist. I do remember the goggles bit, though.

It's always surprising to me that no studio has tried to build off of Rainbow Six yet. There's already a book and story in place, plus huge brand recognition there.

 

I hope not lest we have scenes of Kevin Costner talking to Chris Pine for hours and hours about what the proper color of a Russian tank should be.

 

I've never read the book but I didn't realize analysts do cool things. I thought that's what secret agents were...

 

Read what book? There isn't a book of this. Clancy's best books, before he went to pieces at the collapse of the USSR, were in the 80s when Ryan was in the CIA. When he became President it was idiotic.

But yeah, Clancy's just let his name be franchised out to godawful series books, like Splinter Cell.

 

Nope. More grounded in that it didn't feature things like this;