Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Is Chris Pine the king of the rebooters?  After helming a very profitable new take on Star Trek, Pine’s been tapped to lead a post-9/11 reboot of Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” espionage/thriller franchise.  Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the first in what I can only assume is a series, is quite successful and engaging, even if it doesn’t forge new ground in the genre.

The film follows fresh-faced Jack Ryan (Pine), just off a tour of duty in Afghanistan as a Marine.  After undergoing extensive physical therapy and wooing his therapist Cathy (Keira Knightley), Ryan is recruited by Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) to join the CIA.  Ten years later, Ryan’s undercover work on Wall Street exposes a plot to undermine the US economy, a conspiracy directed by Russian capitalist Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh).

Branagh pulls double-duty as villain and director here, and I would like to pause for a moment and ask the second question in this review:  when did Kenneth Branagh become a sterling action film director?  Short answer:  Thor.  But Jack Ryan proves that wasn’t a one-time fluke, a suitable hybrid of superhero throwdown with Branagh’s more comfortable Shakespearean swagger.  Jack Ryan proves Branagh a solid director of action sequences, culminating in an immensely suspenseful final hour or so of the film.

As the villain, Branagh refrains from noshing on the scenery and instead opts for cold and unpredictable; it’s a refreshing alternative to the bloviating Bond villain caricature we could have gotten.  Pine is credible as a first-time operative, particularly gifted in a key scene after his first kill, and Costner is a reliable choice for the stern senior agent.  Knightley’s beautiful as ever, though her American accent is a little too on-the-nose valley girl to be entirely believable.

I’ve praised the action scenes in the film, and boy do they deliver.  From a car chase with the threat of gruesome torture ahead to an intense close-quarters bathroom fight, Branagh turns in a film so capable that I’m eager to see him return for a Jack Ryan sequel to see what else he can do at play in the genre.  What I’d like to see more, though, is a little bit of innovation.  As successful as it is, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is very much a paint-by-numbers spy thriller.  The classic beats are all there.  Post 9/11 film?  9/11 motivates character to serve his country.  Female character?  Hostage.  And even though the economic plot is a bit creative for a spy action film, it all amounts in the end to blowing something up.

One glaring weakness in the film is Ryan’s downright lack of a personality.  It’s easy enough to vicariously enjoy the film through him, but we never really get a reason to care about him beyond the unsuccessful pathos of a quick bout of physical therapy.  Pine plays a less cocky Captain Kirk here, devoid of the personality that made Star Trek a worthwhile hero’s-quest narrative.  There’s nothing really unique about his methods, nothing that sets him apart other than us knowing that Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford played him before.  Hopefully the sequel rectifies that and clears up Ryan’s place in the espionage pantheon.

It remains to be seen, then, what kind of a spy Jack Ryan will become.  The economic angle is promisingly creative, but even if the writers fall back on a spy sans personality, Branagh’s capable hand at the directorial till delivers an engaging (if not cerebral) suspense film full of the good old eyeball kicks.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is rated PG-13 “for sequences of violence and intense action, and brief strong language.”  The violence is certainly more intense than bloody, and much of it deals more with the threat of menace than with actual spurts of the red stuff.  An F-bomb or two gets dropped, but it’s pretty tame in terms of language.

Man of Steel (2013)

Tall order, Zack Snyder:  direct the heck out of a Superman movie so we can move toward a Justice League franchise while we forget entirely about Superman Returns.

Mission accomplished.

After a dynamite Krypton scene introducing the coolest Jor-El (Russell Crowe) this side of Brando, we catch up with Kal-El (Henry Cavill) on a journey of self-discovery – until star reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) finds him first.  But before the man who will become Superman can reveal himself to the world, the mad General Zod (Michael Shannon) arrives and demands to reclaim Kal-El and the Kryptonian race.

I always feel a bit starstruck writing these reviews for movies I went into expecting to like.  It’s a Superman movie godfathered by Christopher Nolan:  I’m admittedly biased here.  So if you like, take a grain of salt to go with this review.  But while I’m less agog than I was at The Dark Knight or its Rises successor, I’m prepared to say I liked Man of Steel better than Batman Begins, a “first film” with which it shares many similarities.

The first of these is the film’s smart emphasis on the man before the Superman.  As with Bruce Wayne in Begins, we care about Kal-El as a character caught between two worlds without feeling at home in either.  And it’s on Cavill’s able shoulders that the film rests; tasked with playing Kal-El (not heroic Superman, not geeky performance Clark Kent), Cavill gives us a compelling and engaging protagonist who we actually appreciate for his complexity.  Watch the moment when Kal confronts a belligerent trucker; the simmer is there, and the punchline reaction is pitch perfect.

The rest of the cast is stellar, too – no complaints about Adams or Shannon, who both turn in reliably solid work; Adams is spunky and darling as Lois Lane, and no one does crazy-angry like Michael Shannon, whose Zod is a megalomaniacal ball of fury who never descends into caricature.  The real surprises, though, are the gripping performances of Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner as Kal’s two fathers; Crowe makes Jor-El interesting beyond Brando’s stuffed shirt (seriously, can we get a Jor-El prequel?), and Costner is moving to the point of misty eyes as the weathered all-American Pa Kent.  Better still, we can see how these two parents informed the man Kal becomes, partly through the flashback structure of the film (again, Batman Begins) and also through Cavill’s interactions with them.  (As Ma Kent, Diane Lane gets just enough screentime, though one suspects she’ll have a larger role in the sequel.)

Finally, major major kudos go to Hans Zimmer, the stalwart composer of some of the best blockbusters of the past decade.  Zimmer manages to sidestep the issue of the iconic John Williams score by giving us a rousing and optimistic theme that soars with the protagonist, booms with Zod’s invasion, and actually – unlike his early Batman stuff – gets stuck in your head.  Equal parts Batman, Pirates, and Inception, Zimmer’s Man of Steel score sets the stage for what ought to be a stellar Justice League jam.

And yes, the build-up toward Justice League is acutely felt, even though the stage is entirely Superman’s (eyes open for nods to Wayne Enterprises and Lexcorp).  What we’ve got in the meantime is a thoroughly engaging cross between the fanboy fidelity of Zack Snyder (see Watchmen, slavishly so) and the relentless realism of Christopher Nolan.  The film does, as Eddie Izzard would say, do a bit of “pissing about with the myth” (too many people might know Superman’s secret identity, and Superman makes a controversial climactic decision which I suspect sets up a sequel), but this original take on the classic character ought to leave plenty of fans satisfied.  And from the box office receipts, mainstream moviegoers are pretty pleased, too.

Heck, Man of Steel doesn’t say it in the title, but it’s super.

Man of Steel is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language.”  Some of the action/fight scenes are relentless, lasting dozens of minutes at a time.  They’re almost entirely bloodless (Kryptonians apparently don’t bleed), though some have been distressed by the apparent 9/11 allegory at work.  Lois Lane has a few mildly salty lines, but they’re more endearing than offensive.