After loving her in “Bend It Like Beckham” some twelve years ago, and a crush cemented in “Love, Actually”, I’ll follow Kiera Knightly most places, even if she is playing a drug addled rock and even if in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” she is playing Jack Ryan’s (Chris Pine, all chin and sweat glands) damsel in distress girlfriend who follows Jack to Moscow where an evil Russian government stoolie (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed) plans a terrorist and a sell off of American dollars in a bid to trigger a Second Great depression.
Like we needed any help.
This is a reboot of the Tom Clancy books and movies and Chris Pine is good enough for the role previously played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck . Recruited from analysts to operational after PRyan discovers some hidden Russian bank accounts and is worried what it all means, he is flown to Moscow where his driver tries to kill him (not sure why) and Kiera, convinced he’s cheating on her, follows in hot pursuit.
Branagh sneers at the American nastily and the hi-tech world is really quite attractive, Kevin Costner underplays his role smartly and while there is not much chemistry among the sweethearts, nobody scrunches up her face like Kiera. She looks exactly the same whether she is laughing, crying or thinking.
But as happens way too often, Branagh isn’t quite villainous enough and anybody in threat isn’t in threat for long. It all ends, like so many disasters nowadays, on Wall Street.
Not quite thrilling enough, it does the job smartly enough and ties up its loose ends in a pretty little bow just in time for the second movie in the newly minted series; though a lousy $17M box office in its first week makes you think Pine will be stuck with Star Trek awhile longer.
Grade: B