Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)
Critic Reviews
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80
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Village Voice Stephanie Zacharek
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is half silliness, half swagger, but Branagh's arms-akimbo impudence as a director makes it work. He takes it all seriously, but with a wink.
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75
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Slant Magazine R. Kurt Osenlund
In keeping his actors on his sober-yet-buoyant plane, Kenneth Branagh presents a convincing romance that doesn't stall the film's brisk clip.
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75
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New York Post Kyle Smith
Soundly structured, smart and fast, with a plausible central scenario, several gripping moments and well-wrought dialogue.
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75
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San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Even with its thrifty set pieces and smaller ambitions, this attempt to reboot the series based on Tom Clancy characters does the most important thing right: It almost always feels like a Jack Ryan movie.
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75
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ReelViews James Berardinelli
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit provides the best motion picture adventure for the title character since his introduction in "The Hunt for Red October."
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70
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Variety Justin Chang
Crisp, efficient and appreciably modest in scale...this conspicuous attempt to breathe new life into a long-dormant action franchise gets at least a few things right, chiefly the shrewd casting of Chris Pine.
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67
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Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Branagh did a nice job of directing "Thor," but all he can do here is try to energize the recycled pulp of the script.
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63
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USA Today Claudia Puig
The film is slow in getting started and once it's underway it's only intermittently involving. It's also occasionally far-fetched.
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63
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Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has no personality of its own. It's a product constructed out of spare parts and assembled with computerized precision. It's hard to care when Jack turns operational and becomes a CIA robocop. The movie feels untouched by human hands.
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63
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Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper
Though directed with great precision by Branagh, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is saddled with a boilerplate script.
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63
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Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Too much of the action in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit takes place on laptops, thumb drives, and video monitors.
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60
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Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf
The plot's a bit complex for what amounts to a lot of running around - the movie can't help but evoke the Bourne series along with a high-gloss hint of Skyfall, not wholly unpleasantly.
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60
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New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Branagh, taking advantage of his experience helming 2011's “Thor,” shows an allegiance to the genre he's working in; both as director as co-star, he pours on the menace.
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50
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The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy
Efficient, if ultimately rote, political thriller.
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40
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Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This is moviemaking in a modular mode, an inspiration-free action adventure - with cheesy cinematography - that fills its modest running time by fitting together familiar elements into something reliably, even insistently, not new.
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