Ryan getting married on the run from Ruskies

Tom Clancy’s beloved Jack Ryan provided an unambiguously heroic face for the CIA—just keep in mind that “intelligence” is a malleable term. Especially if you watch the movies made from Clancy’s Ryan novels, Patriot Games et al. Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck have already embodied Ryan. Now Chris Pine, apparently the go-to guy for junior versions of serialized characters already played by established elder actors (see the last two Star Treks), is taking on the role in the first movie “inspired by” Clancy’s most famous creation, rather than an actual adaptation of one of the Ryan novels. Written by Adam Cozad and David Koepp and directed by Kenneth Branagh, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which is as much about the foundations of a marriage as it is about saving America and/or the world from annihilation, feels in some respects a little more knowingly lightweight than its predecessors, though its suspicion that Russia is still working to destroy the world seems very much in keeping with Clancy’s tenacious vision. In the shadowy world of late U.S. author, glasnost was always a bluff and the Cold War didn’t end so much as go undercover.

Which makes Branagh’s choice to cast himself as Viktor Cherevin, the big, bad Russian heavy masterminding a second Great Depression and catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil kind of endearing. It’s also flamboyantly arrogant, a showy performance depending on the English actor nailing just the right mealy-mouthed accent and lipless Slavic grimace. But, while his directorial efforts have taken a curious swing from Shakespeare and Mary Shelley to Marvel Comics and Clancy, Branagh the actor has always modelled his career after Laurence Olivier, and this is just the sort of stunt acting that Olivier, for better or worse, savoured. Anyway, he’s very entertaining. Branagh knows he’s got the plum role—Pine’s Ryan, who over the course of the movie goes from math student to marine to secret analyst to superspy, is mostly required to run around a lot and stay cool under pressure. He’s pretty variable. A scene in which Pine’s Ryan has to pretend to be drunk during a fancy dinner is preposterous. And so is most the movie, especially the super-sweaty last act. You’ll never guess how the hero saves New York from exploding! (Psst… Pay attention to the painting.)

But here’s something kind of interesting: there’s a second, unexpected recruit in Shadow Recruit. We know from the outset that Ryan is supposed to keep his employer a secret from everybody, even his girlfriend, who only gets to hear shoptalk if she agrees to become Mrs. Ryan. But the plot twists itself enough so that Cathy (Keira Knightley) pays a surprise visit to Ryan in Moscow and finds out everything. Rather than call the whole thing off, Ryan’s supervisor (a nice, low-key Kevin Costner) opts to work Cathy into the big scheme to divert Cherevin while Ryan steals his data. I actually found Knightley’s performance as a sort of Mata Hari in the aforementioned dinner scene more convincing and nuanced than that of Pine. Will Jack and Cathy be a terror-fighting duo from here on? Will future Jack Ryan flicks offer us a 21^st century geopolitical blockbuster variation on The Thin Man? Scoff if you will. Worse things could happen. 

                           

Space issues: Star Trek

“Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence,” so states a flustered Dr. “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) en route to the heavens in Star Trek. Yet while Bones’ assessment sounds right, those vacuous descriptives don’t really jive with the colossal spectacle of director J.J. Abrams’ film, a fully loaded throwback/re-conception of the beloved 1960s television series with the bountiful offspring. For two solid hours, darkness and silence are held at bay by explosions that dazzle and bellow in the galactic depths and heated debates between crewmembers that echo unnervingly throughout the starship Enterprise.

It starts with plenty of death and one conspicuous birth. I guess it can’t be helped when a lady goes into labour at the precise moment that her husband chooses to sacrifice himself for the survival of millions while under attack, but it sure leaves her son, one James T. Kirk, with a serious case of survivor’s guilt, which will manifest as arrogance self-destructive behaviour when he grows into a young man (Chris Pine). Meanwhile, another troublesome legacy brews when Vulcan dad meets human mom (Winona Ryder!), generating a half-breed burdened with finding the balance between paternal logic and maternal emotion. Baby Spock will grow into a seductively smart and ambitious young fellow (Zachary Quinto) who’ll serve as the perfect foil for the wild, undisciplined Kirk. These guys barely make it into space before unfathomable terror causes their antagonistic tendencies to flare up and only gradually settle into the collaboration necessary to save the universe from some ireful Romulans in possession of some red matter that makes black holes and kills off entire planets in the blink of an eye.

As I watched Star Trek with a capacity audience, I actually heard some people behind me hyperventilate, usually upon the first appearance of some familiar character with a new face. Full disclosure: I am not one of these people, but, breathing disruptions aside, I know there are millions of you out there and, presumably, unless you had to be hospitalized during the first ten minutes, you’ve all seen the movie by now. I can’t speak for Trekkies, but it seems to me that Abrams’ film, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, whom Abrams worked with on Alias, walks a pretty fine line between homage and camp. Pine and Quinto give engaging, original and fairly nuanced performances, even if Pine succumbs to his own version of Shatneresque excess on occasion. But a number of others work so arduously to invoke the mannerisms of the original cast that it feels like parody, an effect that’s heightened still further by some pretty one-dimensional villains.

This tension between reverence for the old Star Trek and the thirst for innovation is mirrored in an uncertain overall tone. With a plot that hinges on wildly implausible/poetic coincidences (just wait until you see how they manage to wrangle Leonard Nimoy into this thing), this Star Trek feels at times cut from the blunt stencils of ancient myth, yet at others it’s imbued with the clarity and psychology of a very modern, textured drama. I guess there was no way of avoiding any kind of Star Trek that wouldn't get tangled up in trying to be many things to many people. But whatever it is, this Star Trek is relentlessly entertaining, has sequences of striking beauty and otherworldly strangeness, and speaks to the sort of old-fashioned heroism rarely invoked with any conviction anymore.