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. 

                           

My Week with Marilyn: Some like it lukewarm

My Week with Marilyn is based on memoirs by filmmaker Colin Clark, reflecting on how in 1956, when Clark was 23, he broke into the British film industry via a combination of family connections, utter inoffensiveness and minimal persistence, and how his maiden voyage as third assistant director brought him into close proximity with not only Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh but also Marilyn Monroe, who took a shine to Clark for a little while and sort of broke his tender heart before moving on to other projects, other hearts, other nervous breakdowns. The film, directed by veteran TV-movie helmer Simon Curtis, is very pretty and tasteful, very nicely recreates period and milieu, and is all but devoid of stakes. When Michelle Williams’ Marilyn turns those soft, lovely, spellbinding, mostly unblinking eyes on Eddie Redmayne’s Colin it’s as though the rest of the world could disintegrate in an agonizing atomic catastrophe and it wouldn’t matter. Actually, nothing much matters here. No hidden depths behind those eyes are plumbed, our hero comes of age while remaining a total cypher, life goes on. But hey, Colin Clark went skinny-dipping with a sex goddess! So high-fives all around, boys.

Best thing about the film: Kenneth Branagh plays Olivier, which is to say that Branagh has been cast in the role he’s been casting himself in since the very beginning of his career. Worst thing about the film: Adrian Hodges’ screenplay gives each of the supporting characters overwritten monologues where they suddenly and implausibly confess their insecurities and speak aloud every drop of subtext. (Perhaps this comes directly from Clark’s memoir; I haven’t read it.) The somewhat interesting result of these best and worst things is that you get a scene where Branagh/Olivier articulates all of Branagh/Olivier’s anxieties about aging and failing to reach all of Branagh/Olivier’s goals, which inevitably prompts one to consider how far apart the careers of Branagh and Oliver finally are. Yet in an odd way, Branagh’s humbling portrayal of Olivier and its weird merging of Branagh and Olivier gives me a new respect for Branagh, who may finally have severed himself from the quixotic ambition to be Olivier, not by directing Thor, but by saying “Fuck it all” and actually, openly embodying his idol in this pretty mediocre movie. Good for him. Makes me genuinely curious what he’ll do next.

The crazies must be gods: Thor

Hulking Norse warrior Thor (Chris Hemsworth) meets fetching New Mexican astrophysicist Jane (Natalie Portman) late one night while she and her assistants chase atmospheric disturbances in the desert. They get off to a bumpy start: she hits him with her van—twice—and he knocks her for a loop by claiming to be from Asgard and offering a revisionist approach to mapping the galaxy. Still, they hit it off. I’d love to tell you that this is how Thor begins. It would be so much more fun if, at least for a while, we could wonder if this was some sort of whacked romantic comedy, if our protagonist really might be some homeless, mentally ill Aryan with a gym pass and the unlikely hottie scientist wants to gobble him up him anyway. Alas, we already know he’s the genuine god of thunder thanks to a protracted prologue about the War with the Frost Giants and the troubled state of affairs in the glowing, surprisingly multicultural and deadly boring kingdom from which Thor has recently been exiled.

How cleaner, more compelling and a lot less stodgy and fanboy-tailored Thor might have been without that whole prologue (which consumes an entire quarter of the running time) or, for that matter, everything that happens in Asgard, where everyone delivers their stilted dialogue like bad theatre (the director is none other than pop Shakespearean Kenneth Branagh), no one has a sense of humour, and despite all the backstory the rules of godly combat remain incoherent: Thor is a rare example of a movie who's plot turns on a literal deus ex machina. Best WTF?! moment: Jeremy Renner shows up in the middle of this thing to do nothing but aim his bow and arrow at Thor.

At bottom, this adaptation of the Marvel Silver Age superhero comic is about dynasty. Thor was supposed to inherit the crown from his dad, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), but his response to an unexpected security breach proves that he hasn’t matured enough: Thor’s still too vain, cocky, a bearded banger dandy who would not look at all out of place playing bass for Maiden. So dad takes away his hammer and flings him to the mortals. Thor’s brother meanwhile is an insidious little rat trying to sneak his way to the top. They call him Loki, but trust me, there’s nothing low-key about this guy once he gets going. Eventually they’ll have to duke it out on earth and in the heavens, but their unfathomable powers, bathed in special effects, render their fights far too abstract to pack any real punch.