What do Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin have in common with Chris Pine? The trio has all played Tom Clancy’s CIA analyst Jack Ryan on the big screen.
Baldwin performed the task in the first Jack Ryan film, The Hunt for Red October. Harrison Ford stepped in for the next two, Sum of All Fears and Patriot Games. Now the official trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit looks to continue the series’ tradition of high espionage and adventure. Pine plays a younger Ryan caught up in a “situation.” That’s what people in movies call it when ruthless, highly trained assassins stalk and try to kill them.
Of course, this revelation and the subsequent violence leads to clandestine meetings with Oscar winners like Kevin Costner, as well as taunt conversations with fellow Academy Award nominee and Brit pretending to be some kind of Euro-threat, Kenneth Branagh, and the typical conflicts with a significant other who apparently thinks you work in a cubicle, never imagining you’re a globe hopping, gun fighting and judo chopping spy and, by being within arm’s length, she’s put herself in imminent danger.
At least that’s what we’ve culled from the trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a reboot of the series that allegedly reveals the story of how the CIA employee goes from desk jockey to operative. Along with Pine, Costner and Branagh, the stellar cast includes Kiera Knightley, Colm Feore and yet another Oscar nominee, David Paymer.
The film is directed by Branagh, who can say he’s helmed both classy and popcorn fare. He was Oscar nominated in 1989 after directing and starring in a well received version of Henry V. He also directed the recently well received Thor: The Dark World, an installment of Marvel Comics’ immensely popular super-hero films.
With that kind of pedigree, we should look forward to January 17, 2014, the film’s planned release date.
