There’s always something of a price to pay when making a shift from episodic television to feature length and it’s mainly to do with focus. While your series technically has more depth thanks to the eight or more episodes each season is allocated, it sometimes means you don’t have the driving momentum that the concentrated runtime of a movie often affords. It’s a trade off that even the most learned analysts would have trouble choosing between, but after four seasons and a break of four years, the longest serving Jack Ryan has returned to stake his claim on the movie end of things.
Let’s get one thing out of the way right now – while I’ve seen all the other Ryan movies that have occurred throughout his various incarnations (somehow he’s starting to catch up with James Bond castings despite only having six movies to his name), I’ve never actually watched any of the John Krasinski show bankrolled by Amazon. Will my relative inexperience of the character’s “latest” manifestation affect my viewing of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War? Well, that’s the other risk you take when you switch up the format.
We rejoin enternal boy scout Jack Ryan with his spy days behind him as he plods through a civilian job working on Wall Street and while he seems to be at peace, the fact that Cathy is no longer around implies that their relationship didn’t go well. Of course, this seems like a perfect time for his friend and mentor, James Greer to once again insert himself back into Jack’s existence much to the former agent’s chagrin, but now that Greer is the deputy director to the CIA, it seems that the favour he’s about to ask us going to be pretty damn huge.
While Jack’s told he needs to go to Dubai and collect a package from a former colleague of Greer’s called Nigel Cooke, he’s clued in that this won’t just be a simple meet and greet primarily because former colleague Mike November has been brought in to watch his back. It doesn’t take long for Ryan to be proven right either, as the hand off immediately goes tits up what with murders, boat chases and players from other agencies sticking their noses in with chaotic results. However, in the aftermath, Ryan and November make something of a shaky alliance with MI6 officer Emma Marlow and after a trip to London, the mystery starts to become worryingly clear.
It seems that Nigel Cooke had managed to uncover some worrying intel concerning Liam Crown, a figure from parts of Greer’s past he’d much rather forget. The shocking (and fairly derivative) plan involved the formation if a secret black-ops program in the wake of 9/11 that basically allowed those within to do whatever they want however they want in order to preserve national security. Of course, Ryan’s not too crazy about people in spy agencies acting under their own steam – but when Crown’s plan to restart terrorist cells that both he and Greer put out of business, becomes active, it’s time for Jack’s moral outrage to save the day.
So right from the get go, I realise that I’m not going to get the same amount of interest out of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan than someone who has binged all four seasons of the show, and I also realise that there’s going to be a whole bunch of aspects I’m simply not going to be familiar with ever since Jim from The Office bulked up and went to go work for Uncle Sam. I realise that after about thirty episodes, Krasinski is probably going to be more at ease in this character’s shoes than anyone who has ever played Tom Clancy’s notorious do-gooder before him (yes, even Harrison Ford), so his relaxed demeanour in the role after eight years may not stand out to me as much as some of his predecessors did (yes, Harrison Ford again).
However, the derivatively titled Ghost War doesn’t leave itself completely beholden to the show, which proves to be something of a double-edged blade. While it’s nice that I don’t have to do thirty hours of prep in order to enjoy or understand the film, certain relationships (such as Michael Kelly’s chirpy sidekick, November) probably would have benefited from a bit of homework. However, for the most part, the basic Jack Ryan parameters remain firmly in place; Krasinski approaches the reluctant spy as a mild mannered type of James Bond who probably recycles and remembers colleagues birthdays, but who also resorts to passionate chest thumping when his precious sensibilities have been violated. He’s good and he more memorable that both Ben Affleck and Chris Pine’s variants, but at this point in the role, he’s way too relaxed to top Ford at his finger pointing, President lecturing best. Similarly, Wendell Pierce gives descent spy master as Greer, but there’s a feeling that he, like Krasinski, may have already given his best in the role and is enjoying the paycheck. But while Sienna Miller’s Marlow proves to shake things up a bit, she proves to be indicative of Ghost War’s biggest issue – and I don’t mean a shock death having virtually no effect on me because I don’t watch the show.
I have to say I was a little taken aback by the fact that one of the leading lights of cinematic spy craft was borrowing so heavily from other franchises that I found it utterly distracting. Featuring a depressing trend of Amazon movies (and streaming premieres in general) bypassing originality by cutting and pasting bits from better movies, there’s a London based car chase that feels suspiciously like the one from Captain America: Winter Soldier; a gunfight on a cracking, glass floor that’s come right out of Extraction 2 and the whole basis for Miller’s friend/foe character seems to be just to cram an Ilsa Faust type into the franchise. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Misson: Impossible, surely the whole plot of a rogue black-ops programmes secretly funded by red-faced government types has showed up in at least two of those by now, right?
Functioning as a serviceable continuation of a show I don’t watch, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War proves to a mildly diverting watch for what it is, but I was surprised at how flat and uninspired everything was, even when bullets were flying and Ryan was getting all passionate about honesty and stuff. While I don’t want to go off topic, if it wasn’t for the fact that Amazon have already locked in Denis Villeneuve to direct, I’d be incredibly worried about the future of fellow super spy James Bond. But while 007 still has the potential to remain at the top of his game, it seems Jack Ryan’s phoning things in for the foreseeable future.
Safe and solid, but lacking any kind of vital spark that once fueled the earlier adaptions, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War feels weirdly inessential despite having four whole seasons of television to back it up. However, it’s the complete lack of an original thought that makes you wonder why anyone involved even bothered. Hit the road, Jack.
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