Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: January 17, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
15
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Portland OregonianStephen WhittyJan 16, 2014
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit though, gets the international-espionage ingredients almost exactly right. Read full review
80
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJan 14, 2014
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. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 17, 2014
The movie finds its feet, and unrolls as a pretty suspenseful, largely engaging, and hardly ever too-over-the-top spy thriller. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 16, 2014
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit provides the best motion picture adventure for the title character since his introduction in "The Hunt for Red October." Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubJan 16, 2014
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. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundJan 15, 2014
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. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithJan 15, 2014
Soundly structured, smart and fast, with a plausible central scenario, several gripping moments and well-wrought dialogue. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJan 18, 2014
Shadow Recruit is fun in a minor, winter-season way. If the producers stick with Chris Pine as he ages, they may end up with something worth caring about. [20 Jan.2014, p.78]
70
TimeRichard CorlissJan 16, 2014
A reboot of an A-level spy series seems too pretty-good to be true. Shadow Recruit occupies this weekend’s movie screens as familiarly and reassuringly as a Walther PPK fits in the hand of James Bond. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 16, 2014
A competently made, moderately diverting variation on a genre standard. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangJan 15, 2014
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. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 15, 2014
Branagh did a nice job of directing "Thor," but all he can do here is try to energize the recycled pulp of the script. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 17, 2014
Too much of the action in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit takes place on laptops, thumb drives, and video monitors. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJan 16, 2014
Slick, loud, assured, overplotted (way overplotted), fairly diverting, and pretty much empty. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 16, 2014
Though directed with great precision by Branagh, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is saddled with a boilerplate script. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 16, 2014
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. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJan 16, 2014
Pine, who has been so good and so instrumental in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek series as Captain Kirk, turns out to be a decent Ryan. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 15, 2014
Branagh & Co. keep up appearances with a thriller that works mainly because all of its parts — locations, fights and plot twists — are well worn from all the thrillers they’ve been in before. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 15, 2014
The film is slow in getting started and once it's underway it's only intermittently involving. It's also occasionally far-fetched. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithJan 21, 2014
A solid outing for a re-Bourne hero that could, with a few key tweaks, generate another round of vehicles for the Clancy cash cow. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsJan 20, 2014
In stripping Jack Ryan back to basics it’s lost some sophistication, but reinvigorated an action hero who’s unlike any other on offer and who absolutely earns his second — or rather fourth — shot. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 17, 2014
The movie itself isn’t dull. It’s moderately stylish, moderately suspenseful, fun in patches. It hits its marks. But the setup lacks urgency. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 16, 2014
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a well-made movie, well-acted (Costner and Branagh seem to be having an especially good time) and a pleasant diversion. They’ll probably make several more. But it doesn’t exactly put the “thrill” in action thriller. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJan 16, 2014
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. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 14, 2014
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. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJan 18, 2014
By my rough calculation, the real Jack Ryan should be approximately 103. Preposterous but moderately engaging, Jack Ryan has outlived his welcome, and there’s no end in sight. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJan 16, 2014
There is no shaking the feeling that Branagh and his cast are a kind of an espionage film B team, capable of mild diversion but nothing more. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 16, 2014
Branagh, who proved his action bona fides with “Thor,” does an inarguably competent job of choreographing a modestly intelligent espionage thriller, even if it’s impossible to identify anything new he’s bringing to an already groaning table. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJan 16, 2014
The movie eventually evokes the sense that Branagh is better at directing in front of the camera than from behind it; its best moments are typically the ones that feature Branagh’s Viktor Cherevin on-screen. Read full review
50
The DissolveKeith PhippsJan 16, 2014
There’s promising raw material here, particularly in the early scenes. But the film’s second half seems determined to snuff out the promise of its first, making it hard to wish for this incarnation of the character, or any, to have more big-screen adventures. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 16, 2014
An average franchise re-launch. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 15, 2014
Efficient, if ultimately rote, political thriller. Read full review
42
The PlaylistDrew TaylorJan 16, 2014
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit refashions the character (this time played by Chris Pine) into a man of immediate action, and in doing so drains him of anything that made him a relatable human being. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 16, 2014
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. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam NaymanJan 16, 2014
The appeal of the Jack Ryan character, at least on the page, was that he was always the smartest guy in the room. In Shadow Recruit, that doesn’t seem to be much of an accomplishment, because the movie around him is so dumb. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 22, 2014
Branagh might as well have opened a can and dumped it on a plate, the ridges of a factory-line production still perfectly hatched on a gelatinous cylinder of crud. Read full review
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