Reviewed by Ramona Prioleau
Amazon’s Jack Ryan is the most recent attempt to cash in on the mega-successful character from Tom Clancy’s late 1980s novels. Starring John Krasinski and Wendell Pierce, the show follows Ryan as he gets pulled from the safety of his desk job after discovering a series of mysterious bank transfers. A deadly adventure though Europe and the Middle East puts Ryan at odds with a terrorist, and it falls upon the analyst-turned-agent to save his country and the world.
In terms of plot or story, the Amazon show doesn’t necessarily have much of anything new to offer. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, if for no other reason than that the production value is so very high. As one of Amazon Prime’s first flagship programs, the studio has made sure that, if someone wants high-speed, quick-cut military action, Jack Ryan will certainly be the best to look at. It’s also the best that any Jack Ryan media has looked in a long time. The huge setpieces in the show’s first couple of episodes are more cinematic and high-budget than anything cable-broadcast TV could dream of, and it won’t take viewers long to realize that we’ve come a long way from The Hunt for Red October. Just the first season of Jack Ryan was filmed in 11 countries across three continents, and you can certainly tell.
John Krasinski is a smart and surprisingly capable pick as Ryan. Joining Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine as the latest square-jawed male celebrity to take on the mantle, Krasninki successfully rebrands himself as an action hero with the show. He still maintains some of that wide-eyed, golden-retriever-like charm that endeared him to so many on The Office, but his new figure and heightened athleticism clearly mark this as a new point in the young actor’s career.
As far as characters are concerned, Jack Ryan has never been all that hard of a nut to crack. The character has always been loyal, moral and disciplined to a fault—all of which is a nice way of saying that he’s pretty damn boring. There’s a reason that no one seems to mind when the character gets traded in for a new white-bread action star every five years. Krasinksi does the best he can though, and he does bring boy-scout-esque charm to the role that’s pretty unique. But Ryan is a black, underinflated character, and even the best of actors can only fill him out so much.
Perhaps, more than anything, this is a struggle to bring a 1980 hero into a 2020 world. Jack Ryan is, quite literally, a product of the Cold War, and with every remake that comes out, it seems that we stray further and further from any truth or nuance that the character may have originally had. Perhaps there was never any to begin with though. Either way, Jack Ryan is flashy enough to hold attention. Those who want to watch it likely already are, but for any who are wondering if there’s something more below the surface here—there’s almost definitely not. M
September 2018
