Jack Ryan

This was SO much better than the previews!! The previews were good, but the actual movie was so much better! It was full of action, but nothing too extreme or gorey. There was a romance, but it wasn't the main focus. It was predictable at times, but my predictions were not 100% accurate (which is good, kept me on my toes).

I knew this was going to be some kind of FBI agent movie, but I didn't expect it to be based on real and recent events. It starts off in 2001 with the characters viewing live News footage of the Twin Towers being hit. It then jumps ahead to about 2012/13 and mentions the U.S.A is conversing with Russia (which also happened recently, although I can't be sure that this was based on that). It was very realistic, easy to follow, suspenseful, and moderately unpredictable.

There was nothing really unusual or significant that I took note of filming-wise. However, there was one shot that I'm quite positive they used a dolly for. At one point, one of the characters stabbed an insignificant by-stander and, as the knife went into his stomach, the by-stander was pushed up against a nearby building by the murderer.As he was pushed, the background moved very very quickly, but almost in the opposite direction than it should have (it seemed to go farther back instead of forward). It was a really cool shot. Other than that, there wasn't much else to take note of. I did, how ever, like the first verbal interaction with Jack (Chris Pine) and Viktor (Kenneth Branagh):

Viktor: "You Americans think of yourselves as direct; perhaps you are just rude."
Jack: "You Russians think of yourselves as poetic; perhaps you're just touchy."

I give Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit 8 out of 10.