He proved himself a blockbuster golden boy with Thor but director Kenneth Branagh doesn't have what it takes to save this mission implausible, a glossy, modern-day origins story for Tom Clancy's CIA hero (embodied here by the charming Chris Pine).
Writers David Koepp and Adam Cozad jam the clichés together, serving up endless scenes in which computers get hacked, while Kremlin-backed oligarch Viktor (Branagh), having planned the perfect financial crime, suddenly makes elementary mistakes and expounds on his fiendish plot very slowly. Note to Viktor: kill now, talk later! Branagh struts around, punching his stooges and making eyes at Jack’s fiancé, Cathy (Keira Knightley).
The latter, a “brilliant doctor”, is in Moscow because she thinks secretive Jack must be having an affair and, naturally, she gets caught up in the mayhem. At a restaurant, she and Viktor discuss Lermontov’s 1839 novel, A Hero of Our Time. It seems unlikely that, years from now, anyone will be discussing this movie; Branagh and Knightley’s fizzy banter aside, Jack Ryan casts no shadow at all.
