Movie Review: ‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War’

Tweet
Review by Adam Courtliff

Jack Ryan is back, on Prime Video returning for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War, a feature length movie arriving just a few years after seemingly retiring from the spying world following the ending of the highly popular television series. Packed full of political intrigue and globe-trotting thrills, the series managed to turn Krasinski’s version of Ryan into one of the more entertaining modern spy protagonists.

Dusting off an iconic character like Ryan is bound to have fans salivating, myself included, but what Prime Video has served up here is an incredibly generic and forgettable action movie that serves more as an advert for visiting Dubai than it does a spy thriller.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War follows Ryan (John Krasinski) as he’s dragged out of retirement from his cushty Wall Street office job by his old boss and friend James Greer (Wendell Pierce), now deputy director of the CIA. Long removed from his terrorist hunting days, Ryan isn’t quite as sharp as he used to be, so Greer pairs him back up with old pal and CIA contractor Mike November (Michael Kelly). The pair are tasked with a mission supposedly carrying consequences that could put the future of the world on a knife edge.

Greer sends the pair to Dubai to track down explosive information obtained by another former operative before it falls into the wrong hands. To make matters even more convoluted, it’s not just the CIA searching for this information, with British intelligence officer Emma Marlower (Sienna Miller) also in the lavish city working for MI6.

What initially starts as the usual blaming match between agencies soon turns into something far more sinister with the discovery of an untraceable rogue group planning to create global chaos. Or at least that appears to be what Ghost War is trying to say because for large stretches of the first act it genuinely feels like the movie is refusing to explain what is actually going on.

Marketed as a standalone tale, Ghost War definitely requires some prerequisite viewing from audiences as character development is at a premium, instead assuming everyone watching is already fully caught up and knows exactly who everybody is and what they do. Because of that, with the movie constantly throwing names, organisations, and plot points at audiences without ever really letting any of it settle it can be difficult to follow. Whilst it feels very deliberately framed that way initially, there is only so long confusion can pass as intrigue before it just becomes frustrating waiting for the jigsaw pieces to finally fall into place.

It also becomes painfully evident very early on that Jack Ryan: Ghost War was supposed to be a television series. Written by Krasinski alongside Aaron Rabin, there are multiple instances where important characters and major plotlines are introduced only to then be wrapped up with little to no tension or jeopardy.

Whole sections feel like they are missing entirely, as if chunks of the movie were hacked apart after Prime Video got an offer from Visit Dubai and Dubai based property developer Damac to turn Jack Ryan into a feature length tourism advert. Eventually, the amount both are shoved down audiences throats becomes almost laughable. The movie repeatedly stops to admire luxury hotels, skyscrapers, rooftop bars, and sports cars like it’s trying to sell holiday packages rather than tell an actual story.

Unlike the television series, once the pieces finally do fall into place, Ghost War becomes painfully predictable with the “big twist” involving a rogue CIA agent played by Max Beesley already revealed in the trailer. Considering it’s one of the only elements in the entire movie that could have provided any genuine suspense, it feels like a baffling decision.

Instead, Ghost War just goes through the motions never really threatening to get out of second gear, choosing instead to coast through scene after scene without providing any of the intelligent, detail led storytelling that drew audiences into the television series in the first place. What you are left with instead is the exact sort of glossy streaming slop audiences consume once and instantly forget about a week later.

Of course, with a Jack Ryan movie you expect at least a few high octane action sequences, but outside of the third act Ghost War is surprisingly barren. Aside from one genuinely well choreographed car chase through the streets of London, there are huge stretches of the movie completely devoid of anything action related, which becomes a massive problem considering how dry some of the dialogue scenes are.

In fairness, once the movie finally drags itself into the third act the ante is upped considerably and some fans probably will enjoy the chaos that unfolds. Unfortunately, by that point the cracks in the writing become impossible to ignore with Jack and Emma somehow managing to fire what feels like hundreds of bullets without ever needing to reload once.

It may sound trivial, but with the lack of action, the lackadaisical performances from almost the entire cast, and the subpar writing, boredom inevitably starts to creep in. Counting bullets genuinely became more entertaining than what was unfolding on screen.

Given this is a streaming release, it feels almost inevitable that audiences will fall into the trap of doomscrolling through their phones rather than paying attention to anything actually happening before eventually logging it on Letterboxd with a generous three star rating and immediately forgetting they ever watched it. Maybe somewhere inside Prime Video headquarters that counts as success, but for a character as iconic as Jack Ryan, I can’t help but come away massively disappointed.

So when Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War drops on Prime Video on Wednesday, don’t let the high octane techno score fool you into expecting an intense adrenaline filled ride because this does absolutely nothing to build on the legacy of the brilliant television series. Instead, prepare yourself for 100 minutes of expensive background noise to throw on while you go about your day that you will forget about almost as quickly as you clicked play.