A Tale of Four "Ryans"...

In this era of prequels and sequels, the "Jack Ryan" franchise takes the cake for the most convoluted. Based on the hugely popular espionage  series by best selling author Tom Clancy , the first wildly popular Movie to feature Clancy's medically discharged Marine turned analyst Jack Ryan was...

 THE HUNT OF RED OCTOBER (1990)

starring a very young and kind of innocent and sweet Alec Baldwin...

the movie beginnings with Ryan making a deal to bring back a stuffed animal from his business trip and ends with him taking a well deserved rest on the plane, next to the promised stuffed animal, after negotiating the defection of a Soviet Nuclear Sub and saving the world. Thus has always been the lovable-ity of Clancy's character.

Coming out faster then most trilogies these day, the next  Jack Ryan adventure to come to theaters only took two years, but the story line took a leap of over a decade...

PATRIOT GAMES (1992)

Ryan, now in his mid to late forties and now played by Harrison Ford. If all James Bonds will forever be compared to Sean Connery, then all Jack Ryans shall always be compared to Ford, who would do one more "offical" Ryan movie two years later...

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994)

So far, so good, three hugely popular movies, with an iconic character. But then Hollywood got all....Hollywood and well reason went out the window....again.

So, if you know anything about the original story line in the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan novels, he eventually becomes president of the Untied States. Well,  three years later, almost like clock work, Harrison Ford goes on to star in...

AIR FORCE ONE (1997)

The story of a honorably discharged military aviotor who is now president and uses his previous "skill set" to foil the bad guy's plans of taking over the flying White House. Has Jack Ryan written all over it, right? Wrong...... Ford's character this time is James Marshall and though he is a "special forces" kind of guy and has a smart wife and cute daughter at his side, Tom Clancy's character has nothing to do with the movie.

The real Jack Ryan won't make another showing at the box office until 2002 and this time it is a prequel. Maybe the first prequel attempt, before the reboot attempts of....

 BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

or my all time favorite "how it all got started movie...

 CASINO ROYALE (2006)

or the "not really a reboot", more of a "heres' another one" restart...

 BOURNE LEGACY (2012)

Then moving out of the "spy game" the reboots continue in Faraway places...

STAR TREK (2009)

A reboot in differnet space time continum, blah, blah, blah, giving us all  of the iconic characters without the late 1960 's backstories. We'll come back to Star Trek in a moment, but let me mention first the first attempt at a reboot, ever....if you can think of one before 2002, let me know. To my memory, this is the first.

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS(2002)

Ryan is back to being in his late twenties, just starting as an anylast, working for the CIA with a hot girl friend who is in her residency to be a eye surgeon. Yup, all the facts are there. Except, there is no way that Ben Affleck grows up to be Harrison Ford. 

And where is James Earl Jones! Don't get me wrong Morgan Freeman is great, but really again with the only slightly changing Ryan's handler? Fine, Jones is not available, then make his handler very white and Jewish. Instead of a Jone-espue character who isn't Jones! 

Back to Affleck, he is also a good actor. Loved him in.......I'm thinking...now I'm IMDB.com-ing him. Actually don't see anything thing that I would say he was Wow in. Affleck is what they call a "sticky" actor- you watch his stuff, but it ain't exactly memorable. Sticky is actually a term they use in radio, for the songs or singers people declare they do not like, but never change the channel on, like Celine Dion. 

Back to Affleck, again. He is no more Jack Ryan then he is well.....Batman. He just does not portray tough. In the SUM OF ALL FEARS he comes off as wimpy, whining all the time when he is called upon to jump in the fray. His girl friend, Cathy Muller, played by Bridget Moynahan, is more bad ass then he is. 

I hadn't seen the movie in a long time, so watched it the other day, thinking that maybe my recollections of it were not accurate. Nope, they were, Affleck is no Jack Ryan and is certainly not a younger Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan. 

Who is? Chris Pine...

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (2014)

This is a "redo" I am glad Hollywood got around to doing. The first scene Ryan is studying for his PHD in London, the next after 9/11 he is in a helicopter that goes down and the third he is on fighting the pain and learning to walk again with a sexy medical student....

played by Keira Knightley, a perfect younger but just as tough Cathy Muller as....

Anne Archer was next to Harrison Ford in the two most iconic Jack Ryan movies. But the  very first Mrs. Ryan, who for some reason was not called Cathy Muller from the books, but was named Caroline Ryan was played by Gates McFadden and was maybe on screen for two minutes, portraying a rather cranky Brit mother to Alec Baldwin's gushing father in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER.

McFadden is better known as Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek's TV reboot of the NEXT GENERATION. And we are still not done with STAR TREK in this discussion. 

Sadly, how Ryan meets Admiral Greer  is not in this installment, but Kevin Costner is...

as Thomas Harper, the guy in the CIA who recruits him. Nothing there that is not feasible in the Harrison Ford's Ryan past. 

Neither is Ryan's first "kill"...

Though It is very reminiscent of another "first kill in a bathroom"....

Humm, the writers couldn't think of another place for Ryan's initiation in to spy-dom? Did they sit in their writer's room and agree to do the same kind of kill scene or did it just happen?

Pine and Knightley do hold true to their "older" egos, in the roller coaster ride to thwart the bad guys, this time led by the icy Russian Viktor Cherevin, played by Kenneth Branagh, who happens to also be the movie's director. 

Okay, it can't always be dark and dreary in Russia and winter time. The sun does have to shine sometime and well, it isn't always snowing, or in the dark of  night, but apparently those conditions make things just feel more....Russian. As does executions in a deep dark forests. Jack Ryan Franchise and Jason Bourne, you know who I am talking too. The next espionage movie Hollywood makes needs  to have some sunny shots in Russia and chirping birds, enough with overcast skies and dark suits, the great deep Russian choral music can stay, cause that is cool. 

So can Chris Pine. As far as I'm concerned he is Jack Ryan and I really hope we will see him again, soon, very soon... 

Problem is, he is also James T Kirk...

of the Star ship Enterprise, can you hear the music in your head too? That's okay I guess, his "older ego" Harrison Ford was Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan.