Clear and Present Danger

The final Jack Ryan film left for me to watch and the third in the series of 5. The correct order for lets say historical accuracy of this film franchise would go (Shadow Recruit, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears) but that isn't the order in which they were made. The Sum of all Fears and Shadow Recruit were made as reboots to the franchise but with such a huge gap between sum of all fears and shadow recruit being made we can just scrap The Sum of All Fears as a Jack Ryan film. The Trilogy should start with Patriot Games but actually starts with The Hunt for Red October and ends with Clear and Present Danger before Shadow Recruit was made, which is the start of Jack Ryan as a CIA agent.

Harrison Ford reprises his role as Jack Ryan as his last surrender to the inevitable downhill of Jack Ryan and Ben Affleck. Ford as Ryan looks old in this movie and the character has been around for a while now but I still prefer Ford as Ryan to Affleck or Baldwin. With Ford ageing noticeably he takes on a slightly different role as Ryan and with the CIA head (James Earl Jones) dying of Cancer, Ryan takes over as acting head of the CIA. He has enemies and there are people who don't want him to know what is going on so this film isn't so much about the mistakes that he makes but how he takes huge risks to do what he needs to do in order to make things right, all of which could end his career.

Willem Defoe is weirdly enough not the bad guy in this film. If you are looking at the name and it means nothing to you or you don't know why you know it, he was the Green Goblin in the Tobey Maguire Spider-man. It seems like he is going to be the bad guy and he sort of has the face for it but as he wasn't the bad guy in the previous film (Patriot Games) then it could be assumed that he wasn't going to suddenly become so in this film. He is just hired help and his character is probably the most complex because he switches from just being a soldier doing his job to turning against his employers and doing the right thing. He is always loyal but sometimes loyal to the wrong people. Looking young in this film meant that had they chosen to make more films that followed on from this film he could have become an important character. Arguably he is better than Harrison Ford in this film but then Harrison Ford never was the worlds best actor, he was just once young and attractive who looked good in action movies. Defoe doesn't suit that criteria so he actually relies on his abilities which gives him the edge in this film.

Clear and Present Danger is the unexplained end to the franchise and the ending is one of the worst. It doesn't actually end- it was as if they were planning to make another follow on movie and then just never got round to it but seeing as they made two attempts at rebooting this franchise that can't seriously be the case.

Every Jack Ryan film is enjoyable and they have peaked with Kenneth Brannagh directing and staring alongside Chris Pine and Keira Knightley. It's no James Bond or Jack Reacher but it still makes a very good cinema screening.