comment #1

BurmaShave says ...

SUM OF ALL FEARS is underrated, though certainly still the least of the 4. I think Pine is an interesting choice frankly. Also Chris has to be crossing his fingers looking at those pictures of Baldwin and Harrison as to which way he's going to go in 20 years.

comment #2

Eloi Manning says ...

Jack Ryan is an interesting franchise, in the sense that Hollywood keeps going back to it despite nobody I've ever met having any particular fondness for it. Most people have enjoyed a Jack Ryan film more or less, but I bet a lot of people wouldn't even know that all four films are connected by the same character. I mean, what are his defining characteristics? He's not like James Bond with his girls and guns and martinis. He's like a blank slate.

comment #3

Rich S. says ...

Actually, The Hunt for Red October would be Dr. No, Patriot Games would be Live and Let Die, Clear and Present Danger would be The Spy Who Loved Me and The Sum of All Fears would be The Living Daylights.

Happy Birthday to Roger Moore, by the way. 82 today.

comment #4

allstar397 says ...

I think Ford came off more seasoned...well because he was. Pine would obviously be playing a younger/inexperienced Jack Ryan, and can maybe grow into the role as the character grows.

comment #5

Ulysses says ...

A propos of Charles Van Doren, how about Ralph Fiennes as Jack Ryan ?

I could never buy Affleck as Ryan. I kept thinking of him as O'bannion from Dazed and Confused.

comment #6

Josh Massey says ...

The Hunt For Red October is actually one of my all-time favorite films. It's an expertly crafted actioner, and severely underrated. The others were all good pop entertainment, but didn't hold a candle.

If Baldwin had squashed "A Streetcar Named Desire" and made Patriot Games, his career would have likely been seismically different. He could have made six or seven of those movies, kept some continuity in the series, and still be a movie star.

Not sure I would trade "30 Rock" for that, but it would have been awesome to watch. He was so much more suited for the role than Ford (or, obviously, Affleck).

comment #7

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

I don't think Hunt For Red October is overrated. It's an absolutely brilliant piece of smart action that I think everyone more or less acknowledged from the start. I think it's widely recognized as a classic, no?

Sadly, it does seem that action movies today lack the elegance of gems like HFRO. I swear I could watch that movie three times in a row on a rainy Saturday without getting bored at all...

comment #8

bents75 says ...

Definitely. And give credit where credit is due - McTiernan's back to back to back trifecta of Predator, Die Hard, and Hunt for Red October, all within a four year period is arguably one of the best action runs of all time.

They all hold up just as well today as they did 20 or years ago.

He's made some bad choices since then, unfortunately, but the man certainly defined a particular era of action.

comment #9

mccool says ...

I think it's widely recognized as a classic, no?

Yes. Classic. Not saying I pop it in the ole dvd player often, but whenever it's on tv, I can[t turn it off.

And what the hell happened to Baldwin? I say this as someone with a staunch record of heterosexuality, but I was struck by how good looking he was in "She's Having a Baby" when I saw it a few months ago. Now he;s a big, bloated, puffy-eyed jaba. Ford somehow kept it together, which is surprising considering the constant state of munchies he's been in for the last twenty years.

I actually preferred Baldwin's Ryan ... he played the character more humbly, less self-righteous, less cartoonish.

comment #10

Josh Massey says ...

I don't think it's even arguable. That IS the best action run of all time; one of the best ones period.

comment #11

Jack South P.I. says ...

Where have all the men gone? Chris Pine looks like a male model from Zoolander. God I wish Hollywood would stop casting boys and get some guys with balls. Steve McQueen is rolling in his grave.

comment #12

Stringer Bell says ...

I think all the Basinger stress took a serious toll on Baldwin. Still has the chops, just not the looks. That's why he's on tv nowadays.

comment #13

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"I don't think it's even arguable. That IS the best action run of all time; one of the best ones period."

Not to go all Asian-D.Z. on you, but John Woo had a period between '86 and '92 that was absolutely insane; it's littered with action classics, some of which crossed over into the mainstream and became hits, others which remain cult favorites (but are just as strong, if not stronger than more recognizable titles). He essentially had two mini-chains, separated by a film I haven't seen -- Just Heroes -- but most HK experts seem to agree that it's rather disappointing.

Anyway, the two runs:

1986: A Better Tomorrow
1987: A Better Tomorrow II
1989: The Killer

1990: Bullet in the Head
1991: Once a Thief
1992: Hard-Boiled

Now, ABTII and OaT are the respective weakest links in those two blocks, but I would still take either of Woo's two runs over McTiernan's run between '87-'90 (not to take anything away from it at all). Especially when you realize that there was only one (supposed) clunker separating this streak of legendary action films. But hey -- that's just me and my taste...

comment #14

scooterzz says ...

"Pine is basically a Baywatch-level actor."

a few months ago, i went into a performance of 'farragut north' at the geffen thinking almost the same thing....left the theater both surprised at and impressed with the performance i saw on stage.... he's much better than you're giving him credit for....

comment #15

lipranzer says ...

There's a certain slickness to RED OCTOBER that turns me off, though it is looking better and better as the years go by. Also, while PATRIOT GAMES and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER are exciting films, and deserve credit for cutting Clancy's technobabble to a minimum, I have to agree Baldwin was better suited to the role than Ford.

That said, I have to echo Eloi on this - why is this being done? The last Ryan movie was seven years ago. Clancy seems more suited to TV nowadays, where the legions who thrill to the fetishization of science on CSI and its clones can thrill to the fetishization of technology that remains the hallmark of his stories.

comment #16

Pynchon8 says ...

Baldwin seemed smarter, like he was actually processing all the information. With Ford it was a lot of (thunderclap) aha! with a dash of rolled-up sleeve moxie.

Baldwin is the Connery of this series.

comment #17

Josh Massey says ...

I've always wanted to see Without Remorse on-screen - definitely Clancy's best book of the five or six I've read. It centered around a young Mr. Clark, the guy played by Dafoe in Clear and Present Danger and Schreiber in Sum of All Fears.

It doesn't seem to have gotten a sniff since the proposed Sinise/Fishburne pairing fell apart over a decade ago.

comment #18

ZacharyTF says ...

For some weird reason, I think of Harrison Ford when I think of Jack Ryan, but the best Jack Ryan movie to me is The Hunt for Red October.

comment #19

TL says ...

I don't really have any interest in Tom Clancy's novels, so maybe someone can answer this: are there any decent or "important" (i.e., important within the world of the character) Jack Ryan stories left? I thought the 4 they've made were pretty much covered the canonical Jack Ryan story.

So are they basically just going to start writing new stories? Action movies that just happen to have "Jack Ryan" as the main character?

comment #20

Alexander says ...

I'm still awed by how poor The Sum of All Fears is compared to the book. It's not even upper-echelon Clancy but the book blows the movie away.

TL, I'd say Red Rabbit proved that Clancy is completely burnt-out with Jack Ryan and honestly, so am I. Clancy's been going downhill for many years now, but that was the book where I realized that in the past ten years or so, he practically despises that character. (Spoiler warning: Ryan is at best a supporting player in Red Rabbit.) I remember there being rumors that Red Rabbit would be adapted into a film, but if they're smart they'll go elsewhere.

comment #21

Josh Massey says ...

"Red Rabbit" was AWFUL. Clancy was writing solely for the Hollywood bucks, and it shows.

TL: Ryan actually became President in the later books, after a terrorist flew a plane into the Capitol during a joint session of Congress (the book was written years before 9/11). Not quite as silly as it sounds.

In an alternate universe, they're up to that in the Baldwin series.

comment #22

Terry McCarty says ...

Saw FARRAGUT NORTH at the Geffen and agree with scooterzz' comment.

comment #23

Terry McCarty says ...

mccool wrote:
I actually preferred Baldwin's Ryan ... he played the character more humbly, less self-righteous, less cartoonish.

Ford wasn't bad as Ryan--but then again the 90s was the period where Ford's acting was more Gregory Peck-ish and the charm didn't really resurface until 6 DAYS 7 NIGHTS.

comment #24

alynch says ...

I can't agree with the consensus here. While I like Hunt for Red October quite a bit, Clear and Present Danger is one of my favorite action films ever. Ford all the way.

comment #25

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I definitely feel C&PD is sort of the underrated one of the bunch. At this point, HFRO is pretty much (deservedly) recognized as a classic. I haven't really met anyone that is all that fond of PG, honestly.

Tarantino has some pretty interesting comments on that movie (actually his whole interview with Dennis Hopper is pretty good):

http://www.tarantino.info/wiki/index.php/Dennis_Hopper_talks_to_QT

comment #26

Gordon27 says ...

"I realize that an actor doesn't have to be a genius to play a genius, but he has to have the ability to make you believe that his character is"

I'm not going to say that Pine is definitely a great actor, but I find it hard to believe that you think that 'Star Trek' is going to show you his limits. An actor definitely doesn't have to be a genius to play a genius, however, it does help if the writers are able to *write* a genius. I enjoyed 'Star Trek' quite a bit and thought Pine was fantastic in it, but it's a horrible, horrible script in every conceivable way (which makes it square in the middle of the 'Star Trek' movie franchise script list). The fact that Pine works as well as he does despite having no consistent character on paper, and being largely relegated to getting beaten up and/or cracking bad jokes, that suggests to me that he has deeper chops than he's shown yet.

comment #27

dinovelvet says ...

Why do they keep bothering with this? There's a truly badass Tom Clancy character waiting to hit the silver screen, and that's Sam Fisher of "Splinter Cell". A script was written, Peter Berg was attached to direct, and then...nothing. Bah.

Anyway, this seems like the exact same mistake they made with Sum of all fears...trying to resurrect this dated franchise with a younger, hipper actor, only this time riding the fading tailend of the "reboot" trend.

comment #28

brownshuggah says ...

wasn't Ryan Gosling attached to be in a Ryan movie called "By Any Means Necessary" (not based on a Clancy Ryanverse novel) a while back?

comment #29

Noah Cross says ...

Definitely like HFRO best and think Baldwin was the best Ryan.
But I do like "Patriot Games", even if I have to life whenever I think of Ford gravely intoning "You took my daughter's spleen!"

Sorry, 'spleen' is just a funny work.

comment #30

LexG says ...

Eloi Manning said it all in post 2; I've liked every Ryan movie and all three actors in the role, but it's not much of a "series," they're all pretty dry, and they smack of that '90s Paramount military/conspiracy potboilervibe that seems pretty dated now.

Just kind of cold, sexless movies... even Red October is a straight-up sausage fest; They couldn't have put some smokin'-ass Russki chick in a catsuit on the sub to give everyone a boner?

They're like square-jawed super-Republican just-the-facts-ma'am storytelling. Jack Ryan THE FAMILY MAN = BORING. If I wanted to see some apple-pie married guy being a Boy Scout, I'd watch Fred MacMurray movies. I want to see action heroes who BANG CHICKS and who are morally flexible. Like if Jack Ryan embezzled some money and had a hot-ass mistress and D.T.B.'d his wife. THAT would be exciting.

comment #31

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Yeah, Fred MacMurray definitely earned his Citizenship in the Community badge with his "apple-pie" performances in such classic films as Double Indemnity, The Apartment, and The Caine Mutiny.

Whaa?

comment #32

crazynine says ...

Wow. One of my favorite old topics.

Like others have said, that McTiernan stretch is *perfection*. Even Predator, the slightest of the bunch, is still light years tighter and more entertaining than most action movies of the last ten years. Certainly a helluva lot more quotable.

And when anyone-- Wells, usually, often-- complains about how dumb and cinematically unimportant action movies are, I immediately point out Die Hard (and Aliens, and Speed, but I digress). There's absolutely nothing wrong with a great action flick, and Die Hard is again about as perfect an action flick as one can get.

As for the Clancy movies. . .

I've read Tom Clancy from the year Hunt for Red October was published. Loved loved LOVED his early novels, all the way up to Sum of All Fears, which is IMO his best book. After all the buildup of Ryan in the earlier novels, you get to the last hundred pages of Fears, and you really think, "Oh shit. . . he's going to nuke the whole world, isn't he?" As everyone says, the movie wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything like the novel (Nazis? Really???) and thus nowhere near as good.

Since Fears, Clancy has steadily declined. The two Clark-centric novels, Without Remorse and Rainbow Six, have their moments (especially the former-- a character-driven period piece!), but the later Ryan novels are just embarrassing (good call though by Clancy on the plane crashing into the Capitol in Debt of Honor-- one of the first things I thought of on 9/11, that scenario really burned its way into the memory).

Hunt for Red October is the best Ryan movie, and by far the best adaptation of a Clancy book-- in fact, I'd argue, one of the best adaptations of a book, *period*. It's the gold standard, and the first argument against all the people who always whine, "the book is better than the movie." What it misses in detail, it absolutely nails in spirit. The casting was perfect, the direction was perfect, everything. Yes, it's slick, but it's also *polished*. Very much a great Cold War movie.

The biggest revelation of October? You know how a book adaptation comes out, and for people who never read the book, when they go and read it, the actors in the movie now occupy their mind as the characters in the book?

Well, October was the reverse-- everybody who came to Clancy before the movie came out *saw in their heads* the character Alec Baldwin played. Again, he nailed it.

Now, as for the Ford Ryan films, Patriot Games and Clear & Present Danger, the former was crippled from the start-- it lost a LOT of what made the novel great, and traded a smart novel ending (Ryan *didn't* kill Miller at the end of the novel, fearing he'd lose his humanity with revenge-- whereas Harrison Ford just impales Sean Bean on a boat anchor and calls it a day).

Danger was a better film, a great actioner, but it never felt like the novel, which again is far more intricate than the movie-- again, they changed the ending to make it more "cinematic" when the novel's ending was just as good, and arguably BETTER since it tied directly into major events featured in Sum of All Fears (the novel, not the movie).

That was my biggest problem with the Ryan films-- they're all standalone. That makes sense between Red October and the Ford movies, but neither Ford movie is connected in any substantial way. Patriot Games is a *prequel* to Red October, and makes more sense as one, but the movie couldn't even exploit it as a *sequel*, James Earl Jones notwithstanding.

And Dafoe, God love him, isn't Clark, at all. Schreiber did a MUCH better job, with less, at capturing the guy.

Bottom line? I know how much of an inexplicable hard-on Wells has for Philip Noyce, but great action set pieces aside, both Patriot Games and Clear & Present Danger represent not only the dilution of a franchise, they're the first instances of Harrison Ford becoming a "paycheck" actor. He phones in both movies, and has sadly phoned in them all ever since.

Anyway. . . pardon the long post, but this is one issue close to my heart. I for one like Chris Pine, liked him quite a bit in Trek, and I *guess* I could see him as Ryan, but it strikes me as so unnecessary, not to mention pointless. First, they tried to go younger with Affleck and it didn't take-- I thought Affleck wasn't bad as Ryan, better than Ford, but the movie failed him. Second, and most important, as noted, they've run out of stories. None of the other Ryan books make any sense-- the younger Ryan novels are all Cold War historical pieces, and the older Ryan novels have him as President, obviously something Pine can't do.

I just don't get it.

comment #33

lipranzer says ...

Interesting post, crazynine, though I have to say while I've read all the Clancy novels that were made into feature films, and one that wasn't ("The Cardinal of the Kremlin"), I've never been able to get into them. I like the fact he has an analyst as the hero, because I like heroes who think with their brains instead of their fists (even though Ryan does a bit of that as well on occasion), and he plots well, but the technobabble reminds me of that Monty Python mystery spoof sketch where everybody in the sketch knows train timetables to the exact second. Frederick Forsyth, who works the same side of the street, and is an author Clancy admires, may use a lot of technospeak about weapons and such, but he keeps it to a minimum, never lets the story get bogged down in the technospeak, and doesn't pretend every character is some kind of expert.

comment #34

Josh Massey says ...

My favorite conspiracy theory: Clancy didn't write "The Hunt For Red October," because as my Naval uncle says, "A civilian could never know what he included in that book" (meaning, I think, that parts of it are true). The story goes that a higher up actually wrote the book, but had Clancy publish it because it would have been illegal for the mystery man to do so.

Not sure I buy it, but I love it nonetheless.

comment #35

brownshuggah says ...

ooo, all of this Ryan talk makes me...wanna plow thru the books again. would definitely like to see a Without Remorse movie as well.

comment #36

scamanti says ...

Good info thanks for sharing with us.


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