sddavis63

I can't honestly say that I was blown away by this movie. It's the fourth of five installemtns in the "Jack Ryan" series and it's Ben Affleck's only opportunity to play the part. I've only seen one of the other Ryan movies - the first ("The Hunt For Red October.") That one didn't blow me away either, which is probably why I hadn't watched any of the others until I decided to turn this on.

What's to say about it? I guess it's a decent enough story that sounds as if it should be exciting and suspenseful. A rogue Russian general has got his hands on a nuclear bomb that had been buried in Middle Eastern sands for years. Eventually there's an attack on the United States (Baltimore, to be precise.) The Americans believe it was the Russians; the Russians know it wasn't, but now they feel under threat from the US and think they'll have to respond. It's a classic portrayal of the nuclear powers spiraling totally and accidentally out of control based on a misunderstanding - and it should have kept me on the edge of my seat. But it just didn't. There wasn't anything here (to me at least) that differentiated this (in any major way) from any other major action thriller about the same subject. I just spent my entire time watching it having a "deja vu" feeling - like I had seen it before, even though I hadn't.

The cast (including Affleck, Morgan Freeman and James Cromwell) were all fine. The story itself just didn't grab hold of me. It felt too familiar to make a major impression. I give it 5/10 - which, ironically, is the same rating I gave "The Hunt For Red October" after I watched it many years ago.