Even though I love this movie, I waited quite a while to watch it during this marathon because I had already revisited it a few years ago while doing a rewatch of all the Jack Ryan films (ahead of the start of the Jack Ryan TV series). But despite it still being relatively fresh in my mind, I still had a blast watching it, and still felt the tenseness whenever you should feel it. This is just such a great film, and definitely one of my favorites of 1990. I also wish John McTiernan had directed more Ryan films.
I’ve always been a pretty big fan of the Jack Ryan movies — I like action thrillers in general, and military ones as well — and so I’ve been pretty hyped for the upcoming Jack Ryan TV series (starting on Prime Video next week). In preparation for that, just like I did for the Mission: Impossible movies ahead of watching the latest one, I decided to re-watch all of the movies this past week, which I did over 3 nights. Unlike M:I, where there’s one stinker, I like all of the Ryan films, although I can easily say that Harrison Ford’s Ryan is my favorite portrayal, but that The Hunt for Red October is my favorite film — if I were to put the films in order of faves, I’d say it goes The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, The Sum of all Fears, and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Red October is just such a great thriller, and it was still exciting to see all of the intense sub maneuvering towards the end — and you gotta love that Connery Russian accent. Of the two Ford films, I prefer the second one (with the drug cartels), mostly because I like a bit less that things are so personal in the first film (Sean Bean targeting his family specifically) — I prefer when the stakes are on a global scale. I really wish Ford had made more of these, and have no idea why they stopped after two — I’m assuming they were fairly successful at the box office. Affleck’s Sum of all Fears is fine, and I love that it actually goes through the detonation of a nuclear device, with the aftermath. I even like the more recent Shadow Recruit with Chris Pine, and wouldn’t have minded seeing it become a franchise, but I guess it didn’t do well enough — and what I do like the least about it is that it doesn’t involve high-ranking government officials and the President of the United States, which is usually a big part of all these movies. So I guess that in this day and age of prestige TV, it does make sense to re-explore the character in serial form, and I do quite like John Krasinski, so I’m pretty excited to watch the new series when it debuts on Friday.
