Movie of the Week: Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit

Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightly and Kenneth Branagh -- what's not to like? This is a very enjoyable bit of fluff with a nicely rounded out central character (Pine as Ryan) and a good, if slight turn from Knightly. Excellent support from Costner and a believable villain from Branagh who also directed.

This is a Jack Ryan reboot. The character has been played in previous movies by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck, but so far no one has played the character twice. I'm not familiar with the Tom Clancy books, and only have passing familiarity with the previous movies from seeing The Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present Danger on TV years ago, but this movie is an origin movie and takes Jack back to his medical discharge from the marines following a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, his recruitment as an 'analyst' and his first live mission to find out about (and thwart) a high-stakes economic attack on the USA.

There's plenty of shoot-em-up action and the inevitable car chase through crowded Moscow streets, but Ryan's character is believable and certainly not an invincible hero.

Movie of the Week: The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug

I missed writng this up - which is odd because we saw it twice, once in December and once in January. Was it that good? I think so. There was certainly enough to see second time around that we missed the first time. Though it's that difficult middle movie there's plenty in it to keep up interest. It's visually stunning with effects so seemingly effortless you don't actually stop to think, Hello, that dragon's not real.

I was a bit skeptical when they said they were going to make such a comparatively slight book as The Hobbit into three movies. The problem with Lord of the Rings as a trilogy was what to leave out. The problem with The Hobbit is what to add in. Since it's a long time since I read the book, I'm honestly not sure what's new and what had slipped my memory, so I'm taking the movie at face value. It woks for me. Of course, Tolkien purists are going to disagree with me, and that's fine.

I have to say that I'd forgotten Bard altogether, so he was a nice surprise, but - is it just me? - doesn't Luke Evans (Bard) look way too much like Orlando Bloom (Legolas) - at least when Bloom's wearing his own dark hair.

Martin Freeman is a perfect Bilbo Baggins and much kudos to Peter Jackson for casting not only Richard Armitage as Thorin, but Aidan Turner as Kili. Nuff said. My friend H also thanks him for Lee Pace as Thranduil.

Looking forward to part three.