In the fourth of the Jack Ryan series of movies, we rewind back to when Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck  Changing Lanes, Good Will Hunting) was a lowly analyst and historian who watches the worlds current events with awe. He is then called upon by DCI William Cabot (Morgan Freeman  Nurse Betty, Lean on Me), a CIA operative who calls upon Ryan for his extensive knowledge of the world. There's a new ruler in Russia whom the CIA is not happy about. In the background an evil mercenary has seized a nuclear bomb and is constructing it. Now Ryan must stop the bomb's inevitable activation before Baltimore is destroyed.        
    Now, I've never seen any of the movies from Tom Clancy's series; I know that Alec Baldwin was the first to play Jack Ryan and then Harrison Ford took the role and made the series more famous. Then, he dropped out of the series and Ben Affleck took the role. My uncle, who is a fan of the series, was outraged to hear this but I wasn't too mad. I found it weird how we see a young Jack Ryan yet the movie takes place in modern times. Anyways, I wasn't too sure about the movie. It takes a long time to actually set the plotline and characters and we get to See Ryan in his sincere moments struggling to keep his relationship with his girlfriend alive. At one point he is teamed with a spy named John Clark (Liev Schreiber  Scream 2) whom goes undercover in Russia to discover whether the new ruler of Russia is behind the nuclear bomb's construction. I loved this character, he was possibly the best and most underused out of the characters and was aptly played by Liev Schreiber. Ben Affleck takes the helm of Jack Ryan with great tenacity and tends to impress me in certain moments when he is struggling to prevent an oncoming war between Russia and the U.S. and prevent world annihilation. The movie is saved by a great cast of supporting characters such as Ron Rifkin (TV's Alias). Then there's the scene that had everyone including critics talking; the big nuclear explosion in the ending. In the end, the nuclear bomb is activated despite all efforts on Ryan's part and Baltimore is blown into cinders, thousands dying. Now, I'm not too sure if this scene was as disturbing as everyone made it seem, but, mind you, this was a disturbing sequence. We see a hospital and football stadium explode along with a haunting mushroom cloud that looms over the ruined city. This won't be a good scene for many sensitive people to watch, but it is a good one.

Now, I found it disturbing that, Baltimore was destroyed and in the last scene we see Ryan and his girlfriend having a picnic on the grounds of the White House. It seemed very disturbing looking at it. Plus, the whole nuclear explosion sequence, though disturbing, ceases to have any impact because the director tends to cut briefly back and forth showing the scene. We also never really get the feeling that millions of people and this city was destroyed because of the small amount of scenes we get. Morgan Freeman is wasted in this as he once again plays mentor to young Ryan. I feel Morgan's talents go beyond simply playing a mentor to a young cast member. I want to see a movie where his character is a lot different.

This is a taut, tense, chilling war movie with great acting, a great cast which tends to suffer from some faults but still makes out good. I enjoyed it alot.