A Brief History
On May 20, 2026, American political action thriller film Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War was released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video.
Digging Deeper
Jack Ryan, the exciting American hero created by author Tom Clancy and appearing in Clancy’s novels (14 of them) since 1984 and in other novels by four other writers, has graced the big screen five times previous to Ghost War and and had a successful television series run from 2018 to 2023. This latest movie edition takes our former US Marine (of course!) turned CIA operative from the small screen back to the big screen, where Jack might well turn the movie franchise into the lofty billion dollar range.
As in the previous movies and TV show, Jack finds plenty of action to keep himself busy, complete with a female foil played by Sienna Miller. Just like James Bond being portrayed by a list of top level movie stars, Jack Ryan has been played on the screen by a constellation of American stars, including Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and now John Krasinski, the same actor that starred in the television series.
This time, Jack has to be recalled from the civilian work force back into government service to save the free world by traveling back and forth from Dubai to England and engaging in intrigue and deadly combat along the way. The subject deals with black ops terrorism and anti-terrorist activities by rogue government operatives, an entirely believable scenario in today’s world.
Acting and directing are excellent, especially since much of the cast had years of practice playing their roles on the TV series. Effects and cinematography are likewise up to modern standards, and the story flows right along keeping the audiences attention, evidenced by actual applause at the end of the film by an appreciative audience.
While we have already seen all the movies plus the TV show and even read the Clancy novels, the movie seems to be fine as a stand alone story for those unfamiliar with the Jack Ryan character. Alas, not all critics agree as the movie has received only so-so ratings by early reviewers. We liked the film and its high stress action and strongly recommend it for movie fans of action/spy type stories. The 107 minutes of film time went by quickly for us and we were treated to an interesting live interview of the main stars for an hour (on the screen) after the movie ended. Rated R for language and violence, young or particularly sensitive children might find the shooting and exploding disturbing, but we think most kids that like action movies would be entertained by Ghost War as we were.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Did you enjoy this film?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
For more information, please see the film’s official website.
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