(Fair Warning; There will be spoilers)
The premiss of the movie seems pretty strait forward; you have a Russian submarine driven by a genius commander who decides he’s going to call the shots from now on, through in a CIA officer who seems to be able to piece together more than the entire US Navy and you are off. The movie really seems very predictable from the beginning. We are presented with what is happening and yet Jack Ryan seems to know just as much. The end did have a small curve ball but overall I thought the movie was very predictable.
I was surprised by a few things through out the movie, however. It seemed odd that the Russians spoke so much English, especially when alone on their own sub. I understand that they didn’t want you to have to read subtitles through out the entire movie but they used subtitles at some points and then not at all during others. Consistency would have been nice in this regard. It was also odd to see Alec Baldwin so young, he looked so different, you can easily tell it is him but still.
The other big thing the movie got me thinking about is about how crazy submarines are. Hey guys, lets all jump in this giant metal cylinder and float around the bottom of the ocean. Boats make more sense to me, at least with boats if you got hit in battle or something happen and the ship starts to go down you can still try to get off and hope to survive. With subs if something happens you are probably done for. I am impressed with their ability to stay under so long, they are basically only limited by their food supply, but still it just feels like a giant iron coffin to me. While we are hanging out in our giant iron coffin lead carry around some nuclear warheads too, seems like a great plan.
Over all though I enjoyed the movie, it was predictable but still suspenseful and action packed enough to keep my interests throughout. I would give it 3.5 out of 5 popcorn buckets.