Did you know that Dubai is one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world? It’s but one of many less than revelatory facts strewn throughout Amazon Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War, a film whose full title will only be mentioned once in this review. John Krasinski reprises the role he played for four years in the series and which has been played on the big screen by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine (bet you forgot that last one). Now that he’s back, it’s a safe bet that there will be more cinematic entries in the future, although things are off to an unpromising start.

How unpromising is evident right from the beginning, when Ryan, retired from the CIA and now working on Wall Street as a hedge fund analyst, is jogging through the streets of lower Manhattan and becomes alarmed when he realizes he’s being shadowed by two black vans. A frantic chase ensues, with him ducking in and out of a restaurant and bookstore in an attempt to evade the apparent bad guys. When he’s finally cornered, he’s surprised to learn that it’s actually his former CIA boss, James Greer (Wendell Pierce, returning from the series), who wants to recruit him for a freelance assignment