Tom Clancy's undercover CIA hombre Jack Ryan is given a sort of reboot-makeover in this moderate spy thriller, directed by Kenneth Branagh, which feels cobbled together from every other action movie you can vaguely remember having seen.

Ryan is a little bit more like Matt Damon's Jason Bourne, but also like Claire Danes's character in Homeland, less macho, more cerebral and analytical – he's faced with a creepy Homeland-type sleeper cell on US soil: it's not al-Qaida though, but an old-fashioned threat from the Russkies.

Chris Pine plays Ryan, who patriotically joins the marines after 9/11, gets badly injured, falls for his beautiful physiotherapist (Keira Knightley, on familiar lips-slightly-parted form) and then gets recruited to the agency from civilian life by Kevin Costner who lumbers through this older-guy mentor role.

The baddie is the chilling, thin-lipped Russian plutocrat Viktor Cherevin, played by Branagh himself with the traditional reedyiculous Ryussian accyent. He has one decent scene: a flirtatious dinner with Keira, where they talk about Lermontov, Russian romantic yearning and regret "piling up around you like unread books".

Branagh needn't necessarily regret doing this film – though it's a bit silly and slightly dull.