Entertainment

The New 'Jack Ryan' Trailer Will Make Jim Halpert Fans Be Like, Whoa

by Emily Mae Czachor

Need a little more John Krasinski in your life? Fans of the seasoned actor who have been scrambling for ways to fill the Krasinski-shaped hole in their media consumption since The Office went off the air in 2013 might not have to look too much further than the new trailer for Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, which Amazon Prime Video just released on Monday, June 11. For all the skeptics currently struggling to make a connection between Krasinski's slapstick run as Jim Halpert in The Office and his upcoming role as the titular CIA analyst and spy-in-the-making in Jack Ryan, it's actually not such a huge leap. In more ways than one, Jack Ryan is basically just like Jim — if Jim became a spy, that is.

Now, that might seem a little far-fetched at first, given that Jack Ryan has long been established as a Jason Bourne-type character throughout his various stints in pop culture. In contrast, fans of The Office know that Jim, for the most part, is anything but. The mild-mannered, slightly awkward sales rep for Dunder Mifflin warmed our hearts for almost 10 seasons on the NBC series, which is how we know for sure that Jim is not exactly a shoe-in to become the next generation's 007.

But if the series' new trailer is any indication, it looks like Krasinski is bringing just enough Jim to his upcoming stint as Jack Ryan, the brainiac analyst (very Jim-esque) who finds himself a little too far in over his head after he's thrust "into the center of a dangerous gambit with a new breed of terrorism that threatens destruction on a global scale," as described in Prime Video's official caption for the trailer on YouTube. Don't think Office fans can get behind an action flick? Rest assured; with Krasinski in the title role, there'll probably be enough of Jim's essence to keep people hooked.

Because, while Jack Ryan might very well be the heroic CIA agent (or, agent-to-be) tasked with solving a deadly tough-to-crack global issue, he's not exactly the textbook Bond-like superhuman spy fans of this genre are generally used to. Viewers get their introduction to Jack at the trailer's start, which sees him engaging in a tense conversation with a conceivable stranger who asks him, "Do you do this often?" The "this" he's referring to seems to be Jack's newfound penchant for siphoning potential suspects "off the street" and into interrogation rooms. To that, Jack responds pretty matter-of-factly. "You're my first one, actually," Jack tells him. "How am I doing?"

As the trailer continues, viewers learn a bit more about those events that might've led Jack to this particularly precarious moment. And while a sizable chunk of the Jack Ryan trailer is made up of chaotic action shots (or, flashes of them, anyway), it's those choice moments where Jack sits behind a desk and works tirelessly to solve a problem that'll probably resonate most with fans of Krasinski's stint as Jim on The Office. To that end, perhaps the trailer's most telling scene comes around the 30-second mark, which sees Jack mingling with a blonde woman during some sort of outdoor gathering. "I work behind a desk, and I write reports," Jack tells her, assuming all the charming nerdiness of one Jim Halpert — and then some. Taking a second to respond, the woman finds herself a bit lost for words. "That sounds..." she begins, before trailing off. "Boring?" Jack finishes, just as an official-looking helicopter zooms down from overhead, dispensing out two officers who have tracked down Dr. Ryan for a particularly perilous assignment.

While Netflix's new Jack Ryan trailer throws quite a lot of information our way through its relatively short duration, one thing seems pretty clear: Krasinski's Jack Ryan might be a nerdy government operative, but he's definitely not a boring one. Plus, for all those fans of The Office who are dying to see what Jim Halpert might look like as a future spy, now's your chance to do it.