Sum of All Fears [DVD] [2002] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Oh dear. Why do so many people have to analyse films so deeply. I always thought they were supposed to entertain, not invite intellectual analysis. The Sum of All Fears is excellent entertainment. What does it matter if bits are unbelievable? Surely, a fictional story is a vehicle for the imagination. As for anti-Semitism. P-lease.... Everyone I know who has seen this film has been delighted with it. It has great tension and often leaves you breathless. The actual nuclear incident breaks into the film with a shocking surprise, even though there is a considerable build up to it. It comes out of nowhere, just as it would in real life. Incidentally, the respective presidents are well portrayed. The 'halo' of advisers, good and bad, certainly exists in real life. I doubt that many decisions are actually unique to these individuals. Highly recommended entertainment to be enjoyed with a beer and a good selection of snacks.

Films like 'The Sum of All Fears' often get an unfair press, reviewers moaning about poor characterization, over-emphasis on visuals, plot-holes and other such things, when all the time these movies - techno-thrillers, as they're often known - are just doing what they supposed to be doing: entertaining the audience on quite a basic, bubble-gum level. This latest cinematic re-working of a Tom Clancy novel - starring Morgan Freeman, Ben Affleck, and a whole host of other 'name' actors - succeeds admirably on that level. Although at times it's a little dumber than it needs to be (making Jack Ryan a lot younger than he is in the book is part of the problem), most of the time it has the right blend of wit, excitement, tension, and explosions to carry the audience through.

Affleck is competent when he needs to be, and does a good job as Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin was better, though, in 'The Hunt for Red October'), but the real star of the show is Liev Schreibner (playing special ops agent John Clark) who in his limited screen time completely inhabits his role, and turns out a fantastic performance. Schreibner is one to watch. The other performances are all good, but the script isn't really asking a lot of top-class actors like Morgan Freeman or James Cromwell, and what they squeeze out is dependent on the scene they're in. But 'The Sum of All Fears' isn't about the actors - it's about the drama, the excitement, the thrills and spills. Even though the plot isn't all that complex, it seems like there is a lot happening, and as long as you don't think about it for too long, it holds itself together.

'The Sum of All Fears' doesn't match the sheer quality of 'The Hunt for Red October', and lacks the charisma of 'Clear and Present Danger', but it is nevertheless a pretty good adaptation of the lengthy (highly recommended) Tom Clancy novel. If you're looking for a bit of entertainment, give it a go. (Additionally, Tom Clancy's audio commentary with Phil Alden Robinson points out a lot of the factual inaccuracies and plot holes present in the movie, but it's worth listening to for amusement value alone - Clancy obviously doesn't like the liberties taken in adapting his novel, and Phil Alden Robinson spends a lot of being corrected and sounding apologetic.)

The Sum of All Fears is directed by Phil Alden Robinson and adapted to screenplay by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne from the novel of the same name written by Tom Clancy. It stars Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Ciaran Hinds, Liev Schreiber, Bridget Moynahan and Michael Byrne. Music is scored by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by John Lindley.

Film is the fourth film to feature the character Jack Ryan (Affleck). It is set in present day 2002 but with Ryan younger than in the other films and at the start of his career in the CIA. Plot is Cold War themed and finds America in a sweat when it is found that renegade terrorists have a nuclear weapon in their possession; just as a new supposed radical president takes up office in Russia.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.

2002 saw two great thrillers released that starred Ben Affleck, one was Changing Lanes, the other was this Jack Ryan based effort that attempted to reboot the series. Coming a year after the September 11 attacks and featuring a plot involving terrorists using a bomb that America supplied the Israelis in the 70s during the Yom Kippur War, it was material too close to the bone for some critics. Yet the film did well at the box office in the States and including Worldwide takings it garnered well over $100 million in profit. Impressive figures considering it's not an action blockbuster, it relies on brain over brawn and leading man Affleck was on the back of Pearl Harbor and bearing the brunt of critical scorn.

Each day we lose a little bit more of our separate, sovereign ability to determine our own futures... and each day the world comes a little bit closer to that terrible moment when the beating of a butterfly's wings unleashes a hurricane God himself cannot stop.

Comforted by the superb cast around him, which also includes the likes of Colm Feore, Phillip Baker Hall and Alan Bates in support slots, Affleck proves perfect for the material to hand. Without doubt he's no Harrison Ford, in the same way Moynahan is no Anne Archer, tough boots to fill in the roles of Jack and Cathy Ryan respectively, but in a re-jig of Ryan the character, we now have the arrogance of youth dressed up in slacks and t-shirt, a smart brained youngster beginning his CIA career at a perilous time, a time that thankfully is devoid of jingoistic flag waving, but of adult political sensibilities. Affleck's Ryan as a character is as refreshing as the writers' responsible attitude is.

You dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. You dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. Do not lecture me on Chechnya!

With shades of the Cuban Missile Crisis and a Fail-Safe like finale, The Sum of All Fears rounds out as a nail biter of a thriller. Dig deeper and some implausibilities surface, but we are asked to tune into the paranoia and get in deep with the characters trying to avert global catastrophe, to decry the film's cerebral thriller qualities is churlish. The Jack Ryan parts of the film involving Cathy the girlfriend are the least interesting, but here's the thing, young Jack Ryan is just one of the components making up a far bigger whole. The film isn't solely a Jack Ryan movie. The source novel was a door stopper, so inevitably much as been excised from it, and inevitably fans of the book have been vocal in their displeasure; though we would have needed another hour of film to even get close to Clancy's big block of fiction. So in place is a picture that is uncompleted in structure and story telling and comes in at under two hours running time. It's credit to director Robinson that The Sum of All Fears engrosses from start to finish.

It was hoped that the reboot would herald the start of a run of more Jack Ryan based movies, but in spite of the great box office, this didn't materialise. But that is in no way any marker to the quality of the film, or its standing in the Jack Ryan series. Judge it on its own merits and ideas and the rewards are many, especially on a second viewing. At the time of writing Jack Ryan will return to the big screen in December 2013, titled simply as Jack Ryan, with another young actor, Chris Pine in the role of Ryan. Undoubtedly that will be high on action, such is the way of drawing in the young dollars at the multiplexes these days. But if it has half the tension and brains of Robinson's picture then we will be blessed. If not? Then there's an even bigger reason to treasure Jack Ryan's 2002 version. 7.5/10