The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector’s Edition) Reviews
The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector’s Edition)
- TESTED OK
- 2002 DATE
DVD.It’s not easy replacing Harrison Ford as a beloved screen hero, but Ben Affleck brings fresh vitality to The Sum of All Fears, reviving Paramount’s Tom Clancy franchise in the role Ford made famous. As CIA agent Jack Ryan, Affleck is a rookie in the covert ranks, unraveling a plot that lures Russian and American superpowers into a nuclear standoff, while a neofascist faction turns most of Baltimore into an atomic wasteland and holds the world in the grip of a terrorist nightmare. Affleck combines sharp intelligence with a new-guy’s perspective, while a senior agent (Morgan Freeman) passes the torch of back-channel authority. The result is one of the best Clancy films to date, ably helmed by Phil Alden Robinson (whose comic thriller Snea
List Price: $ 9.98
Price: $ 2.99
Related Ben Afflecks Products
Fun and suspenseful,
I’m a hard-core Tom Clancy fan and was surprised to see how much this latest film adaptation wandered from the book, but it was still very entertaining. The latest incarnation of Jack Ryan is very young and inexperienced. The film seems to pretend the other Jack Ryan adventures haven’t happened. Jack is new with the CIA and doesn’t know the ropes the way he does in the book. He isn’t even married yet. Morgan Freeman is wonderful as his boss (no surprise there) and the relationship between them is the best part of the film.
I’m no expert, but there seemed to be some technical flaws which required that the viewer suspend their skepticism. (Would cell phones continue to work when your local area has been hit by a nuke?) Still a worthy addition to the series. Clancy’s readers will have to be especially open-minded though.
Was this review helpful to you?
|The fears of all post-9/11 filmmakers.,
Deeply compromised adaptation of the Tom Clancy potboiler. Director Phil Alden Robinson and his cadre of screenwriters tippy-toe around, about, but never directly on, the subject of mass murder by terrorists. The immediate point of comparison to 9/11 in this film would be the small nuclear bomb that presumably obliterates the city of Baltimore, MD. I say “presumably” because we’re of course not permitted to see the results of the devastation: Robinson & Co., by the use of very heavy editing, attempt to spare us from associating their fictional event to the real event that occurred a year ago. (Well, some windows are blown out, and a small, rather pretty computer-animated mushroom cloud is perceived for a split-second, indicating the city may not be completely wiped-out, after all.) Indeed, by film’s end, it’s as if the blast never occurred: in the last scene, Ben Affleck and his pretty wife are having lunch in the park. The End. One wonders why the film studio simply didn’t scrap this whole project and eat the loss, if they were so fearful of the movie’s subject-matter. Why go to the trouble of making a movie about a catastrophic event if you’re not even going to play that event for dramatic value? Of course, the supreme irony is that the fearful filmmakers, who shot this movie before 9/11, changed the Muslim villains of Clancy’s story to a cabal of Neo-Nazis, in order to avoid accusations of insensitivity from the Arab-American community. (If what I’ve heard is true. I’ve never read the book, myself. If the book doesn’t feature Arab terrorists, I stand humbly corrected.) I give *The Sum of All Fears* a 2nd star primarily for the excellent supporting actors (Morgan Freeman, a delightfully smooth Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Philip Baker Hall, et al.), and for the overall professionalism of the direction . . . by which I mean that even if the story is implausible, the action sequences are not. However, Ben Affleck, filling the shoes of Harrison Ford as CIA agent Jack Ryan, is a massive liability. Not only is he a skunk at a garden party, in terms of comparison with the rest of the cast, but he makes one appreciate just how good his predecessor in the role really was.
Was this review helpful to you?
|It’s a *movie* folks…,
I’ve read Clancy (but not this one) and I’ve seen all the “Clancy” movies many times. My wife drives me nuts by saying, “that wouldn’t happen…” so I understand all you who try to analyze the plot for theoretical accuracy. But…. this is a work of entertainment based on fictional accounts of political conflict. Did it entertain? Absolutely. Did Affleck portray Jack Ryan the way Clancy wrote him? Of course. Are the plot points of the movie plausible? Well, maybe, but – that’s the point of Clancy. In case you didn’t notice, Tom Clancy was executive producer of this film so he certainly had considerable input. Yeah, they changed the chronology of Jack Ryan. Whooppee! That makes Debt of Honor and Executive Orders completely future potential for Ben Affleck as Ryan considering they can now do Cardinal of the Kremlin which they couldn’t have done with Harrison Ford. Hmmmm, do we want to see more Clancy movies? Yes!
Was this review helpful to you?
|