The Sum of All Fears

Two Stars
Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell

This is by far my least favorite of all the Tom Clancy Novels turned screenplays. I'm going to set aside the divergence from the book as I feel this is an exagerated factor in so many reviews. Suffice it to say, those who have read the book around the time it was release (like me) will be very confused by the extreme deviations in plot as well as story and time lines. We'll set those differences aside for now.

The producers of this film make thier biggest mistake in casting Ben Affleck. His demenor adds nothing to the film, let alone the role of Jack Ryan. Morgan Freeman gave a worthy performace (as he always does, regardless of script or scrap) but his character's place in the film was not explained very well to viewers who are used to seeing the DCIA interacting with Jack Ryan. In other words, it was esasy to assume that Freeman was playing the role made famous by James Earl Jones, but in fact, this was a different charecter with a different title and job description. Other items to place in the "cons" colum are the poor casting of Cromwell as president and the various cabinet members and joint chiefs. This casting conflict contributes to making the scenes designed to be high strees and suspenseful come across as confusing krass and annoying.

Reasons to see the movie are few. Lovers of the genre and the Jack Ryan stories will be drawn to it out of pure curiosity. It is fun to see John Clark pictured (though poorly) for the first time on celluloid as well. Beyond that, there is really no reason to see this film. Even the specail effects are few and half baked.