Rating: 
Summary: A Mindboggler
Review: If you have seen the movie, you havent exprienced the full accounts. I have read a few of Tom clancy's novels, from "Rainbow six" to "Net force", all i can describe as action packed. But "The sum of all fears" byfar surpasses all the others. In "The sum of all fears" Tom Clancy creates Jack Ryan a character even the infamous James Bond cannot outwit. Unlike many of the standard action novels, In 'the sum of all fears" Jack Ryan uses intellects to engage his oppents. This novel is filled with striking details, and possible political motives that will leave its reader restless. Clancy's knowledge of politics and the military creates an imagery so clear, kept me engaged til the end. This novel is based on the political tensions that exisist even today. The twisting and turning plot made me read some pages twice to understand. The book was very intellectual yet still contained action inbetween to spice of the plot. But in a another view point it was more than enough politics i can handle. and the amount of realistic detail Clancy uses held me back. This book was especially good, because you dont need the hand written accounts from the previous book about Jack Ryant o follow up upon. The story starts with its own plot and builds up on it. And because of this i give this book 4 stars. But dont let the whopping 800 pages discourage you from picking up this book. its well worth while to read. i garentee it.
Rating: 
Summary: I want my money Back !
Review: I had to force myself to finish watching this movie. Just Terrible
Rating: 
Summary: Great Comedy
Review: Until I realized that this was supposed to be a comedy, I was cringing in my seat. Once I realized that no one could seriously write something this silly and trite, I had a great time. Almost a laugh a minute. Great parody of right-wing reactionaries' views of the motives and threat of terrorism.
Rating: 
Summary: Good- But Bad Timing
Review: I thought this was a great movie, the plot was interesting. But there has never been a worse time for this type of film. The story is too close to home, with nuclear weapons being set off in the DC area. To be quite honest, I was a little scared. If it were 5 years ago, I would rate this 5 stars, but it is just too close to home right now.
Rating:
Summary: EDGE-OF YOUR SEAT!
Review: This is a great film! Full of stunning action, awesome visual effects, and fine performances. Ben Affleck surprised me! Get it as soon as possible! Movie/DVD Grade: A
Rating: 
Summary: The Horror! The Horror!
Review: Typical Tom Clancy Joe-Hardy-vs.-Russky-Evildoers hokum, Boy's Own Paper stuff for the tired businessman. Nicely made, moves at a good clip, sturdy supporting work from stalwarts like Alan Bates, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell (a startling number of wonderful actors turn up in miniscule parts in this effort). But there's something wrong with a picture when the nuclear destruction of a Balitmore football stadium is less terrifying than Ben Affleck's rug. One of the worst hairpieces since the days of Astaire, Crosby, and Sinatra, it looks for all the world as though Fifi has found her last resting place on the Affleck noggin. A different color, cut and texture from what's left of Ben's locks, the Hair for Hire stubbornly derails every attempt of this viewer to concentrate on the matter at hand (Ben Saves the World From a Terrible Russian/American Final Conflict!!) All one can do is stare in fascination as the piece doesn't budge an inch through lovemaking, helicopter crashes, and interminable square-jawed indications of emotional crises, or intestinal distress, or SOMETHING, from the wooden Mr. Affleck. Certainly worse ways to waste a couple of hours, I suppose, than an extended Hair Club for Men commercial, but be warned. You'll never be able to look at him or J. Lo with a straight face again.
Rating:
Summary: I can't believe that Clancy. . .
Review: . . .actually approved of what was done to his outstanding book. The changing of the "bad guys" from Islamic extremists to Neo-Nazis was unbelievable, and detracted from the message of the story to such a degree as to make the film, in the mind of this reviewer, not worth much at all.Call me a purist, but I really dislike this sort of revisionism. Read the book; give the movie a miss.
Rating:
Summary: The fears of all post-9/11 filmmakers.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Pathetic garbage
Review: You have to be in love with Ben Affleck or desperate for a new release to be suckered in on this retarded film. I thought earlier Clancy films (Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger) were reasonably OK, occasionally plausible popcorn movies for action/political thriller fans. This movie, however, is intensely stupid. The love relationship is just plain embarassing. I couldn't even enjoy the special effects (which were not much to talk about), because the story was so irritating. Ryan sure has a lot of international pull for a CIA historian. What a joke. You have to see this movie to understand how silly it is. If you are looking for a nuclear bomb 'money shot' you'll be totally disappointed as well. They never show the carnage, just a couple burning sets and sad-mouthed people like Morgan Freeman and Affleck's woman hamming it up on the big screen. A waste of time, but I'm sure Hollywood made plenty of money over this garbage. Does Clancy write books this badly?
Rating:
Summary: Once again!!! Hollywood forgets to be consistent!!!
Review: This is the fourth movie based on the character of Jack Ryan,& Tom Clancy's popular book series, 1990's "Hunt for Red October" featured Alec Baldwin in the role, which was o.k., when he dropped out of the follow-ups, Harrison Ford took over, although 1992's "Patriot Games" brought out the best in Ford as Jack Ryan, 1994's "Clear & Present Danger" continued in consistentsy & was in all fairness a good follow-up to "Games", you could actually forgive them for Baldwin in "Red October", but now we have "The Sum of All Fears" which tells a good story & for the most part stays with the tension seen in the other films, since Ford decided not to do this one, the filmakers decided to go back in time so to speak & show Ryan as a rookie rather than a veteran as in the case of Ford, which is fine, Ben Affleck is very believeable as a younger version of Ford, not only in character but in appearance, & his girlfriend totally nails the character that Anne Archer created in Ford's films, who will later become his wife, even Morgan Freeman echoes the character played by James Earl Jones in the others as does Liev Scheiber as Clark played the same way by Willem DaFoe in "Clear & Present Danger", what ruins this one is the lack of consistentsy in events, it is as if the filmakers here have never seen the others, for starters, Ryan & Clark never meet until "Danger" but here they are sneaking around together, Freeman's character is that of Jones' character even though their name is different(another flaw) not to mention the fact that Freeman suffers a terrible fate which would make Jones non-existent in the others(another dumb move), Affeck totally embodies Ryan just as Ford did, & I have no problem with their prequel approach, but why not be consistent????, the only redemming thing this one has is the tense standoff between the U.S & Russia who become pawns in a deadly game of deceit by Ex-Nazis who want to see both countries kill each other in their quest for domination, which in a sense echoes the cold war, which plays in some ways on consistentsy with the other films whose time frame is consistent, where "Red October" more or less shows the end, & "Games" & "Danger" dealing with other matters of national security, if only Freeman who is very good here would have been on par with Jones' character & Ryan & Clark not meeting here, then consistentsy would have prevailed in this one, but standard Hollywood never thinks about the importance of consistentsy in follow-ups for whatever reasons probably being that they are more concerned about box-office, which in some ways insults the viewer who is a fan, the fact that this one didn't measure up in terms of box-office like its predecessors only re-inforces this fact, a good movie if you don't care about the others, but disappointing if you are looking for consistentsy!!!
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