Rating: 
Summary: Just a Great Night At The Movies ! - Pure Enjoyment !
Review: Watch this movie for what it is - a GREAT movie !It has all you want. Action - Suspense - Superb Acting Don't compare it to anything you know - Simply sit back and have a magnificent evening. My bride and I loved it. All we could say after it was over was ....... WOW ! Once again, it just shows how VERY LITTLE all of these "reviewers" on Amazon know to give this only a 3 star average. You'll LOVE it ! And it is well worth owning so that in 10 months or so, you can sit back and watch it again. A GREAT "Transfer" also to DVD. VERY high quality video !
Rating: 
Summary: Not very good at all
Review: No, you really can't replace Harrison Ford with anyone, especially Ben Affleck. And how on Earth can you kill of Morgan Freeman, the best damn actor in the movie!?! The plot is a bit ridiculous and way to familiar to have any edge or freshness to it. A bomb goes missing and someone, by luck of the draw, terrorists, get it back. And who should they want to blow up? The United States. Surprise surprise. The idea of this is far more unbelievable than say Armageddon or Deep Impact which makes the idea of blowing up Baltimore a bit nonsensical. Crash meteors into the Earth, sure, no one will question it because it won't happen for probably millions of years, supposedly, so the premiss can easily be dismissed. But blowing up Baltimore from a nuclear explosion, though the technicality of it, being an old and somewhat less effective bomb, I did find appealing. Someone did their homework. But it doesn't make sense either that Ben Affleck should be able to get a hold of Russian high command. I was all too reminded of Peter Selleres in ihs outstanding role in Dr. Strangelove pleading with a retarded soldier to let him call the White House. For some reason, a comedic performance was much more believable, both dealing with the same situation. Perhaps it's because Ben Affleck can't act his way out of a wet paper bag. But that's specualtion. However, this movie is a bunch of nonsense. Arguments in the top levels of government, the President getting [mad]. No. Give us a realistic image of the president, not one we all hope to see if such instances should ever occur. All in all, it's an awful movie with an unbelievable story, one that should not have been made. Tom Clancy wites them and we mindlessly go to the movies to watch them. When will we ever learn.
Rating: 
Summary: Butchering a Good Book
Review: Evidently some of us take our Clancy straight. While this movie isn't bad in it's own light, it's such a complete departure from the book, it loses all connection for those of us who know and are friends of Clancy's many characters. Altering the Middle east attackers to Neo-Nazis completely changes the tone of the movie as well as throwing a bone to the PC element. Changing Ryan to a young punk - new to the organization and untried - also significantly changes the complexion of the movie, and not for the better. The character playing John Clark should be put in the penalty box for the next couple of years - his portrayal of Clark and Clark's method simply doesn't work and is a betrayal to the character Clancy created. Simply put, this movie had so little to do with the EXCELLENT story written by Clancy, it seems unfair to advertise it as the same story. For all that, Afleck did a good job (though Harrison is a HARD act to follow.) As always, Cromwell played his role with style and grace, I've yet to see him in any role where he did not excel.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't Live Up to The Book
Review: I was very disappointed with the way in which the screen play altered the plot of the book. The original plot in the book was much more believable and cohesive. The books terorists were Midlle Eastern not International Fascists. I understand the political correctness in changing that but in doing so the replacement has to have the same compelling logic and reason found in the book. The acting was OK but my best Clancy is still Patriot Games.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: You know when whenever Neo-Nazis are the focus of a contemporary world threat, you're going to have a premise that is absurd. That's what happened here. Tom Clancy must be losing it since he was involved with this film and yet allowed the bad guys to be Nazis even though in the book the terrrorists were from the mid east. Why this change? Perhaps it was political correctness but regardless of the reason, it makes the film's premise cheap and lame. Ben Affleck's performance in this film was weak. He was certainly no leading man and could not fit Alec Baldwin's or even Harrison Ford's shoes. I think this could have been a good film but sadly the casting and the premise were not very well considered thus leading to an overall disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Really, truly awful
Review: I've seen all 4 Jack Ryan movies, and this one doesn't even belong on the same planet as the others. Haven't read the novel, so I don't know what fault lies there, but the script, by the usually wonderful Paul Atanasio, is a string of utter implausibilities that make it impossible to take any of this seriously or to feel any emotional impact. Jack Ryan's been on the job for 14 months, appears to be about 27, and he's suddenly in meetings with the President, mouthing off, no less? There's a team analyzing the bomb blast site, they discover that the plutonium came from the US, and it's not going to be in their report 'til TOMORROW -- while WWIII is about to break out any minute -- leaving our man Jack the ONLY one to share this info with the powers that be (which he misses several opps to do while he sleuths around for the details)? The president is about to order a nuclear strike on Russia, and he doesn't even bother to check with the blast team, "Gee, guys, where DID that bomb come from anyway?" The list could go on and on and on. The acting's not especially interesting (except for Liev Shrieber), the effects aren't that hot (no great improvements in atomic blasts since the '80's TV movie "The Day After," which was far more affecting), and the villain is way underdeveloped --see the Sean Bean IRA character in Patriot Games for how to do it right. What a waste of time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Sum okay
Review: I am a fan of Tom Clancy and the opportunity to see how the movies would treat this fantastic novel was exciting. I have read the book and the movie was okay but I don't know what was missing but something was. I was extremely excited about Liev who played Clarke, he played the part with more insight than the character portrayed in "A Clear And Present Danger" which used another actor as Clarke. The action was good and the movie went well along the lines of the book but James Cromwell was too hiper I thought as the President. Affleck was very good as Ryan and Morgan Freeman was ice cold in his portrayal of the CIA director which is as it should be. My recommendation is to get this movie on DVD because it is one that you will watch over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Decent thriller hampered by lack of tension
Review: The Sum of All Fears is a movie about nuclear brinksmanship and escalating tensions between the US and Russia over a terrorist act by a third party. Unfortunately, the tension doesn't come across too well in the film. This is seen at both a micro-level, such as when Jack Ryan is trying to get out of his truck to escape the encroaching fire, to the macro-level, which is whether a first strike will be launched. The actors (particularly Ben Affleck) never seem to be scared at a base enough level about what is going on. Maybe the problem was that I had seen City of God the previous night, where danger and death always seemed possible and imminent, to watching this movie where every tension felt like it would be easily resolved. On the other hand, there are parts I do like. The strange relationship between spies (mutual admiration and suspicion) is nice. The nuclear blast is well handled. I actually enjoyed the alteration of Jack Ryan from being CIA director to being a low level agent, and felt the story was well changed to accomodate this. Overall the movie, from actors to screenplay to direction, felt professional and competent, if not exactly inspired. Base line: you won't feel like turning the movie off, but its the kind of movie you won't get a hankering to watch again at a future date.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I was expecting a lot more from such a potentially explosive topic (pun intended). Yet, here we are with the weakest Jack Ryan we have seen yet. As a barnstorming lovesick pilot from the midwest, Affleck came off as believable in Pearl Harbor. As an ex-Marine historian analyst for the CIA (with a Ph.D.), he is inept. Alec Baldwin was much more believeable in the roll. As for the plot, James Bonds flicks are more realistic. Overall, poor acting and a poorly thoughtout plot make this the worst of the Clancy series.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the purchase
Review: You may find this title worth your purchase if your a Ben Affleck fan. Otherwise I'd pass it by. I own all of the previous Tom Clancy film adaptations and this is my least favorite. In fact, having not seen the movie prior to purchasing the DVD, I now wish I had bought something else instead. Both Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford (who played the central character in the past)were much better cast as the character Jack Ryan. They brought more depth to the character of Ryan. The story itself is not bad, and is quite a plausible scenario given today's world climate. However Ben Afflec running around the "hot zone" of a nuclear detonation with a PDA and cell phone is a farce. (I guess it was a special bomb with no radioactive fallout? By the end of the movie everything is hunkydory and he seems to have no ill effects from running around in high radiation levels) Also you will find yourself screaming in your head at what Afflec should say in a given situation. (As it would only make common sense) Where he instead usually tries to justify himself, rather than convey the critical information he knows. (Ie- The bureaucrat on Air Force 1 hangs up on him...because instead of telling him an important piece of info he has, he instead bumbles through trying to justify himself). Even a layperson would have reacted better being guided by simple human nature and common sense. Bad script, or bad acting?
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