A mediocre movie. The acting is optimal. The dialogue is optimal. The plot is just good enough. The tension is about seeing other people figuring things out that the movie shows you from the start... You know more than the characters, and that's not super compelling.

Movie Review: "The Sum of All Fears" (2002)Paramount Pictures presents this "war-on-terror" thriller as an event movie for the masses in May 2002, which hardly delivers any suspense in an 115-Minute-Editorial by just ultra-conversative footage-given to editor Neil Travis (1936-2012), where just puzzling scenes get mixed together in order put the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCI) William Cabot, performed with professionalism and picture-carrying convictions by Morgan Freeman, but then due to a miscast Ben Affleck in the role of 30-year-old Jack Ryan, who turns from bureau analyst to his first mission as CIA spy operative, when this flaw-struck adaptation from one of the weaker Tom Clancy novels falls short in order to build Paramount-desired reboot efforts of a Harrison Ford led smash hits from the 1990s with an already-established Ryan in "Patriot Games" (1992) and "Clear and Present Danger" (1994); a circumstance, which brings high-end budget-granting producer Mace Neufeld into poor decision-making with regard to Director Phil Alden Robinson, at age 51, who should have enforce a proper pre-production for actor Ben Affleck, who completely missed action high pitch moment for international audiences to share on, who are just able to turn their heads with two massive scenes of left-out-cold disaster as an attacked aircraft carrier going up in flames, while the CIA-initiated task forces by all-too-depressed playing under-appreciated actor James Cromwell as U.S. American president gives orders without delegating his staff to "Martial Law" proportions, when threats are at its peak at an game-given American Football station in late Tom Clancy's former hometown of Baltimore only to get pushed into safety, when on-screen terror takes its turn to fully-missing character confrontations for Jack Ryan despite a satellite phone call in a mid-air helicopter.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

"Jack Ryan" (Ben Affleck) is an analyst for the CIA whose advice is sought by the director "William Cabot" (Morgan Freeman) because of a paper Jack wrote a couple of years earlier concerning the new President of Russia "President Nemerov" (Claran Hinds). As it so happens the war in Chechnya is a current concern of the President of the United States "President Fowler" (James Cromwell) and he wants to know everything about President Nemerov that he can. However, when a rogue general resorts to chemical warfare President Fowler rejects Jack Ryan's assertions that President Nemerov did not order it. This causes any further advice by Jack Ryan to be treated with equal disdain when something big happens. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this movie had plenty of action and suspense but a few scenes lacked realism which caused the movie to seem a little implausible here and there. Even so it managed to keep my interest and for that reason I rate it as slightly above average.

I mean I own it, bought it on VHS for one dollar American, was it a good deal? I'm asking you,'was it a good deal?' Naw, OK, if you love Tom Clancy books and you don't hate Ben Affleck just out right, pretty sure you will enjoy this movie. So some complain that casting a younger Jack Ryan character doesn't make chronological sense, but this movie is actually a prequel to Patriots Games, so the character would be younger, way to go everybody good job. This movie would be perfect for watching while you wait at the dentist, in the crummy sterile lobby with other creeps waiting for the dentist, got a circular like coffee table covered in magazines and issues of Highlights, also there is a TV showing The Sum Of All Fears, its a big success.