> May 31 - The Sum of All Fears
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> Tom Clancy's hero Jack Ryan returns to the screen after a long absence (previously appearing in Clear and Present Danger, in which he was played by Harrison Ford). Chief Charles E. Davis of the U.S. Air Force calls it "one of the most technically correct movies in a long time." Many are dubious about Ben Affleck being able to handle the character, but the word from early screenings is very good. A more important concern is how the film's subject matter will be received. It's the first major film that wrestles seriously with themes of terrorism to be released after September 11th. (I don't count the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick Collateral Damage, made before September 11 but released afterward, as it used terrorism as a base for escapism. The Sum of All Fears, while still a commercial thriller, would treat its subject matter more realistically, as in previous Jack Ryan films The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games.)
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YES.

YES YES YES.

Being a *huge* Tom Clancy fan, I'm really looking forward to this movie. I've read every single one of his books, but I've only gotten around to seeing two movies: Clear and Present Danger, which sucked because the plot was altered a good deal (People die in that movie that come back in later books and play *huge* roles in the plot...but oh well.), and Hunt For Red October, which sucked because Alec Baldwin played Jack Ryan. Well, okay, I exaggerated a bit.

I, too, am dubious about Ben Affleck, simply because I loved Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan, and Affleck doesn't fit the "mental image" I had of Ryan as I read the books.

The quote from Davis about the movie being "technically correct" does not surprise me at all, due to Clancy's large involvement with the movie, as well as they way Clancy writes. I know a few people have told me that Clancy's obsession with technical details turns them off. They don't like the pages and pages of military jargon and strategy and mechanical details and everything else that makes the guy Tom Clancy.

The subject matter? *shrug* I heard more people were more upset about Clancy's Debt of Honor, in which a Japanese pilot crashes a plane into the Capitol Building, killing most of the government, and setting up the plot for Executive Orders. But this plot: some Arabs find an old bomb that fell off an Israeli jet during an aborted nuclear strike during one of the many wars Israel has been invloved in (I believe this one "occurred" in the '60s) and had landed in some guy's garden. Somehow, I think because of the guy's son, it ends up in the hand of an Usama Bin Laden-type-Muslim extremist group. They import a bunch of German scientists and illegal materials to make the bomb bigger and better, and use it to level the Super Bowl.

I'm sure some people will be upset over it. But someone is always upset over something.

To get back on target: this is the movie I most look foward to seeing, but only because I'm a huge Clancy fan. None of the other movies interest me much, although if the second Austin Powers hadn't sucked so much, I consider seeing this one.

The Other "Not much of a moviegoer, anyways. " Matthew