Hmm – We’re Missing A Nuke
The premise of the film is that terrorists have managed to get their hands on a nuclear weapon, and intend to use it to thwart relations, i.e., rekindle the Cold War between the United States and Russia. The film takes place in a modern day era, although the movie itself was created in 2002 in case you were wondering. Before getting more specific on this particular movie, it’s worth noting that the film, while chronologically later in terms of theatre date, is actually a reboot of the Jack Ryan saga, if you will. In other words, the character Harrison Ford portrays is not the same Jack Ryan we see in The Sum of All Fears, but actually more of a prequel, although even saying that is a bit of stretch. Suffice it to say that in film, Jack Ryan is a young, green CIA agent with a thirst for truth and a strong sense of duty.
That said, Morgan Freeman takes over James Earl Jones’ role as CIA Director and mentor to Ryan. Together these two, along with the help of other agents and government types of course, walk a fine line of protecting America and starting another Cold War with Russia, although this time around the War might not be so Cold if you get my meaning. The Sum of All Fears is part mystery, part thriller, part action movie, as well as part drama in its two hour runtime. Action-thirsty viewers could find the majority of the movie a little bit boring, as there is a considerable political and diplomatic angle to this film, and not quite as much action. Furthermore, in true Clancy form, it’s also a bit of a thinkers’ action thriller, although not nearly as deep as the book it was based off of, as the plot weaves together a variety of events to create one, well, Sum. It’s not to say this movie is hard to follow, but it’s not as straight-forward as many other action thrillers. That said, the sum of this film is, ultimately, a fairly entertaining action thriller, but hardly one, I suspect, that you would care to watch very often.
Blu-ray Impressions And Extras
The Sum of All Fears didn’t blow me away in its visual or aural presentation, but it does look and sound pretty darn good. I was surprised at the amount of splotchy textures in darker scenes and on the skin tones of the actors; it’s not a constant problem, but it appeared more than I expected it would. You know the look I am talking about, it’s that awful ‘compressed data’ look that is generally a good sign that the transfer to Blu-ray didn’t go as cleanly as maybe it could have with some more effort. That said, most of the film does look great, especially some of the environmental shots including lots of dreary, snow covered scenes. Overall, the visual appearance is head and shoulders above any previous release I have seen, but it is slightly underwhelming overall. In terms of audio, the Dolby TrueHD track was quite sufficient garnering no real complaints.
As far as extra features on this Blu-ray release, there are a few. There are two audio commentary tracks, the first includes Director Phil Alden Robinson and Cinematographer John Lindley. The other commentary track features the author of the book, Tom Clancy, and Director Robinson. Two SD features are also included, totaling about thirty minutes each. The first is your typical making-of feature, whereby cast and crew provide insights to the film making process, the story behind Harrison Ford not taking the script, how great of a job everyone did, and so forth. The second video feature is actually quite interesting for a one time view. Entitled “Creating Reality: The Visual Effects of The Sum of All Fears,” this feature breaks down about seven action scenes and the effects folks behind each scene talk about their goals, plans, and ultimately how they went about doing each scene. These scenes include the explosion of the plane in the beginning of the movie, I forget the make and model of the plane, as well as the attack on the aircraft carrier and the aftershock of the bomb blast that sends the vehicles in motorcade sailing off of the road.