When I heard that a movie was being made based on another of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels, I was thrilled. This one concerns a plot by a group of terrorists to plant a nuclear bomb in Baltimore the day of the Super Bowl. While the terrorists come from all different nations, the main threat is from Russia. Jack, well played by Ben Affleck knows this, he just has a hard time convincing anyone else, including the President, played to perfection by James Cromwell. Also of note here are performances by Morgan Freeman, Bridget Moynahan, and Ciaran Hinds as the Russian President. The direction, by Phil Alden Robinson, was simply incredible. There are two reasons that, as much as I would like to, I can't give this film a 10. First of all, there are times where the story becomes needlessly complicated. Second, Liev Schreiber, one of my favorite actors, was seriously underused. Other than these two complaints, I loved this film.… Collapse

Filler. Not the movie's fault if we expected greater things out of this one. As we continue to witness bigger and bigger Superbowl half-time shows, a nuclear device is eventually going to be involved anyway.

I would like to respond to all of those who have criticized Ben Affleck for his portrayal of Clancy's Jack Ryan; Before you are so quick to discredit his performance, maybe you should take a minute RATIONALLY consider why Ben Affleck was chosen as the lead actor......Firstly, the movie is meant to take place at a point in time where Jack Ryan is just beginning his career. Yes he is supposed to be young, he is supposed to be inexperienced, and yes he is supposed to be in over his head. The whole point of the movie is that the character of Jack Ryan has been thrust into an overwhelming position with which he is not really familiar. He had never been on a special ops mission, he had never before associated with the CIA top brass. If this didn't come across as obvious when watching the movie, then it would seem that some critics must have been watching a different movie...Shakespeare in Love perhaps? The bottom line is that Affleck effectively portrays a young and inexperienced Jack Ryan. To those of you who believe that Schrieber should have been cast....well he is just as much a fossil as I am sure most of you are...and therefore completely wrong for the part of a YOUNG Jack Ryan. All that aside...the movie was excellent. The story was very well written, and the film had a very rythmic flow. To those who are asserting that the movie does not live up to our contemporary views on terror, I don't know what you've been smoking, but let's not forget that it IS BASED ON A TOM CLANCY NOVEL. The movie is fiction based on fiction, and the story should not and cannot be completely altered from its original incarnation. Therefore, the writers did an excellent job of creating a hybrid story, combining the modern, up-to-date feeling on terror, with the more political idea of terror that I am sure Tom Clancy had always intended to write about....considering the story has been around longer than any of Ford's Clancy incarnations, and Baldwin's.… Expand

Not good. Not even close.

Moderately entertaining, but with some moments of unintentional hilarity. My favorite -- Ryan, who is supposedly fluent in Russian, can't understand two guards speaking Ukranian (which is closely related to Russian). Do any of these people do any research. Affleck is terrible as Jack Ryan -- Schreiber would have been much better.

WOW This is the Way Red Dawn Should have been made. Any Idiot who thinks otherwise is just that an Idiot. Keep in mind that it is just a movie all you Art'sy people try to make things to realistic. The Sum of all Fears falls in the catagory of Red Dawn and The Longest Day.

AWFUL! This is up there with the most ridiculous movies of all time. Everyone just remember what we learned from this film: If the nuclear blast comes, you need to LAY DOWN in your car. Had the CIA in this film not alerted the president to this obviously impenetrable position he would have gone the way of Cabot. I could go on about the 1945 feel of the film (Nazis and the cold war?) and the way everything works out so perfectly in the end, but what would be the point? This trully is the sum of all movie fears.… Expand

Finally a movie that hasn't the usual American superhero that saves the world by lpure luck and dumb violence. Just a normal agent that uses his brains to solve the problem. Is it because that the movie is so un-American, that it has such bad critics? I hope that there in the future are made more movies like this one.

Way too big a subject to be treated in such a juvenile, inferior James Bond manner. Felt at times like a grisly travelogue with totally unreastic feats of physical stamina (our hero in a nuclear explosion, radiation sickness, garotted with chains but still manages to save the world in 30 secs). Pathetic and insulting to victims of terrorism everywhere.

Were I to assign "Fears" a star rating, I would award it 3-and-a-half out of four stars. Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert has explained how a film can be good but not skillful, or skillful but not good. "The Sum Of All Fears" is one of the rare films that fits into the former category. Despite painfully cliched dialogue and mediocre acting, the film has something it needs to say about how we must find an alternative to violence. This is good, regardless of not being skillful.… Expand

Whoaa! This was a good movie. Tom Clancy is really good at portraying the government on the big screen. The only thing that was a problem with this movie is that it was too long, when they could have talked for about 20 minutes at the intro, bombed Baltimore, and then get more into the suspense of deciding to start WW3 or not. This movie is about the problems the normal president has to face. (Too bad our president is far from normal, just an idiot.) If you want the suspense of going into WW3 then i suggest you watch this movie, if not, then go somewhere else.… Expand

'The Sum of All Fears' is an average film from a fiction novel with too much realism in the wake of recent terrorist activities. Morgan Freeman is good but unfortunately the rest of the movie just gives me chills.

I give this film a 10 because of Ben Affleck. He's cute and always does a great job. Way to go Ben!!!!

Oh dear. This film is so naive after 9/11 and our current Mideast crisis. Nobody now would react in the laughable way the film thinks a catastrophe happens and reacts. This is a museum piece -- bet on it -- films will take a brand new tack.

At least they blew up a city. That was pretty cool. The rest of the movie was a snoozer starring the Grade B Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck.

Kind of strange that not one person who paid to see this film did not like it? Makes you wonder what the professional critics saw that we didn't. We go to the movies to be entertained. This flick certainly does that. The cast was outstanding. Go see it.

Silly me. I misread the title and thought it was another movie about a mathemetician with psychological problems called "The Fear of All Sums"...anyway, with all the money Ben Affleck is getting, soon he may be able to afford acting lessons.

This was a good movie with a nice big, very sudden, boom. A 10 in my book!

Great cast! Great acting! Great Suspense! Great Cinematography! Great chemistry! The only thing not great is the stupid "so-called" professional critics who bombed this flick. Great movie!

I thought it was the best suspense/action movie i've ever seen and those people who say its bad because of the attacks the movie was filmed like 2 dam years ago!!

This movie is being showcased at an odd time for all Americans. Although this movie is very realalistic in terms of the war-like nature that makes up its plot, it is a very well-done movie. I know the topic is a typical "wrong place, wrong time" type of thing but the movie itself excellent.

It's really good. The are some minor flaws, like the silly denounment. The cinematography can be, at times, great. Freeman is great, Affleck does something totally different from Harrison Ford. This is probably my favorite of all the Jack Ryan movies.

The movie was surprisingly good. Very suspenseful throughout as the story unfolds. Morgan Freeman was excellent as was Ben Affleck as the young Jack Ryan. In what was too brief an appearance, Liev Schreiber, as a 007 clone John Clark simply steals the show. Kind of wish we could have seen more of him.