Cool News
Three SUM OF ALL FEARS reviews...
Hey folks, Harry here... These reviews all have major spoilers in them. The first was from a reader that loved it. The second from a reviewer that hated it and was offended personally by the film as was his audience and the third was someone that was just bored. What does this say about the film... Well, that the movie does have the ability to press different buttons on different people... who will react very differently. Again, BEWARE OF MAJOR SPOILERS.... Here ya go...
hi harry-
ive been reading your website on and off for awhile now, just checking up on
what youve had to say about movies ive seen or want to see. youve got a good
thing going.. anyway, i dont know if a lot of people have seen it, i read you
saw it last night.. but tonight they gave a sneak preview here on campus
(university of maryland) of the sum of all fears. i totally agree with your
opinion. the sound in our theater is pretty crappy, so in the beginning, kids
were whispering periodically asking "whatd he/she say?". but when the bomb
went off at the game, it was so picturesque to see everyone stop talking and
be zoned in the movie from there on in. it really was like it was happening
to us. i dont know if thats cause we are 20 minutes from baltimore or not,
but it was apparent. i have read the book. the beginning is quite different.
however for the most part the movie stayed true. i love how the last scene
that russian guy comes over and says maybe someday you and i will be able to
communicate as he did with morgan freeman. i dont know if your aware, but in
debt of honor (the next ryan book in the clancy series), ryan becomes
director of the c.i.a. so the foreshadowing portrayed was excellent. i dont
know if we saw the final cut or not, the beginning said this was a "work in
progress", but i will be anxious to see it in theatres. i think affleck was
right on the money, like baldwin, and not ford, with his undertone sense of
humor. i think its exactly how clancy wanted us to see jack ryan as. thats
all really. dont know if you read these or not, but just thought i should
write in and say i loved this movie too, and really did justice to the book.
cheers mate.
-jayThen here is Pendragon, who seems has been personally offended by SUM OF ALL FEARS on multiple fronts. Living in Manhattan, he and apparently his New York audience felt quite a bit violated by the film. Then this being a young Jack Ryan seems to have caused some adjustment issues from the previous films that he just wasn't down with. Imagining this as a NEW BEGINNING for the Jack Ryan character.... Much like John Byrne's SUPERMAN... is probably very apt. Also beware of MAJOR SPOILERS in this review.
Pendragon here, with a Manhattan-centric review of "The Sum of All Fears" -
hope you can use it.
"The Sum of All Fears" is a true cinematic disaster, and an offensive
disaster at that. I attended a work-print screening of this new film last
week, in the company of a Manhattan audience bored stiff and coldly alienated
by "Fears'" fatal flaws.
Ben Affleck slouches unmemorably into the film's starring role. He plays CIA
analyst Jack Ryan, a character previously animated by two older and superior
thespians (Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford). Most actors in this film, from
the presidential James Cromwell to the underutilized Liev Schreiber to
whomever plays the incoherent nomad dying from radiation poisoning, display
more powerful charisma than Affleck can muster.
Yet the tepid star is the least of this film's troubles. Three previous Tom
Clancy films ("The Hunt For Red October," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and
Present Danger") established a reasonable chronology of events for Jack Ryan,
his family and his coworkers. Ryan's character is younger in this film than
in any of the other three, but "Fears" improbably takes place in the
present-day, making this installment both a prequel and a sequel (a feat
which no film other than "Godfather II" has ever managed to pull off
successfully).
The continuity problem in "Fears" is staggering. Affleck's Jack Ryan is a
CIA neophyte, bumbling through a relationship with a young nurse, while
Ford's and Baldwin's married versions of the same character had achieved
senior CIA status in the previous films. Those movies were set in the late
stages of the Cold War and in the early 90's, yet in this film, Palm Pilots
deliver email and Bill Clinton's presidency has already ended.
When Harrison Ford turned down the opportunity to star in "Fears," the
producers apparently pinned their hopes on Affleck's box-office drawing power
and mangled Clancy's novel to accommodate the young star. That Clancy - a
producer of the film - was party to this travesty in no way diminishes its
outrageousness. In an industry that relies heavily on geek dollar power and
word-of-mouth advertising, it is folly for producers to neglect the interests
of loyal, watchful fans by allowing glaring plot-related inconsistencies.
But bizarre as Jack Ryan's chronological readjustment in "Fears" may be, the
most troubling element of the film has nothing to do with its protagonist.
[NOTE TO READERS: I am about to reveal the climax of the film, so that you
don't have to suffer through it first-hand].
Near the end of the movie, terrorists plant a stolen nuclear warhead in a
vending machine beneath a fictional Baltimore football stadium. The
detonation of the device kills thousands, characters refer to the site of the
blast as "ground zero," debris is strewn in the air for miles and
respirator-clad rescuers lift charred victims from the rubble. These
elements of the film are jarringly reminiscent of both the September 11
attacks on New York and Washington and of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Such disturbing parallels were not lost on the audience at the screening I
attended; a number of spectators walked out after the explosion sequence, and
others expressed extreme discomfort with the film's imagery and timing.
Crowd reaction was extremely muted during the rest of the film. Afterwards,
spectators voiced concerns that "Fear's" filmmakers were exploiting recent
tragedy for entertainment value.
Unlike Arnold Schwarzenneger's cartoonish film "Collateral Damage," which
also depicted terrorist activities against Americans and was released after
the September 11 attacks, "The Sum Of All Fears" employs intensely realistic
imagery to illustrate a terrorist attack and its immediate aftermath. Yet
the rest of the film has a jaunty, adventurous tone; the gravity of this
central event, and of the recent real-world memories it evokes, clashes with
the flippant entertainment values of the film as a whole.
Perhaps studio executives in Los Angeles have the luxury, or financial
necessity, of forgetting how the East Coast suffered last September. Perhaps
the geniuses at Paramount Pictures have decided that our grieving period in
Manhattan is over. Apparently, this film's creative and distribution teams
have no qualms about pouring salt on the nation's wounds by releasing what
amounts to a greatest-hits collection of recent terrorist tragedies. No
doubt, Al Qaeda and Hamas masterminds will be looking to this film for
inspiration once it goes into worldwide release. Vending machines in major
American metropolises may soon be transformed, by copycat hands, into
deathtraps.
National security aside, New York audiences are not ready for a popcorn
action epic that includes a stark portrayal of a tragedy so like the one we
recently endured.
If I were Affleck, I'd be using white-out on my resume once this mess hits
the theaters. And if I were among the amoral brass at Paramount, I'd prepare
to kiss my cushy job goodbye. "The Sum of All Fears" is an utterly
inappropriate film to release at this time, and an inane enough production to
be kept away from the public indefinitely.Here's another one that I don't agree with...
Harry,
I saw a sneak preview of 'Sum of All Fears' in Atlanta Monday night and,
after reading your glowing, almost masturbatory review ("Sum', BTW, has more
in common with 'The Black Bird' than "The Maltese Falcon'), am beginning to
think either we saw different films or that you're aggressively mixing
lithium with your Goobers. Though the print I saw was quite good, 'Sum' was
a major disappointment - predictable (both in plot and direction), muddled,
and lifeless.
The only good thing that stands out are the performances, especially Morgan
Freeman, Philip Baker Hall, James Cromwell, and Alan Bates. However, none of
them exceed previous performances - they merely play characters similar to
ones they've played before, and do a fine, workman-like job doing so.
Freeman and Cromwell, in particular, covered much the same ground in similar
though flip-flopped roles in 'Deep Impact'. Ben Affleck holds his own, but
doesn't bring Baldwin's intelligence nor Ford's grittiness to the role. He
is the Timothy Dalton of Jack Ryan portrayers, which at least means he's not
the George Lazenby of them.
And Liev Schieber is just plain silly and unbelievable playing a field op.
One of the film's fatal faults is that it rushes through scenes when it
should linger (the anticipation of the detonation of the bomb at the
football game, the initial effects of the blast, Ryan's mad dash around
Baltimore for clues, etc.), and lingers when it should use short-hand (how
the bomb gets lost and recovered; all scenes involving Ryan and his love
interest - a better film would cut the entire relationship out of the film
since it adds nothing but one good comedic moment, which is Ryan's
explanation to her from an airplane regarding what he does for a living; all
the muck in the middle involving Liev's op work). In addition, too many
things just suddenly 'happen', without any build-up (the arrival of the pols
at the game, the movement of the bomb to and through the U.S., the effect of
the fall-out, etc.). All this results in an uneven, ambling plot that never
caught me in its grip. Somehow, Robinson has made a boring film from an
exciting franchise, and this is easily the weakest of the four Ryan films.
As I left the theater, I listened closely to other viewer's conversations,
wondering if I just didn't get it. No - most were feeling like me, wondering
why they didn't see a better film, which, given its lineage and
participation, it should have been.
What we have here is a disappointing film; not an incompetent film, like
'Rollerball', but something even worse - a film that had me checking my
watch constantly from the 30 minute mark right up to the end.
It's not bad, per se - just boring. And in my book, that's worse than bad.
Just my 2 pesos.
Simon
-
+ Expand All
-
Only wish I had something to say....oh wait, I knew this would suck.
-
So characters use the term "ground zero" - so what? That's a term that has been in use for decades to describe the focus of an event, specifically a nuclear detonation. Those that purloined the term in relation to 9/11 were the ones that mis-used it, *not* this film. And since Pendragon seems comfortable with a fictional football stadium, why so difficult to accept that IT'S *ALL* JUST A MOVIE!? So Jack Ryan is younger and lives in a more modern world than his older incarnations. So what? It isn't _real_. If Tom Clancy was happy with this treatment (as I presume he must have been) who the heck are we to argue? The question is, does it work for the story and for the characters? Something which Pendragon doesn't actually answer, since his "review" concentrated on drawing comparisons with early big screen Ryan adventures and with real events. My guess is that Pendragon went into this _knowing_ that the 9/11 parallels would be upsetting, so the question really has to be why go to the bother? Why not just avoid the pain. Of course I've not seen the movie myself, and maybe it does blow chunks - trouble is, I've got no idea whether it will or not from Pendragon's "review" - I don't honestly see why you posted it Harry. At least Simon said what he thought about the film, although I suspect that the films "problems" as he sees them are a result of the attempt to remain faithful to the book (which, if I recall from the time I read it long ago, similarly lingers where others might brush over, and brushes over where others have lingered)
-
Apr 25, 2002 7:46:58 AM CDT
Why didn't Harry just make everyone go see MURDER BY NUMBERS
by chuckrussel
YEAH!
-
In britain we've had decades of terrorism from the IRA, who killed women,children,husbands fathers without discrimination.
Lots of Americans funded them, to help them buy thier guns and explosives, because they have no idea what they are funding and are too stupid to find out.
So forgive me if i couldn't give a fuck that some of you are offended by what terrorism looks like.
-
September 11th - the movie. A mish-mash of Titanic's love story and Pearl Habour's big-bang wooshy noises and FX. I give it five years. Hollywood just doesn't care. No doubt they'll call it a 'fitting tribute to those who suffered'. On the subject of Fears admittedly I havent seen it but on the basis of these reviews...doesn't sound good. Havent read the book yet so maybe Ill give that a go first.
-
I was at that screening in Atlanta - and I don't understand how Simon can say that the rest of the audience agreed with him. At least half of them signed up to get tickets for when the finished print is screened.....so they liked it so much they want to see it again!! Is that the same as being bored???
I also am saddened by the fact that Manhattan audiences don't like the film (although I can understand why) - but it's what made the bomb sequences that much more frightening - because it could really happen.
That's just my opinion -
...because the book, which also featured a nuclear bomb--and this one by Middle East terrorists--going off in the Super Bowl, came out over ten years ago, even before the Oklahoma City bombings. And the movie was being made before September 11.
-
Apr 25, 2002 9:51:27 AM CDT
I saw this at a press screening... it' fine and a ok film.
by kampbell-kid
If you go to see this film and I know it's necular bomb scequence was the "thing to catch" from the trailer your just asking for it if you get offended. I mean really... "Ground Zero" is a term I've heard since forever on any natural disaster or bomb disastar. When "ground zero" was used during 9/11 by media coverage, I kept rolling my fucking eyes for them using that turm so much as if it was chic to call that area that just to comercialize the situation. Don't bitch like a hypocrite about what you saw in the movie because you knew it would happen before going into it and don't tell me you went into this film ONLY to see great proformances or I will slap your asshole inside out becuase the only reason I watch Independence Day was to see the cities get distroyed then fell asleep. Yea it's kinda morbid but it sells, flick the tear, morn the loss, and get over it. :)
-
Apr 25, 2002 9:59:42 AM CDT
Who cares about the other Jack Ryan movies, this one should stan
by jon l. ander
there's no point getting worked up about chronology, it's just nit-picking. All the Bond movies are set in what was the present day at the time, yet we don't bitch about the changes in them.
-
I'm a little confused about the 2nd reviewers assertion that it is seemingly ok for a terrorist movie like Collateral Damage to portray terrorist attacks as long as the movie is "cartoonish", but it is not ok for SOAF to portray similar events if they are portrayed realistically. Are not the "cartoonish" effects paying a greater disservice to victims of actual tragedies? And to imply that a movie should not be made because it will "inspire" terrorists seems simple minded and a little scary to me. No doubt terrorists have previously considered every idea "inspired" by this movie. Also, should we then also condemn the hundreds of previously made films featuring terrorists? And why stop at terrorists? Other subjects set a very bad example too - Nazis, communists, war movies in general, perhaps any movie featuring police brutality?
-
i'm a born and raised upstate NY'r, and still live here. of course i was deeply affected by what happened on 9/11, as was 99.99999% of the rest of the US, but i'm starting to get weary of the victim attitude eminating out of NYC. a previous poster here from the UK pointed out that they had dealt with bombing from the IRA for decades, yet that didn't stop moviemakers from using that scenario or storyline, even in the Jack Ryan franchise. not only that, the IRA got tons of money from Americans to carry out their bombings. and where did A LOT of that $ come from? why NYC of course. if not THE best place for IRA fundraising, at least second best behind Boston. so please, while i certainly feel deep sympathy for those DIRECTLY affected by the events of 9/11, i'm dreading dealing with 8 million "victims" for the next decade crying any time they feel NYC isn't coddled in cinema.
-
This is America. We don't mope. I don't want to hear another sanctimonious invocation of 9/11 in connection with a fucking piece of entertainment. Anyway, why expect piety and respect from a piece of entertainment when news stations were playing the actual footage of the event for entertainment and ratings?
-
Apr 25, 2002 10:55:19 AM CDT
Dammit, am I the only human being on Earth who enjoyed George La
by roguewriter
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE was the first Bond flick I saw in a theater (sorry, I'm old) and it was a romp like no other, IMO. "This never happened to that other fellow" ranks up there with the funniest lines ever spoken in a feature film! That said, I will approach THE SUM OF ALL FEARS with the suspicion that it represents THE SUM OF ALL THAT'S WRONG WITH MODERN HOLLYWOOD. Even Moriarty's glowing review can't raise my expectations this time -- f**king with the timeline and continuity of the Jack Ryan series just annoys the crap out of me. How about just making WITHOUT REMORSE next, sticking with the period setting, and letting someone other than Liev Schrieber run with the ball? Martin Scorsese or John Singleton could make a helluva gritty street-flick out of that one...
-
My review is on the talkback under Harry's puzzlingly overenthusiastic review of this movie. Pendragon and Simon make great points on the many weaknesses of the film--Liv Schreiber is underutilized, and Ben Affleck can't fill the shoes of Jack Ryan. Also, excellent point by Simon--the movie has NO BUILDUP to the explosion. There's no tension leading to a sequence that should have been the main focus of the film. Instead, The director Robinson just rushes through the bombing of Baltimore. I also agree that Ryan's 'bumbling' relationship with the nurse should have been cut from the film. I didn't care for it.. It just seemed like weak romantic mush that had no place in this film. Also, I too noticed many people making negative reviews when the film was over. Honestly, I think this movie will bomb at the box office... well not literally, let us hope. =P
-
For me, and all the people around me, the tension leading up to the event was almost unbearable. I thought it was masterful - sure there are flaws in the picture, as there are in all films. I disagree with Harry that it was perfect - only "2001" fits that bill for me, but I totally agree with Harry that it's a great film, and easily the best of the Ryan series. And yes, I think it's going to be really big box office.
-
I was always of the philosophy - If you don't like it, don't watch it. Change the channel, stop the tape, leave the theater. It was an easy spiel to cling to, mostly because I had never been prompted to a high enough level of offense from a media offering. I've been prone to mockery, disdain and condescension - but never revulsion. Until now...
Here's the hard part. As a resident of New York City, some disturbed part of the recovery process seems to be a complete and total lack of sympathy for other New Yorkers who blame current problems on the events of last year if they weren't directly effected by it through some sort of loss. Of course, this is bullshit because we all experienced a loss of sorts, but its a mechanism. The sleepless nights, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder as diagnosed by the nightly news... but we're New Yorkers, our strenght is a source of pride, and we cling to it when we need it most.
**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW** All that said - as I sat in on an advanced screening for THE SUM OF ALL FEARS about a month ago, I was physically ill. Not from the beginning mind you. I didn't like Afleck's Ryan, but I accepted the character as a work in progress. Some day his life experiences would make him as cool as Harrison Ford, and hopefully by film's end we'd see a hint of that. That flash should have come during the "ultra-tense" brink of war climax scene - but in my opinion Afleck dropped the ball here, and had a hard time in general holding his own without one of the fine members of the supporting cast on screen to work with.
So all that said, the problem comes with the scene in Baltimore and what it does to the audience. The events depicted left me speechless. I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing. I sat in my comfy Loews seat in a panic, arms outreached toward the screen, mouth wide open in a silent screen as the world was coming to an end all over again. It felt like a violation of sorts, watching as some studio exec was expecting profits over images of mass tragedy on American soil.
I know the source material was written well before the events of last year, I know that I've seen and salivated over worse (INDEPENDENCE DAY comes to mind), but ID4 was pure fantasy - this film attempted to draw its strenght from realism. The "realistic" coverage of the aftermath took me and the majority of the people in the audience at my screening, back to traumatic days that need to be left behind even if they keep resurfacing.
MOMENTS AGO I HEARD OF AN EXPLOSION IN NEW YORK, AT APEX TECH.... Could it be happening again? Could we be in for another of those days? Could we be in for more sleepless nights? I don't know, but having come cheap Ben Afleck vehicle remind me of all that is a little insulting. I'm not saying what happens in the film should be cut -- A year ago I would have been blown away that a movie had the balls to do what this one did. Today, I'm a little hurt because of it, and I think that we're all a little less than we can be for celebrating it. I don't know if there will ever be a time for a film like this, but I do know that if this proves to be another rung on the "top this" ladder of pushed envelopes and redefined limits and boundries, that I will be forced to walk away, stop the tape and change the channel. If the world has changed forever as we thought it might, and we are to wake up and realize that we live in times directly effected by nightly news stories - then it's really sad that an escapist medium that had provided so much pleasure and wonderment should fall so far short of its potential by failing to be available to us when we need it most. -
As someone who loved the film, first let me say I understand your emotional response to the film, and respect your opinion. But I too was affected viscerally by 9-11, and I thought this film COULD have been horrible, but I found it a serious piece of work, and very moving. It never once gets its rocks off by reveling in violence. In fact, some people on this board are criticizing the picture for not showing lots and lots of gore. This movie, for me, was cathartic - it treated the tragedy honestly, didn't pull punches about the seriousness of it, but didn't rub our noses in it. And I read an interview from someone (I forget who it was on the film who said this) that the movie really isn't about the terrorist event - it's about the response to a terrorist event. It's a movie that says the proper response is NOT to rush headlong into a violent reaction. I found the picture to be a very effective anti-war statement. I didn't get any sense at all that the filmmakers were celebrating the violence. Quite the contrary. Anyway, that's our opinion (me and the wife).
-
Get over it. It happened, it was horrible, people died, people lost friends and family, etc. But guess what: It's not the worst thing to ever happen, and it's not the end of the world.
I'm sick and tired of hearing people whine and bitch and moan about how something in a movie or on TV isn't "sensitive" to a recent tragedy of some kind. People in this country are so damn shortsighted and egocentric; half the world deals with this kind of thing on a semi-regular basis (q.v. the post about the IRA) and doesn't put forth half the pretense that my fellow American loudmouths do.
If you put yourself into a sitution in which you know you might be offended or emotionally affected, you have no one to blame but yourself. If you walk into a movie theatre knowing you're going to be seeing a move about terrorism, you have no right whatsoever to badmouth Hollywood, the filmmakers, or anyone else for any negative feelings you experience or any senses of propriety you think were violated. -
Apr 25, 2002 3:33:57 PM CDT
AGREE OR DISAGREE, HARRY, AT LEAST THESE REVIEWERS KNOW HOW TO S
by lt. torello
So what does that have to do with anything? Well, it tells me these three guys are a bit more analytical, a bit more thoughtful, a bit less fanboyish. And they're certainly a lot more film savvy, as they don't go comparing this to "The Maltese Falcon."
-
Apr 25, 2002 3:50:17 PM CDT
Good/bad, 9-11 sensitive/not, at this point w/ "Sum" complete, P
by liquidnitrate
My "Sum" audience had overwhelmingly negative comments - everybody comparing this with "Red October," "Clear & Present," and agreeing that "Sum" SUCKED donkey and was a total degrading insult, the Joel Schumacher of the Tom Clancy franchise (appropriate considering Akiva Goldsman's involvement with both that and this). A decent 9-11 themed film could be made, but this movie -- filmed back when WTC was still Bin Laden's sick fantasy -- is boring and cheeseball which is insensitive in an entirely unexpected way. Our audience honestly felt that "Sum"'s supporting cast was awful (going through the motions of cardboard roles and dialogue), the script lame, the FX cheesy, the direction inept, the pacing tiresome. So far the posters and trailers seemed to be the movie's best strength - as if slick marketing will dry flies to shit. (Paramount and Disney often prove so)... But perhaps Harry has a point. Maybe this movie will actually work for those audiences who hated "Clear and Present" (I've got friends who said it was an A-quality Chuck Norris flick). After all, the "Mission: Impossible" movies have polarized audiences, with fans preferring one and hating the other, and some viewers disliking both. Very few people like both M:I's equally, and so it seems to be the result with "Sum of All Fears" - it's finding some positive reaction from certain fanboy guys, along with vehemently negative, but not a whole lot of lukewarm shrugs in the middle. Again, come Memorial Day how will the general public respond? We'll find out in a month. I will definitely NEVER sit/suffer through this ever again, and refuse to buy its DVD regardless of special features, but we will be happy with Special Editions of the original Jack Ryan trilogy... if Paramount's video team gets off their asses.
-
Clancy is a blight on the culture of America - a dinosaur (who still seems to be spawning other teeny-brained dino-mites) who still advocates Bombs not Food, grow-grow military, and put Reagan back in the White House - he even dedicated one of his friggin' books to him - Clancy considers himself to be such an expert on International Relations that he's interviewed on CNN - apparently so does CNN though, so I'm not sure which is worse. This simplified view of all things politico-military is poisoning the minds of people stupid enough to believe this crap. And when you watch this flick remember that when you're horrified at the sight of a nuclear weapon exploding that only one nation in the history of the world has ever used one.
-
Just read Pendragon's review. GET OVER YOURSELF!!! I mean, what, you go and watch 'World Is Not Enough' and bitch and moan about why James Bond never seems to age after 40 fucking years?! Hunt For Red October was a stand alone. Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger were basically linked. But once they re-cast the role, you'er basically starting over! I'm sick and fucking tired of people not understanding that Paramount hit the RESET button on the Jack Ryan franchise (and have a better shot of keeping it alive for 20+ years because Affleck's young, Clancy is likes the film and is writing new, younger Jack Ryan stories, and really, what are the odds Affleck's gonna go off to do 'Streetcar' on broadway?
As for the 9/11 issues... look, Clancy wrote about a massive terrorist attack on domestic soil 10 years before 9/11 (in 'Sum' and even more spookily similar in the subsequent book 'Debt of Honor' in which a jumbo jet is crashed into the Capitol.) I really think that 'Sum' is going to make the US take a long hard look at our borders after this movie.
Pendragon, stop riding the 9/11 sympathy train and pay fucking attentino!
Whew... done venting now... -
Apr 25, 2002 5:03:14 PM CDT
The gay porn parody version of this will be "The Cum of all Quee
by rick mccallum
...And, funnily enough, it will star Ben Affleck, too!
-
Get over it, not every single explosion has to evoke a tragic memory for all Manhattanites still in their "grieving period". It's hypersensitive wienies like you that took the twin tower episode of the Simpsons out of syndication and who cry a river at every single mention of the word bomb. You suck and you need to get a pair. I was here in Manhattan and live downtown, but I think I can handle a fictional movie. Pansy.
-
I don't think the continuity of this film is an issue. The strategy they seem to be going for is to make Jack Ryan like the American James Bond. Whenever a new actor plays the role, the continuity is jiggered with a little bit. Here we're dealing with a young Jack Ryan (the nurse he flirts with sounds like she could be the younger version of Ryan's wife from the last two films). It sounds like that Affleck is the young, single Ryan. Baldwin is the Ryan who's older than Affleck's, and is married but without a kid. And Ford is the Ryan who's older than Baldwin, married and with a kid. The continuity regarding the personal life of Ryan seems to track among the three actors -- but the time period and events of the world do not. I find this both rather funny and cool in a weird, sci-fi parallel universe sort of way.
-
While I do not intend to diminish the feelings this phrase has for New Yorkers, it was in use long before 9/11 and is a technical term. The World Trade Center was not the first use of the phrase.
-
Apr 25, 2002 5:36:06 PM CDT
Why is everyone complaining about the age difference?
by jackburton__me!
Does nobody realize that Jack Ryan is a FICTIONAL CHARACTER!!!!! As a fictional character, a writer or director can do whatever he wants to that character. Nobody seems to care that James Bond has been around for 30 years and is still 35 years old!! He went through the cold war, too. By most talkbackers logic that means that he should be around 65 or 70. Why can't Jack Ryan be older or younger? I haven't read all of the talkbacks on this subject so if anyone else has made this point, THANK YOU!!!!
-
I'm going to get over it right now... in fact, I feel much better already, thanks........................
There's a reason I didn't mention the eleventh specifically - I wanted to avoid propagating the notion that for those of us who live here, that the tragedy and trauma was limited to just one day, a 24 hour stretch of misery that ended on September 12. We weren't sitting on the couch watching the uber-TV Movie of the week about the end of the world as we knew it, we were trying to figure out if we were going to ever make it off the island alive to see our families again. Then we spent a month or so living in a complete state of shock. From there, the fun part has been reliving that day over and over since. A plane goes down in Queens, a boiler explodes on the west side, sirens in the distance -- here we go again I think to myself, wondering if I can take another day like that one, and another dark length of time like the period that followed.
The thing is, we have been getting over it, we've been trying at least and we've made some significant progress. I once visited Lockerbie, Scotland, almost ten years after Pan AM 103 was an early casualty in a terrorist war - an entire program of exchange students among the falling debris that scarred the town below - and you could still feel it there, as if they were still trying to cope with it. In six short month NY has done what it does best, it's kept moving, but by picking at a scab you never give it a chance to fully heal. While I wouldn't dare speak for an entire city, certainly the majority of the people I talk to are constantly being reminded of and flashing back to times they'd rather put behind them - the audience members at this screening among them and especially afterwards. In the days after the attack, we sat glued to the news, afraid to leave the room, watching over and over on television what we saw transpire with our own eyes. Because you (and maybe not you, maybe you were here too and are just dealing with it in your own way) experienced it vicariously and got to change the channel when you were sick of it, maybe that makes it easier. Imagine if that wasn't an option. Imagine being reminded of it daily since then, having the images burned in your brain and being forced to relive them -- and then having someone tell you that because he was bored with it, because it interfered with his entertainment, that you should just flip the switch. What pisses me off is that you'd accuse me of whining when I went out of my way to do anything but by explaining the situation rationally and logically... of course, there were a lot of words there, and the miniscule attention span that looks at this as one big news story in a continuous stream of the same (OJ, the Ramsey case, Monica, Election 2000, Chandra Leavy, an attack on our nation and the death of over 3,000 everyday folk just getting ready to start their work day, Enron, etc...) might not be able to handle all that. But this is how it is, and we deal with it everyday for everyone else that doesn't have to -- just as there are people out there dealing with it directly for all of us.
All that said, my critique was not asking for sensitivity. It understood that this was a crucial sequence within the narrative, that it was the only way to raise the stakes and set the tone for the rest of the film. Mine was an observation of the change in national values, obviously not felt by everyone, and how a film like this fits into the newly defined grand scheme of things, and how that's a problem if it only serves to raise the bar and dare others to jump it. The movie was mediocre, Afleck still hasn't proven his ability to hold his own. What impressed all of you, and what would have impressed me had I not been curled up in the fetal position, was that it had the balls to do the unexpected. Yes, it gets credit for breaking the Hollywood mold, as we've seen this movie a thousand times, and the rest of them all end with one second left on the timer and the world saved. The problem here is that the things being visualized and dramatized need not. You can't top the visceral experiences shared by millions of New Yorkers, along with the fallout that clouded the nation. It's still too fresh, and if that inconveniences those of you that need to be spoon fed with bright, pretty pictures - tough. Is the nuking of Baltimore the best our collective conscious can produce? After what we've seen and what we've been through, I was just hoping that some folk out there would realize that we don't need to waste our time imagining these things anymore. There are better visions to focus on, and even if this film was the most brilliant celluloid creation to date (it's not), as much as some of you enjoyed it, now isn't the time for it, despite your need for provided entertainment. The thing about the "change the channel" philosophy that I didn't understand is that it's not enough. That you, whoever you are, have acquired a taste for this type of imagery, and that you're certainly not alone, makes changing the channel that much more difficult because slowly it permeates its way into every facet of our culture, solely for the sake of giving the people what they want and making a buck off of it. If every negative comment made costs the filmmakers a buck, then I've got two on hand now, both spent in the name of my own self-preservation. By choosing to cash in and release this film now means that those involved will deserve the flack they receive for it. When that effects ticket sales, maybe someone will learn not to fuck with the American psyche, especially when the currently fucked portion of the American psyche call themselves New Yorkers. -
Yes, Paramount is using the 007 template. Baldwin and Ford are the same Ryan: Baldwin is him in 1984, Ford is Jack in 1991 and 1993. Just as with 007 Connery, Lazenby, and Moore are the same timeline. With Dalton and Brosnon they did a reset. The timeline now is 006 fakes his death in Russia, 007 has the cases in "Living Daylights" and "License to Kill." Sometime in 1990 or 1991 while in exile Bond meets Teri Hatcher, around 1992 or 1993 he gets the call from London he is being re-instated, as part of his re-instatement he has to see a shrink, leading to the mountain chase in "Goldeneye". Affleck taking over the role of Jack Ryan is a reset. People need to accept that. As I have stated in other talkbacks I'm waiting for more reviews to come in before going to see this movie.-----later-----m
-
I guess we should just curl up in a ball, and never mention anything the least bit violent again. Would that make the second reviewer happy? Ever stop to think that the terrorists would probably be estatic if this film was censored due to terrorism in it? They'd love to have that kind of effect on us. Bottom line, if you don't like the movie, don't go see it, loser.
-
I - and everyone around me when I saw the film - found it to be a very effective cautionary tale about nuclear terrorism. We were actually quite grateful that it wasn't cheap or exploitive. It didn't linger on the horror, in fact, I don't recall seeing a single dead body after the attack. That couldn't have been an accident. Clearly someone decided to make it that way. So while I respect our opinion, I see the same film a different way. I think a lot of attention was paid to NOT being cheesy as it so easily could have in other hands.
-
Of course, the difference between Ryan and Bond is that Bond has character, charm and interesting adventures, whereas Ryan is a dullard cypher with nowhere to go. Fleming wrote Bond as his stand-in, having just as much sex as Fleming but without the trips to the clinic. Having the adventures Fleming wanted to have. Now if Jack Ryan is living out Tom Clancy's fantasy life, Tom Clancy should get out more. He's a stand-in, just not a very interesting one. Let's go through his catchphrases... oh, nothing there. Let's recount all the cool things Ryan did... no it's all by the numbers. Name your defining Jack Ryan moment - the one like Conan giving the "enemies driven before you" speech or "shaken not stirred" or "fastest ship in the Galaxy". My point is, Clancy ain't literature. If it ain't literature, it had better be fun. And Ryan ain't fun people. Move along, nothing to see here.
-
I just got this email, from a well enlightend talk backer. Seems he disagreed with my post. Of course he's a fucking idiot - i mean he emailed me a rant in person - just how up your arse do you need to be to do that ?
Anyway he seems to think i'm saying England is great - everyone else sucks, which of course i didn't. England has spent hundreds of years being the bastard of the world - it is responsible for terrible things - to ireland, to the us, to africa, india - everywhere.
But I didn't do these things. My dad din't do these things, my friend who had her face ripped off by an IRA bomb didn't do these things. So why does this little man think we did ?
It's because of morons like this that the situation in Ireland will never get sorted - people who won't let go of the past and look to the future, people who can't forgive and can't forget.
Anyway - here's his rant :
"In britain we've had decades of terrorism from the
IRA, who killed women,children,husbands fathers
without discrimination"
I'm not even going to bother wasting my time detailing
why your post is so patently ridiculous, nor why you
come across as just another arrogant, ill-informed
English stereotype. Let me instead put it very simply
for you so you understand, ummm... 'Hookbeak'.
You've been shitting on my country for 800 fucking
years my friend. 800 years.
Did you hear me? I'll re-iterate.
Eight. Hundred. Fucking. Years.
You have diluted our culture, murdered our people,
basically killed our language, and you still cling to
a portion of our island like the arrogant, pompous
fucks that you are. Your naivete is both sickening,
and hilarious to me. It really is about time you
English woke up.
Go anywhere in the world mate. ANYWHERE. Tell them
you're English. They will turn their nose up at you.
You are universally despised. DESPISED. Tell them
you're Irish? A friendly clap on the back and a warm
smile. You're still giving out MBE's for fuck's sake.
Member of The British Empire.
Ummmm....what Empire, exactly?
Try, for the love of GOD, to admit to yourself what
your country has done, WORLDWIDE, the atrocities
they've committed (if you like, I'll write you a mail
TELLING you, in great detail, what you, as a people,
have done) Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Asia,
India, Ireland, Canada, the U.S.. etc etc etc ET
FUCKING CETERA.
"...who killed women,children,husbands fathers without
discrimination"
Hehe heh. You moron. Your country has been doing that,
WORLDWIDE, for countless centuries.
WAKE. THE. FUCK. UP.
-
I can understand why one reviewer was offended by some of the disturbing footage in SOAF. Living in the DC area, I sympathize with being up close and personal with the horror that is a terror attack. However at the same time, I don't believe this was any attempt to use the attack as "entertainment".
I note that art house regs pump their films up as the most enlightening thing since the translation of the Dead Sea scrolls and yet films that feature big production value and explosions can only be considered "exploitative crap" by some. I don't believe this to be true. Perhaps it is because the rest of the film's mood that such graphic footage of a terrorist attack may be considered off the mark. However, stating this is little less than capitalizing on tragedy is overstating the case. I don't think either Paramount nor Clancy would consider it to be so. Every film that features terrorists from now on is going to face this critique. In my opinion, not all will be masterpieces, but some will certainly give us greater pause in recalling the tragedy that brought the nation together and steeled its resolve. I might also add that even if Affleck seems hollow, the message of the book and the film are anything but. -
The Sum of All Fears is almost undoubtedly a better story to read than to watch, unless they just made a different story with the same name hoping to cash in on the Jack Ryan and Tom Clancy fan base. Harry, I suggest you read the book. I'm not a huge Clancy fan. With the exception of Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and Sum of All Fears, Clancy's books are not great. He's lousy at character development, his dialogue is stiff and unrealistic, his prose is so wanna-be macho that it's laughable at times. But the man does his homework, and frequently writes stories that are timely, realistic, and make important points or ask important questions. The book Sum of All Fears really kicked off when the bomb blew up, and the real focus of the story was what happened after. The book made two very important points. One, getting the radioactive material is the hard part, after that it's disturbingly easy to put together a bomb that, even if it's far from ideally made, can kill an enormous number of people. Two, as much as we may argue that character and experience is not necessary for the day to day job of being the president, when the shit goes down, a country NEEDS to have someone in charge who can manage a crisis WELL. Whatever your political leanings, reading that book will make you think twice about whether your national leaders have the necessary skills to handle a crisis where seconds count and a critical mistake can lead to tragedy. I'm a resident doctor, and I've been in on dozens of codes, and I've seen them handled by docs who are cool, calm, and competent and I've seen them handled by docs who know the material, but can't handle a crisis at all. A code can be smooth and efficient or can be a total clusterfuck. And that's just 6-8 people in a room trying to deal with a few variables. Imagine you're dealing with hundreds of people, countless variables, and thousands of lives at stake. The person in charge there had better be something special. That was the point of the book, and what made the book a very, very good read. I seriously doubt that Hollywood managed to capture that on film.
-
One of the strongest things about this verystrong film is that it shows quite a bit of how the decision process under pressure can look easy in a practice situation, and very difficult in the real event. At the beginning of the movie, we see the president and his staff responding to a drill. Everything works smooth, they get the information they need, and everything goes along like clockwork. But in the 2nd halfm, whent he shit hits the fan, people don't have the info they need (there's a GREAT scene of frustration and confusion and not knowing what's going on when they first get on the presidents plane). And the film shows - just as clearly as the book does - how the decisions move step by step towards war because the guys making the decisions on both sides don't have all the inforation they need, and are afraid of the other guy, and misinterpret the other side's moves. It's terrifying. it's what the movie Thirteen Days was SUPPOSED to show, but was too boring to make it work.
-
How stupid can you possibly be? This film was finished BEFORE 9/11. How can it be exploiting the tragedy?!?! And his assertion that the film should never have been released is the most asinine, fascist statement I've ever heard. Should we now stop making movies about certain subjects because certain people might be offended by them? Please, for God's sake, go down to ground zero and wander around in the rubble . . . maybe a stray I-beam will fall on your head and put you out of your misery, you pathetic loser!
-
...why someone who had read the book or was familar with the Tom Clancy "universe" would be kind of annoyed at this movie. From the commerical alone, it can be seen that there have been HUGE liberties taken on the story. Different villains, main character is young instead of seasoned and wiser character, context all messed up...
The question for me is why bother calling it "Sum of All Fears?" Why not just write an original screenplay that doesn't involve the Jack Ryan character but someone similar to him? Harry compares it to the John Byrne reboot of Superman but this isn't the same thing because we are talking about a literary character. Comic characters are much more elastic because they are more like icons, timeless in the sense that they are always being reworked and rebooted. But characters from novels are not this way at all. They are more specific, more contextual than that. And so on that front I disagree wholeheartedly with that comparison. This was a NOVEL. A novel that said something very specific. So I understand if fans of the novels--who were looking forward to seeing their favorite book on the screen--are somewhat horrified to hear that it is similar to the novels only in name.
When I see a movie adapted from a book, I like to see the themes carry over. I don't mind if a director riffs on them here and there, putting his own fingerprint on them, but the themes-- the one in broad strokes-- have to be intact. That is why I was bothered by the ending of Hannibal. The idea that Clarice was too morally superior to give into Hannibal's lifestyle bugged me because that was counter to everything that was explored in the book. The whole purpose of that book was to call into question what was insane behavior, what was right and wrong. It showed how someone with strong convictions and a secure moral compass could alter her entire perception of reality when she falls for a cannibal and is betrayed by every institution she believed in. But when Clarice is strong enough to resist the temptation of leaving Hannibal, the movie did more than leave its own mark on the material-- it changed the very purpose and point of the story. That bugs me.
That is why the reports of the Hulk scare me. Because Ang Lee sounds like he is going beyond riffing on preexisting themes but CHANGING those themes entirely, to make the property into a different creature entirely (pun intended).
Having said all that, I plan on watching the movie without any of that garbage swirling in my head. I have read a couple of Tom Clancy books but Sum of All Fears is one of those I didn't read. So it won't bother me as much as the next guy. But all I am saying is that I don't blame Clancy enthusiasists for crying "FOUL!" at this movie. They have every right to be bothered about it. And if the filmmakers wanted to "reboot" the Clancy universe, they should have made an original screenplay that didn't try to pass itself off as an adaptation of one of the novels.
Your review heartened me. The commerical, all that crap aside, made it look like a mediocre movie. But your review actually made me want to see it... -
The ads for this are all over my tapes of various genre shows this weekend. Affleck's "Neofascists" line caught my attention. Does this mean the terrorists in the film are fans of Il Duce? Neonazis - I've heard of them. Leftists calling people fascists, I've heard. But I've never heard any American group referring to itself as Neofascists. Of course, this gets to my biggest complaint about this movie and Hollywood. The bad guys in the book are Arab terrorists. Hollywood decided to make Americans the bad guys. How typical. Of course, this film will probably clean up among the Euroweenies and other anti-American types around the world. And for those wondering why Clancy would accept such a change -- he's a big House of Saud fan. In all his books, the Saudis are the good guys. I guess Clancy likes the parties that Prince Bandar throws in DC.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 209 total posts 207 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 160 total posts 97 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 144 total posts 77 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 68 total posts 68 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 64 total posts 60 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 480 total posts 55 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 53 total posts 50 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 118 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 182 total posts 27 posts