The Sum Of All Fears

Tom Clancy’s CIA agent Jack Ryan is back in the boyish person of Ben Affleck, helping boss Morgan Freeman and President James Cromwell cope with a nuclear bomb at the Super Bowl. With exquisite sensitivity, the culprits are changed from Arabs to Nazis (led by Alan Bates with an ach-du-lieber accent), and implausibilities abound: (Could Ryan really stumble around in the rubble solving the mystery with a few cell phone calls? Would Super Bowl fans really tolerate all four verses of the National Anthem?). Director Phil Alden Robinson seems a bit out of his element, but he navigates the doomsday scenario with reasonable aplomb. With Affleck taking over from Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, the Clancy franchise makes a play for the youth audience; time will tell if the stratagem keeps the series alive.