The Sum of All Fears

MOVIE:  The Sum of All Fears

NUTSHELL:  Phil Alden Robinson’s boring, boring, boring telling of Tom Clancy’s novel in which CIA analyst Jack Ryan tries to avert world disaster and um… other typical things like that.

GOOD THINGS:  Morgan Freeman (the little of him there is), lovable old KGB codger (who knew?), James Cromwell as the President, “Oooh La La” Liev Shreiber and my LLL Ken Jenkins

BAD THINGS:  Everything else except for… nope – pretty much everything else.

FEATURES:  Bridget Moynahan, mobile spy equipment, russians, Ron Rifkin, nukyuhler bombs, Bruce McGill, Airforce One, Josef Sommer, no Owen Wilson, Philip Baker Hall, white supremists, Alan Bates, garrotting – a lot of garrotting – in fact an astonishing amount of garrotting and is it really possible to garrote someone with a knitted muffler?

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  Ben Affleck as the younger, goonier, dumber, lummoxier, less athletic, more awkward, chunkier, bad haircut-ier Jack Ryan – and seeing the trailer for K-19 before the movie started didn’t exactly make me miss Harrison Ford any LESS!

NOTABLE:  Halfway through this movie you will be begging to watch Canadian Parliament on C-SPAN instead.

BEST PART:  Oh come on. You know I was sitting there on the edge of my seat the entire time waiting for Affleck to cry. That and asking for a ticket to “The Bum of All Rears” at the box office are the only enjoyment I got out of this movie.

BEST LINE:  When I asked for your opinion I didn’t actually mean for you to speak.

CROWNS:  1 out of 5