It has been a while since I updated my blog. This is not because I didn't feel like updating, but because the simple reason that I was having my (in my opinion) well deserved vacation. I will add a detailed travel report to my site later this month. But now on to the more important things, the review of the holiwodization of "The Sum of all Fears".
"SUM" is a novel by Tom Clancy, written a little over a decade ago. It's part of the phenomenal Jack Ryan series and is settled after "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" and "Clear and Present Danger". The story builds on several aspects of "CK" and these aspects are quite important in the book. Clancy's way of describing political issues and emotions of charaters is also an important part in his novels.
I went to the movie and expected about a one to one copy from the book, but it became clear very quickly that I was very mistake by that. There were roughly four details the same as in the books, and about nothing of the storyline. Only the basic story line was the same: A group of idiots (Palestinians in the book, Nazis in the movie) wants to drive the USA and Russia into a nuclear war by setting off a nuclear device. Because of distrust and misinformation, they almost end up in that. The movie misses a lot of the excellent building up of fear in the minds of the American president (Fowler) and his Russian counter part (Nemerov) and violates almost every clever thing from the book.
No, this movie was definitely not what I expected it to be, but I can not say that it was a bad movie, it had still a nice screenplay, nice effects and Ben Affleck was a better Ryan than I expected him to be. I'd certainly recommend to watch this movie, but when you are a Clancy fan, you really should forget that its based on a his book.