Review of The Sum of All Fears (2002) by Stephen S — 01 Sep 2013

Decent but horribly confusing. Hollywood has always been terrible at adapting Tom Clancy's books. Yes, they still end up being decent, and even good, films, but they're not even close to the book.

Only the characters and the most basic form of the plot is the same. Normally this is enough, but they did a half-assed reboot here for some reason....it doesn't make any sense. Ryan and Clark, the mainstays of Clancy's writing, are both older men, with tons of experience in their fields.

Here however, they're played by actors in their 20s. How does that make any sense? And the main problem Ryan faces in this movie is his credibility--everyone keeps saying that he has no experience, and that no one knows who he is.

It's as if Red October never happened (or Patriot Games, or Clear and Present Danger for that matter). But by this time in the book series, Jack Ryan is the deputy director of the CIA, regularly briefing the president with Cabot.

So this just gets extremely confusing throughout the book. Shitty adaptation, decent movie.