Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

GET-your-ASS-to-MARS I remember really wanting to see this movie when I saw the trailer back in 2002. I finally got around to watching it this morning. It's been predictably slammed by the book brigade and those with an unhealthy hatred for Ben Affleck. I thought it was ok, but nothing spectacular. A film where a nuclear bomb explodes on mainland America should have felt more dramatic. I thought that part was relatively weak. Still worth a watch. It made me ponder about the human race.

Leofwine_draca Here's a fresh interpretation of a popular Tom Clancy novel, which mixes CIA jargon with presidential anguish into a pleasing, pulse-pounding brew. The impact of the 9/11 disaster is readily apparent in this suspenseful movie which is part disaster-film itself. The old trick of US vs. Russia (but not really) is familiar territory, but through crisp writing and engaging characters the story is given time to develop, strengthening the clichés and making everything very watchable. A strong budget leads to some very effective effects sequences, and cinematography and score are both excellent. The cast is also populated with some strong character actors – Liev Schrieber has never been better than here, as a spy; Morgan Freeman does his 'wise old mentor' role with skill, wit and relish; James Cromwell makes for a very human and believable president; even the usually bland Ben Affleck comes out good, having followed in Harrison Ford's shoes as the heroic Jack Ryan.The opening of the film sets the style well and leads us into some very dark areas. One of the major incidents in the film involves a nuclear weapon exploding in a packed US city, which makes for pretty frightening viewing. Realism seems to be 100% through and through and there are no annoying plot holes or discrepancies. The last half of the film racks up the suspense levels with tons of action and adventure, making this a film to be watched and a darned sight better than most modern fare.

GusF Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Tom Clancy, this is an extremely effective and compelling thriller. Since it has received some fairly mediocre reviews, my hopes were not particularly high but it turned out to be hugely enjoyable. In all honesty, I would have preferred a third Harrison Ford film rather than a reboot but it is at least a slick and well made one. Although it was filmed before 9/11, it is notable as being the first major Hollywood film on the subject of terrorism to be released after it. It has a very clever script by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne. Phil Alden Robinson's direction is very good, which surprised since he is not exactly known as an action director.The film has been criticised by many people as being very difficult to follow but I can't really see why. It is admittedly complex and you have to pay attention in order to understand everything but I'd take that over a film where I can mess around on my phone for most of it and still understand it perfectly any day of the week. It opens with an Israeli plane being shot down over the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 and the consequent loss of one of its nuclear weapons. In September 2002, the bomb is discovered by scrap metal merchants and sold to an arms dealer for a pittance. He then sells it to an Austrian neo-Nazi named Richard Dressler, who intends to use it to start a nuclear war between the US and Russia which will leave Europe as a fascist superstate under his control. To that end, the bomb is detonated at a sports stadium in Baltimore in the hope of placing the blame squarely on Russia. At one point, Dressler says that Hitler's biggest mistake was going to war with both the US and Russia instead of setting them against each other and it is hard to disagree with that. Of course, if a plot like Dressler's were ever enacted successfully, Europe would undoubtedly be devastated as well but never mind that!The film stars Ben Affleck as the third actor to play Jack Ryan. He does not have the same easy charm as Alec Baldwin and particularly Harrison Ford but he is nevertheless convincing in the role. Affleck will never be Laurence Olivier but he is a likable actor with a good screen presence. In this film, Ryan is younger than in the three previous ones and has only been working at the CIA for 14 months. He moves up in the world when his prediction that Alexander Nemerov would succeed the hard-drinking Boris Yeltsin-esque Russian President Zorkin proves to be correct after the latter's death. Having written a paper on Nemerov, he is an expert on the new President and correctly believes that he is not a militant hardliner but merely adopts that role in order to save face. After the bomb explodes in Baltimore, Ryan desperately tries to contact US President J. Robert Fowler to prevent him from launching a nuclear attack on the Russian Federation before he eventually contacts Nemerov personally. Ryan's one man mission to escape the partially irradiated Baltimore and stop World War III may be a little far-fetched but it operates on film logic as opposed to real world logic.The always excellent Morgan Freeman is perfectly cast as CIA Director William Cabot, who becomes a friend and mentor to Ryan as the film progresses. Ciarán Hinds is fantastic in the role of the moderate Nemerov, basically a post-Communist Gorbachev. As his name would suggest, Hinds is not of Russian descent but he had to learn pages of Russian dialogue for the film, which could not have been easy. However, he delivers every line in a very natural, believable manner. James Cromwell is very good as President Fowler, a good and decent man who has no desire to start a war but believes that he must in order not to look weak in the eyes of America's enemies. The extremely heated discussions between Fowler and his senior staff are very compelling and I imagine that such conversations would be conducted in the same manner in reality. One of the reasons that these scenes are so effective is that actors of the calibre of Philip Baker Hall, Ron Rifkin and Bruce McGill were cast as the key members of his staff. In one of his final films before his death in 2003, Alan Bates is suitably creepy as Dressler, who was possibly named after Anton Drexler (the founder of what eventually became the Nazi Party). Bridget Moynahan is perfectly fine as Cathy Muller but she has no chemistry with Affleck and her scenes are too brief for her to make much of an impression. Of the five "Jack Ryan" films, "Patriot Games" is the only one that really gave Cathy a chance to shine. Other than the actors that I have already mentioned, I was very impressed by Michael Byrne (who also appeared in the similar but less effective Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies"), Colm Feore (who later popped up as a different character in the franchise's second reboot "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit") and Ken Jenkins. However, Liev Schrieber, who is not a very good actor, was pretty boring as John Clark, particularly compared to Willem Dafoe's interpretation of the character in "Clear and Present Danger".Overall, this is a very exciting thriller that it is far better than it is made out to be. Another "Jack Ryan" film starring Affleck would have been welcome. I have greatly enjoyed this series, the closest thing to an American version of the Bond films that I have come across.

Daniel Loe *WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS* I'm not really sure why The Sum of All Fears gets so much hate. I like this movie, I think it has a really good story. Ben Affleck isn't as good as some of the other actors to have played Jack Ryan, but I think he does a decent job. I do however think Liev Schrieber is a good John Clark, and I may actually prefer him to Wilem Dafoe's portrayal. The film seems to get hate for deviating from the book, which never bothers me that much, as long as its the same story. I've never read the book, but I do know that it's 900 pages long, so obviously some stuff was going to be cut. The movie has some good humor as well, but it has a dark tone to it, which is handled really well. Also, since this came out a decade after the Cold War ended, we get a non-propaganda portrayal of the Russians. I've heard it's Al-Qaeda who plant the bomb in the book, which could've worked better, but I didn't mind the fascism sub- plot. This still feels like an intelligent movie, as all the Jack Ryan movies do, so I'll give it a pass on a few moments that feel kind of... dumb. All in all, I think this is a pretty good movie, with a decent cast, a good story, and some alright acting.