The Sum of all Fears is that movie you'd always see on TV. One of those Espionage military thrillers that come out from time to time that no one really remembers.
And this one's no different.
Not that that's a bad thing, the movie itself is perfectly fine but it's just so.. Ordinary.
Despite having a scene where a large chunk of Baltimore gets blown to Smithereens by a high jacked Israeli atomic bomb converted by a bunch of Russian scientists in Ukraine, so a Neo-Nazi* living in Austria can cause a cold war clericalism to somehow create his own perfect state.
It sounds more interesting than it really is.
And once again, I say all of that as somebody that kind of likes these movies.
But there's just something so uninteresting about them as time goes on.
It's as if the story's been told one too many times and you can only watch two guys stare down at a clock ready to kill each other decide to stop at the last second.
It reminds me of the comic book (Watchmen) made by Alan Moore back in the mid-eighties. I kind of final conclusion to the superhero sagas of both DC and Marvel. the whole idea of the book was to be both a critique and and ending to the long-running superhero comic book scene.
But instead it just inspired a million copycats that ended up making the industry all the more popular than ever.
And this movie feels like a copycat of the once-popular Dr. Strangelove film. A movie that took a satirical jab at Cold War Antics and the inevitable destruction of humanity at the hands of a few bureaucrats.
In a way this movie shouldn't even exist. Because everything that was already said here would had been done in Dr.Strangelove and several films before this one. I went into it expecting to have a fun time and about halfway through it was true. This was a fairly enjoyable little Espionage film at that Strange point in time when the United States didn't have any true enemies.
Yes 9-11 just happened but it was so immediate and so surprising that the film isn't really felt by that yet.
It's very much still a product of the age before it. A Time when the United States stood on the world is the big country that couldn't be touched with no enemies to fight.
And it's kind of sad that the United States seems to be a nation that must fight if it wishes to maintain its status.
I also found it kind of strange that the real antagonist to this movie is a fascist. A character that wasn't really all that impressive at the time. Nobody caring about neo-nazis or the idea that some crappy Nazi ideology might come back into popular fashion. In fact it's kind of Supernatural in this movie. and almost Whimsical fantasy**.
But somewhere around the second half of the movie I just lost interest. Once the bomb itself went off. Then it went from this kind of fun build up intention of a bomb going off to dealing with the outcome. And everything just fell really rushed. As boring Ben Affleck as to get into the middle of the contaminated Zone in find the origins of this weird bomb. And then try to convince both the United States and Russia that neither country is actually the aggressor and that they shouldn't destroy each other in a fit of miscommunication and fear. There's certainly a lot of entertainment that could have been done here but it just felt kind of generic and cheesy. Ben Affleck having to constantly deal with everybody trying to push him back but only enough so that we can have a slight bit of tension nothing that actually impedes him.
If there's one thing I kind of wish we could get over in a lot of these films it's having a boring pretty boy actor is our main protagonist. They're never interesting, they're always annoying. We have to spend too much time with them and they just come off as clueless. Obviously they'er there for Exposition dumps.
But I just wish we could give it to someone else. Have an old weird looking Italian guy be the protagonist, give it to a strange Jewish Haitian woman or Hell.
Let's get bold here, have some trans characters in our film.
Why the hell not?
Anything that gets us away from pretty boring white boy. And if you do want to do a white boy cuz you're just not feeling adventurous, then give him some goddamn personality.
I mean there's nothing technically wrong with Ben Affleck but he's just kind of there in this film. Everyone else around him is something interesting going on they either have secondary stories involving finding weird information or they're hiding info from everybody else or trying to sell arms weapons to separate terrorist groups.
Ben Affleck crappy relationship with his girlfriend just feels like a big chunk of filler. Like we're getting it from one plot point to the next. I think we could have intermix this was something better. Maybe more Exposition on how the bomb works or some background on some of the secondary characters.
Why not?
It always has to go back to being a boring relationship between two uncharismatic people. I mean there's that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where he's working for the FBI and he kept his wife semi involved in the investigation only so he can prove to her that he's not having an affair. It's kind of creepy but at least it made the movie more interesting overall.
So I'm not one who insists that movies have to write female characters in Pacific ways as to avoid stereotypes, but I think a movie like this could have greatly benefited from the Bechdel test.
Conclusion: It's fine I guess. But honestly you can find more entertaining movies. Even in this line of movies because this is supposed to be interconnected with other films. Those other two movies with Harrison Ford are a little bit better and The Hunt for Red October is an actual decent.
So maybe just go watch one of those instead.
But you know if you've already seen those other movies and you haven't gotten around to this one it's worth a look.
Once again it's not a bad film it's just kind of there. The stagnant bowl of chips on your table next to a okay but nothing special pair of fish sticks. Yes that's a good way to put it. This movie is fish and chips.
* There's no real point the Neo-Nazi. I thought he'd play a bigger role in the film, but he's just there as the excuse to get the missile from one spot to the next.
Also so we didn't have to throw in Arabs, Persians or even Russians as the real main bad guy. Which I'm kind of okay with.
We don't need to spread hate to other people around the world, just blame the Nazis. They sucked from the start and they still suck now.
Okay you know what, I take it back.
Having a Neo-Nazi is the antagonist is perfect.
**God how I wish we can go back to that way of thinking again. But then we just end up at this point again. And that's a rant for another time.
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