Phil Alden Robinson | 119 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA & Germany / English | 12 / PG-13
Paramount had a burgeoning franchise on their hands in the early ’90s with adaptations of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels. He first appears in The Hunt for Red October, where Alec Baldwin’s incarnation of the hero is thoroughly overshadowed by Sean Connery. Then Harrison Ford took over starring duties for a pair of successful follow-ups, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Why they didn’t lead to more, my quick look on IMDb and Wikipedia doesn’t tell.
Fast forward almost a decade to the early ’00s, and Paramount tried to re-launch their potentially-lucrative IP with a beginning-of-his-career younger version of Ryan (all the better to appeal to the young-skewing demographic who by then attended cinemas most), with man-of-the-moment Ben Affleck as the lead. Despite some financial success (nearly $200m worldwide from a budget of $68m), the critics weren’t impressed, and it seems they were listened to. Incidentally, another ten years on, they’re about to try the exact same thing again, with Star Trek’s Chris Pine the man-of-the-moment playing a young Ryan. Better luck this time, chaps.
But I digress — what of The Sum of All Fears? Well, actually, it’s a solid little thriller. A bit plodding at times, but engrossing enough. It doesn’t always adhere to believability, and it’s occasionally unclear what sort of timescale it’s all taking place in, but if you let that wash over you it’s fine. There’s A Big Twist in the middle that would easily have been one of the best bits about the film, had they not blown it in the trailers. Even still, it’s a bit audacious and I still didn’t quite believe it would happen until it did.
Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck, which means a lot of people won’t like him but he’s OK. Morgan Freeman brings instant gravitas to his role, though it’s not his most likeable or memorable part.
I can see why this failed to launch a new franchise. For one thing, a storyline about a terrorist attack on US soil coming less than a year after 9/11 was always going to be tricky. Even without that though, it’s a thrillery-thriller (as opposed to an action-thriller) made at a time when mass audiences were making a move to kids/family-aimed franchises as the main revenue stream for cinemas and Hollywood studios. There’s something in that about the general dumbing down of blockbuster entertainment and the increasing (and ongoing) infantilisation of mainstream American cinema, but The Sum of All Fears isn’t the greatest rebuttal, so it’s a case best left for elsewhere.
As I’ve said on films like this before — and, I suppose, as is indicated by my three-star rating — if you like this kind of film then The Sum of All Fears makes for an adequately entertaining two hours. Otherwise, it’s nothing special.
This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.
Chatroom is born of — or, at least, partly formed around — trying to find a viable way of depicting the world of online chatrooms on film. Putting on film this world it As It Really Is — people sat at a computer typing at each other — might work well enough for a single scene in 
in this environment is also truthful. There have been many reviews that are completely dismissive of this facet of the film, leaving me to wonder if they were written by people who haven’t used or experienced such things. It’s a shame, then, that the film’s degeneration into a thriller hides the arguably-worthwhile potential to explain to such people what that online world can be like for people/kids using it.
Despite a strong-ish start, perhaps the whole second half of the film is a wobbly mess; not directionless exactly, because by then it does know broadly where it’s going, but it doesn’t do much to suggest to the viewer that it has a real goal in mind. Character motivations and relationships feel as if they’ve not been fully thought out, or at least not fully brought together on screen. Some threads take inexplicable jumps; others aren’t adequately explained or justified. Occasionally it’s Nakata’s direction that overdoes things, for instance laying the soppy “this bit is emotional” music on thick when Matthew Beard’s performance could easily carry a particular sequence.
The aforementioned Matthew Beard, perhaps the least recognisable cast member (his 
Consensus holds that the work of once-acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan has managed a near-perfect trajectory of decreasing returns. I’m not talking about box office — I have no idea (or much interest) in how that’s gone for him — but quality, starting with supernatural chiller 
Chunks of it seem to be missing, conveyed through clunky voiceover rather than on-screen action. The first rule of screenwriting — literally, the first — is Show Don’t Tell, but Shyamalan does exactly the opposite.
I wouldn’t call myself a Shyamalan apologist, but I think he has at times suffered harshly at the hands of critics and audiences disappointed that he’s never re-reached the heights of The Sixth Sense (though, personally, I prefer 
Michael Mann is arguably best known for his modern, urban, slick, intricate crime thrillers — films like 
Should we long for a Director’s Cut, then? Maybe that would be an improvement, but I’m not convinced it would be good per se. You see, the film doesn’t just stick to giving us Nazis vs Whatever The Keep Contains, oh no. First the SS turn up, led by a Properly Evil Nazi, played straight by Gabriel Byrne. Escalation, great. Then there’s Ian McKellen as a professor drafted in to make sense of the keep’s mysteries. Also great — even the Good Nazi is going to have to die, right? Who better to root for than a saved-from-a-concentration-camp Jewish professor.
There are plus points, but they all come with a commensurate downside. The creature is well-realised at first, with some nice animated effects that are more effective than much of the over-cooked CGI spectacle we’d get today. The more we see of him, however, the less power he holds — he ends up essentially a very tall man. OK, it’s a bit better than that makes it sound, but the mysterious billowing smoke was spookier. The film on the whole is nicely shot, with some real standout moments of cinematography. But slow-mo and a smoke machine both get overused by the end, lending many of the visuals a tacky ’80s edge.
One thing the film never manages to be is remotely scary. It’s not aiming for cheap jump- or gore-based shocks (although there is a little goriness, it’s quite light; triply so by today’s standards), but it doesn’t manage any significant senses of dread or creepiness. As noted, early on it seems to be heading in the right direction — even the secluded mountain village, nestled in a harsh landscape but with greener-than-green grass and garishly painted houses, and towered over by the foreboding slab of stone that is the titular structure, is an uncanny start — but it never makes good on the promise.
I would love to join their ranks, because there are numerous exciting ideas and moments of quality filmmaking to be found here; but I won’t be, because there’s too much muddled dross packed in around them. The result is that quite-rare thing: a decidedly mediocre film that I’m actually glad I’ve seen. But, unless someone wants to hire me for that remake, never again.
I never thought I’d watch, and certainly not enjoy, the Fast and the Furious series, but a few years ago (after the second film hit cinemas, I think — which would be almost a decade!) 
It’s worth noting it was directed by John Singleton, who started out with the acclaimed social drama 
Ultimately, 2 Fast 2 Furious is like cheap fast food: you know it’s made of trash, high in fat and sugar, liable to rot something in your head — and just really bad for you fullstop… yet it’s an enjoyable guilty pleasure once in a while. If you don’t identify with that feeling then you’re a better man than me, and you’ll probably never like this film.
The story of the OK Corral is one I know by name only; I haven’t even seen the 
That may be down to historical accuracy. There’s a distinct feeling of veracity to proceedings, and as I understand it a concerted effort was made in that regard. The Movies perhaps shouldn’t worry about sticking too closely to fact (if you want an accurate lesson, read a textbook), but when they can manage to be both factually accurate and entertaining, it’s all the better. Cosmatos & co appear to balance this well.
Mainstream US superhero comics underwent something of a revolution — or an evolution, if you prefer — in the ’80s, moving from simplistic good vs evil tales-of-the-week to deeper, thematic- and character-driven stories that in some cases took months or even years to relate in full. It’s a change that’s still felt today (some would contend that they’ve been stuck for decades in a rut these developments ultimately led to). It’s generally considered that there were three works at the forefront of this wave of more adult-orientated comics, all of which still rotationally top Best Graphic Novel Ever polls today: Alan Moore and Dave Gibson’s 
Like Year One before it, the team behind these direct-to-DVD DC animated movies have taken a reverent route to bringing DKR to the screen. It’s in two parts because the original story is too long to faithfully adapt in their limited-length movies (it’ll work out at about two-and-a-half hours all told, which isn’t commercially viable for a direct-to-disc animation), but that also works out OK from a storytelling point of view: this first half ends with a major threat wrapped up and a great cliffhanger to kick off the second half. Those with less appreciation for the economics of film production have slated DC/Warner for splitting the film in two like this, but in some ways it works to its benefit artistically as well as commercially.
Stylistically, the film retains Miller’s designs, albeit a bit smartened up to work consistently as animation. Some will bemoan that homogenising but others may delight in it — Miller’s art is generally a bit on the scruffy side, I think. Is it an appropriate mark of respect that they’ve translated it so literally from page to screen, or would it have been more interesting for the filmmakers to have taken Miller’s plot and situated it in a world drawn from their own designs? I’m not going to argue that they could have improved on Miller’s work, but it might have been interesting to see the story given a spin in a different artistic style.
Voice work — the other major addition of an animated re-telling, of course — ranges from solid to very good. I wasn’t convinced by the casting of former RoboCop Peter Weller as Bruce Wayne/Batman, but he’s pretty darn good, carrying exactly the right kind of aged gruffness. It’s unique, I think, to see an active Batman this old on screen — sure, Nolan forwarded things eight years for Rises, but he’s still played by a relatively young and fit Christian Bale, whereas this Batman is grey, in his mid 50s and looking even older. I don’t recall a significant weak link in the rest of the cast, with 
The documentary that Weinstein reportedly tried to stop existing, including discouraging people from participating in interviews. Either he needn’t have worried or really is a complete megalomaniac, because while there is a certain warts-and-all aspect to Avrich’s cinematic biography, it can’t help but admire all that Weinstein has achieved.
Even for those who were following film culture through this era, and in spite of Harvey’s apparent efforts, there are numerous interviewees who were there — former Miramax employees, for instance — to offer insight. Thanks to archive footage we get even more opinions, including a fair few comments from Harvey himself. How much of this was available at the time, I obviously don’t know. Even if it is mostly recap, it’s a concise and well-constructed one.
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