The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Paramount has released Director Phil Alden Robinson's 2002 Jack Ryan film 'The Sum of All Fears' to the UHD format. This is the only Ryan film to star Ben Affleck in the lead, who is the third actor to portray Ryan in four films. The disc, which is currently exclusive to a five-film Jack Ryan box set, features new 2160p/Dolby Vision video. The UHD disc carries over the 2008 Blu-ray's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack and adds no new supplements.

The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

The Dolby Vision color improvements pay immediate dividends at film's start when an explosion presents with a burst of intense fiery orange against a beautiful blue sky. In the next scene, deep inside a secret command bunker during a drill involving the President responding to a fictional nuclear attack, the image reveals the general color tone presentation on which it will settle, pushing a little bleak but nowhere near as gray as seen in the previous three Jack Ryan films -- The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger -- which makes this a fairly substantial visual shift from those. Still, the Dolby Vision color grading does leave the film darker than the Blu-ray. Flesh tones are more gray here, though not to a substantial degree, perhaps with the exception of the moment following a bomb detonation a little more than an hour into the movie. Colors find more impressive, even saturation in well-lit scenes, such as an early exterior in chapter 13 or some of the football stadium colors appearing prior to the aforementioned detonation. This is another Ryan film that lacks absolute color dazzle, but it's not so almost strictly grayscale as are large swaths of the other three previous films.

Texturally, the image is superior and the sharpest of the first four films. Grain is at its finest in this film when comparing the first four, resulting in a very effortlessly filmic presentation that also reveals the most finely honed details of any of the the first four Ryan films. Complex desert terrain, busy office spaces, a crowded football stadium: no matter the place or time, the image never relents with its presentation of a very satisfying level of firm, fine detailing that is a fairly significant increase over the aging and somewhat smoothed-out Blu-ray. Such improvements are evident across the board, but perhaps nowhere so clearly as on faces, which present individual details across a wide array of characters and facial textures with a command of each one that's not necessarily missing on the Blu-ray but that is here much more fine and satisfying. The image suffers from no immediately obvious source or compression issues. This is a very fine looking UHD from Paramount.

The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Sum of All Fears' UHD disc includes the same Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack from the 2008 Blu-ray. For a full audio review, please click here.

The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The UHD release of The Sum of All Fears contains no new bonus content, but the disc does carry over the two commentary tracks from the Blu-ray. They are buried in the language options rather than found under a "Special Features" tab. The disc's menu offers only options for "Play," "Settings," and "Scenes." The bundled Blu-ray does include the collection of previously released extras, including the aforementioned commentaries. For convenience, below is a list of what's included. For full supplemental content coverage, please click here. An iTunes digital copy code is included with purchase.

• Audio Commentary: Director Phil Alden Robinson and Cinematographer John Lindley.
• Audio Commentary: Director Phil Alden Robinson and Novelist Tom Clancy.
• The Making of The Sum of All Fears
• Creating Reality: The Visual Effects of The Sum of All Fears
• Theatrical Trailer

The Sum of All Fears 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Sum of All Fears is a reset button Ryan movie, not only in terms of recasting the hero (the third actor in four films to portray Clancy's signature creation) but also in depicting him as a relatively green, yet still highly intelligent and insightful, up-and-coming intelligence operative. It's ironic that the character would be rebooted again in the very next film, though with Affleck's somewhat uninspiring capture of the character, it's not much of a surprise. The film is decent in its sum, depicting not only the rise of Ryan but also the world on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, with its two major superpowers angling to prove military superiority and deliver the right response in the moment and for the record. It's certainly a slicker movie than its predecessors but not quite as exciting (The Hunt for Red October), personal (Patriot Games), or dramatically compelling (Clear and Present Danger). Paramount's UHD delivers very strong 4K video with a quality Dolby Vision enhancement. Audio and supplements carry over from the 10-year-old Blu-ray. Recommended.