THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

5/10

Phil Alden Robinson : USA 2002 : 118 mins

Ben Affleck steps into shoes previously occupied by Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford as Tom Clancy's CIA brainy-brawny action-hero Jack Ryan. Ryan's expertise in Russian politics proves crucial when neo-Nazis led by a shadowy billionaire (Alan Bates) detonate a crude atomic bomb in downtown Baltimore, sparking off a nervy showdown between a hawkish US president (James Cromwell) and his little-known Kremlin counterpart (Ciaran Hinds). While Affleck isn't especially convincing as Ryan, his limitations are counterbalanced by a heavyweight supporting cast, with Morgan Freeman providing especially welcome ballast as a veteran CIA high-up. But, despite some genuinely tense sequences along the way, this is basically a predictable, by-the-numbers rehash of very old-fashioned cold-war thriller material.

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THE BOURNE IDENTITY

5/10

Doug Liman : USA 2002 : 118 mins

An injured man (Matt Damon) is hauled out of the Mediterranean by fishermen. Suffering from amnesia, he gradually deduces that he is Jason Bourne, a highly-trained CIA agent. After persuading German passerby Marie (Franka Potente) to give him a lift from Zurich to Paris, he realises that he's being hunted down by his own bosses (Chris Cooper, Brian Cox) - and must use all his skills and talents to stay alive and piece together the fragments of his life. The director of Swingers and Go brings some indie-flavoured rough edges to Robert Ludlum's 1979 best-seller, but can't overcome the plot's essential implausibilities - the film never quite manages to establish its own tone, and ends up feeling distractingly derivative of countless previous similar genre entries. But it all somehow seems worthwhile whenever arthouse favourite Potente is on screen - she makes Marie seem much more worthy of centre stage than Damon's ass-kicking but terminally dull 'hero' Bourne.