Perhaps this seems a bit out of left field but I just happen to be watching the The Hunt for Red October tonight. I am a huge Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan fan, having read every Clancy book that primarily features Ryan. I can't tell you how many people I've gotten into an argument with this about, but I continue to believe that Alec Baldwin is a MUCH better Jack Ryan then Harrison Ford. Let's start with the fact that Baldwin matches the physical descriptions of Jack, but not only that, he just seemed to offer a better sense of who Jack is--brilliant, great sense of humor, confident, self-deprecating. Not only was Ford too old for the role, but he never quite captured the personality of Jack, never quite understood that Jack was an academic thrown into these action situations--he was always too emotional to me - overplaying the "everyman" angle at every turn (e.g., "How dare you, sir"). I've discussed this theory many times and I've never met anyone who agreed with me on this point. But I'm definitely right about this.
In fact, while I didn't think much of the movie (though the book was great), I thought Ben Affleck (who gets a lot of unwarranted crap, but I generally like) was a decent choice to play a young Jack in the Sum of All Fears--perhaps it's the fact that he looked a lot like Alec Baldwin, but also because he played Jack much more like the analyst he is at his core.
On the movie front, I was out late Friday night seeing The Dark Night and it was ...wait for it...AWESOME. I highly recommend.
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