Although the title has a science-fiction ring, we're firmly in Tom Clancy country with this espionage thriller, a shortened and more compact version of an American TV mini-series. Clancy's Jack Ryan, as variously played by Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, has become a popular hero of film action blockbusters. But here impassiveness has turned to immobility in the form of Harry Hamlin as Paul Hood, called in to head up and downscale the National Crisis Management Centre, but soon plunged into international crisis by the seizure of three nuclear warheads in Ukraine, which seem to be in imminent danger of being sold to Middle East terrorists. Lewis Teague directs the plot's action well, but there isn't enough of it and what suspense is built up both in Hood's military and personal operations all but peters out by the end. Good supporting work by Kim Cattrall, Carl Weathers, Bo Hopkins, and especially by Wilford Brimley and Rod Steiger in wise and weighty cameos.


©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes