In that first summer after 9/11, we all wondered, Wither the action movie? Would we be entertained by stuff getting blown up anymore? It turned out, it would depend on the film. From my review of The Sum of All Fears:

The thing that would have garnered Fears high marks prior to September 11 -- and the thing that makes it work so well today -- is that it does not come down to Ryan snipping the red wire with 3 seconds left on the countdown. Dammit, the bomb goes off, and it's like being kicked in the chest. What makes the sequence so effective, so real, so genuine a reminder of last September (and of the bleak confidence of my childhood, so recently renewed, that I'd be killed in a nuclear war), is that we see the effects of the bomb only from the point of view of someone who could have survived the blast.

• review of The Sum of All Fears, posted 06.07.02

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