Bourne Again: The Bourne Ultimatum

Bourne Again, Part 3 - The Bourne Ultimatum

Hello, and welcome to part 3 in my Jason Bourne series, Bourne Again.  Today, I'll be reviewing the third installment in the trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum.

If The Bourne Supremacy was all set-up, Ultimatum is all delivery.  This film, tightly directed again by Paul Greengrass, fires on all cylinders.  It picks up moments after its predecessor, with Jason Bourne once again on the run from Treadstone agents in his search to reclaim his memory.  In this film, we find out that Treadstone has been given an upgrade and is now called Blackbriar.  It's also super secret and the CIA will kill anyone who threatens its existence.

Bourne comes out of hiding when a British journalist threatens to go public over his discovery of Blackbriar.  The resulting sequence of events through Britain's Waterloo train station may be my favorite sequence in all three films.  The delicate game of cat and mouse had me (even after multiple viewings) on the edge of my seat.  What I particularly love about this film is that the cat and mouse game doesn't just stop there, it builds throughout the film as Bourne seeks the truth.

We (spoiler alert!!) the truth about Bourne's past and his involvement in the Treadstone project.  We see how he transformed from David Webb into superior killing machine, Jason Bourne.  Albert Finney shines in his role as the architect of the Treadstone program.

Finney, alone with the other supporting cast, are the highpoint of this film.  Joan Allen returns as the ambiguous CIA agent, Pamela Landy.  She brilliantly toes the line between helping and hunting Bourne.  David Strathairn is excellent as crooked CIA agent (in a long line of Bourne bad guys), hellbent on capturning Bourne.

The final chase throughout New York City, and the rooftop chase scene in Tangier are two series high watermarks.  Both are expertly directed and are tightly edited to elicit a premium adrenaline rush from the audience.

I truly enjoyed revisiting this series, and I'm definitely pumped for next week's 4th installment, Jason Bourne (Although I don't love the title.).  Thanks for taking this trip down the Bourne rabbit hole with me.

Bourne Again: The Bourne Supremacy

Bourne Again Part 2: The Bourne Supremacy

Welcome back to part 2 of my Bourne Again series.  This time, I'm taking you through the second movie in this thrilling trilogy, The Bourne Supremacy.  This film picks up years after the events in The Bourne Identity.  Jason Bourne and his girlfriend, Marie, are living in seclusion in India.  Jason is still struggling to put together his life after his struggles with amnesia.  Bits and pieces are slowly coming back to him, most prominently an assassination in Germany.

This movie, tightly directed by Paul Greengrass, ups the action ante compared to its predecessor.  However, at a slim 1 hour, 48 minutes, it is the shortest film in the Bourne trilogy.  It is the most limited in terms of storytelling, centered around a single memory in Bourne's still-rebooting brain.  After re-watching this movie, it's clear that The Bourne Supremacy is, at its core, a filler movie bridging the first and third installments.  That's not to say its a bad movie, just an incomplete one.  The action sequence are top notch, the editing is fast-paced, and the directing is second-to-none in the spy world.  What I mean by filler is that, while it advance the overall story, there's not enough in this one for it to fall anywhere but third (in my opinion) in the Bourne hierarchy.

There is plenty to like in this film.  Brian Cox gives another devilish performance as a shadowy figure in charge of covering up the Treadstone supersoldier program.  Matt Damon is excellent (as always) as the titular hero, Jason Bourne.  He's a man of few words, but always seems one step ahead of the game.  He also shows an impressive amount of vulnerability after the (spoiler alert!!!) death of his girlfriend early in the film.  While that death is an important moment in terms of plot, I feel that it also slightly limits the film because Bourne no longer has a character to play off of.  I'm also a big fan of the addition of Joan Allen as CIA chief, Pamela Landy.  She gives a great performance, and toes the line between making us believe she's out to get Bourne, while potentially helping him along the way.

The story of this film ultimately comes down to a story of redemption.  Jason Bourne struggles to overcome his first kill and come to the terms of the damage it did to the offspring of his targets.

Ultimately, The Bourne Supremacy feels like a "Part 1" in a two part film.  It sets up the events in The Bourne Ultimatum, while not delivering enough to stand on its own two legs.  In my opinion, it's the weakest of the Bourne trilogy.  I don't want to you to believe that I mean bad when I say weakest.  It's like me saying that Return Of The Jedi is the weakest of the original Star Wars trilogy.  Still a great film, but one of them has to come in third place.

Up next:  The Bourne Ultimatum.

Bourne Again: The Bourne Identity

Bourne Again, Part 1: The Bourne Identity

In preparation for this month's Jason Bourne, I'm making my way through the first three (I don't include the Jeremy Renner stinker, The Bourne Legacy) Bourne movies.  The first film in the series was 2002's The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman and starring Matt Damon as the amnesiac superspy, Jason Bourne.

If you can remember back to 2002, the film spy world was left for dead.  The world's most famous super spy, James Bond was on its last legs after a forgettable stretch of Pierce Brosnan stinkers.  And Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible series was a few years away from getting the J.J. Abrams makeover.  The world needed Jason Bourne, a no nonsense American spy, who lost his memory after a failed assassination attempt.

14 years later, this film still feels as fresh as the day it came out (save for some really outdated cellphone technology).  The character Damon plays is in direct contrast to other cinematic spies.  There are no exploding pens and cheeky one-liners, and no mask reveals or elaborate action set pieces.  The Bourne Identity is a straight forward, balls to the wall piece of cinematic storytelling.  I love that we, as an audience, get to experience the character of Jason Bourne come back to life.  Nothing is explained or spoon fed to us, we experience the movie as Bourne experiences his return to form.  It's almost as if he's a machine that has been given the factory reboot.  His abilities don't come back to him all at once, but only arrive as Bourne pieces his life back together.

Most refreshing about this film was its visual style.  It was cold and stark, again in direct contrast to the big budget 007, and Mission Impossible series.  The camerawork is handhald, and the camera itself is placed in up close and personal places, bring us closer than we have ever been to the action.  The editing is tight and frenetic at he same time.  The story never lags, or feels stale.  And the techno score (while it feels dated today) was a breath of fresh air.  I don't think Doug Liman gets enough credit for bringing this character to life.  He gets overshadowed by the flashier sequels and their director, Paul Greengrass.  However, I think The Bourne Identity is still my favorite in the series.

After watching this again, I am certain that we can thank it for both the Daniel Craig series of Bond films and for Mission Impossible coming back to reality (I really hated Mission Impossible II and all of its slow motion motorcycle chases).  Who knows where these franchises would be if not for Bourne.  Would we ever have gotten Daniel Craig's gritty, realistic take on cinemas longest running super spy?  I don't think so.

Up next:  The Bourne Supremacy

Play It Again, Sam: Interstellar

Greetings from Too Fat Headquarters.  I'm holed up here all weekend recovering from arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in my left knee.  With ample amounts of DVD/couch time (doctor's orders), expect to see a couple blog posts.

Welcome to a new series here on Too Fat 4 Skinny Jeans.  I'm calling this "Play It Again, Sam," where I will revisit movies that I originally disliked (and people love) to see if my initial feelings were misguided.  First up, is the 2014 Christopher Nolan space adventure, Interestellar.  I was not a fan of this film (I think my initial review was a not-so witty Facebook post that said "Interstellar?  More like Inter-No-So-Stellar...")  I remember being extremely excited about this film when it was first announced and intrigued by its initial trailer.  Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of the premier action/adventure movie directors of his generation.  His films (like Tarantino & Fincher) are must-see events to me.  He's managed to exist in the modern Hollywood blockbuster universe, while maintaining an aura of independent film maker credit.  He makes superhero movies with heart and smarts, and his ventures outside the DC universe are some of the best received, both by audiences and critics alike, in modern movies.

Needless to say, my expectations were high for this film.  And after my initial viewing, I felt a little bit let down.  I thought this film was all over the place.  I thought it didn't know what type of film it wanted to be.  It tried to be smart, and action packed, and suspenseful, but (I thought) it didn't succeed.  I think my biggest problem was, that at the end of the day, you had Wooderson (You know what I like about high school girls?  I get older and they stay the same age) from Dazed & Confused spouting Quantum Theory.  It was a big distraction for me (and judging by the snickering of the theater crowd, them too).  I felt that the film fell off a cliff in its third act and never recovered.

Upon second viewing, I can say that I was wrong.  Interstellar is a wonderful (but far from perfect) film.  The science makes more sense when I gave it a chance, and the Wooderson effect is far less of a distraction.  It is a film that requires a second viewing.  When you know what happens at the end, it allows you the opportunity to pay attention to the nuance.  It's a smart film that works for us less-physics inclined mortals.  There's also some genuinely thrilling moments in this film. The first planet they land on, essentially a world made entirely of water, is a delight.  And the planet with a marooned (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Matt Damon, which is (to me) the peak of this film.  The aesthetics of each planet are gorgeous, and Hans Zimmer's score presents a driving yet ominous tone that paces the film appropriately.

This is still a film with faults (for example, how are they still drinking beer years after wheat is able to be grown?)  I still feel like the movie peaks 2/3rds of the way in.  The payoff with Matthew Mconaughey and his daughter seems a tad anti-climactic.  However, I think the beauty of the film outweighs the flaws and it is worth repeated viewings.  Christopher Nolan makes big movies with big ideas, and I'll take a flawed original idea over an endless series of pointless remakes and reboots (unless said reboots are directed by Christopher Nolan) any day.

Final verdict:  Interstellar is definitely worth checking out (multiple times), and it's a better film than I originally gave it credit for.


 Next up:  Jurassic World

Finding Dory breaks the summer sequel curse

Finding Dory Movie Review

by Brian Wezowicz

Hello faithful readers of this would-be movie and exercise blog (Hi Mom!)!  It's been awhile since I've posed something here, and I hope to rectify that.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to dust off the keyboard on a more regular basis with regular updates.  I do hope to get more exercise related content out there, since it has been a REALLY long time since I've done anything related to the original purpose of this blog... working out and getting in to shape.  I will say that having two kids makes it a lot harder to workout than I thought it would.  I also lost my gym membership when we switched the kids' daycare schools.  I also tore my meniscus and have surgery scheduled for next week (I hope to get a little content out of that ordeal), so it's been a tough stretch in Skinny Jeans Land.  With that being said, here goes the first of (I hope) more regular content on this site.

It's no secret that summer 2016 has been brutal for Hollywood sequels, remakes, and reboots.  From Turtles to X-Men, seemingly every sequel trotted out this summer has failed to live up to expectations.  Sure, Captain America: Civil War is a huge hit, but Marvel exists on a different plane than other franchises.  Would be can't miss hits (X-Men: Apocalypse, TMNT 2) are laying superhero sized turds weekend after weekend.  Should Hollywood be worried that its gravy train seems like it's drying up?  Probably.  Will it stop them from releasing an endless string of so-so sequels and reboots?  Sadly, no.  Looking at the trends out there in the weekly Box Office report, it seems like audiences are finally smartening up to the fact that you can't polish a turd and call it gold.  Audiences will get out there if the content is good... reboot, sequel, or original.  They just won't throw down hard earned cash for something that's not worth it.  That brings me to today's review.  A solid hit from my favorite animation studio:  Pixar's Finding Dory.

I have to admit that I was a little hesitant to take a trip back to the coral reef and swim with America's favorite memory challenged fish.  While I enjoyed Finding Nemo, it wasn't my favorite Pixar film.  I am of the opinion that, for the most part, animation works best when it's telling new and original stories.  Sequels are usually destined for the straight to video shelves, and for good reason, they almost always stink!  Even Pixar, Hollywood's gold standard for animation shied away from sequels.  With the exception of the Toy Story franchise, the only Pixar sequel was the forgettable Cars 2.  After viewing this sweet, tender film, I have to say that my fears were unwarranted.  Finding Dory is a highly enjoyable film with a heart of gold that will be the cure for your summer sequel blues.

We start the film a short period of time after the events of the original have passed.  Marlin, Nemo, and Dory are settling into their life as the cutest, most nontraditional family in the ocean.  Soon after, Dory starts getting flashes of her parents, and she's off to find them.  The trio sets off across the ocean on a whirlwind adventure that leads them to San Diego.  They encounter a few bumps in the road and meet some old friends (Crush!) along the way.  Ultimately, they end up split up and this is where the film shines.  Ed O'Neil steals the show playing a surly octopus that reluctantly agrees to help Dory navigate her way through a marine rescue compound, while dealing with his own insecurities.  There are some other great voice cameos in this movie, including Idris Elba as a seal and Sigorney Weaver as herself (trust me, it was great).

This movie is ultimately about family and the power of love and the comfort that can only come from being a part of one.  While it didn't move me the way last year's stellar Inside Out did, Dory had some genuinely moving parts and had me laughing out loud at more than a few points.  I was a little bit bummed that Marlin and Nemo were basically relegated to bit players in this movie, but I understand that it was Dory's time to shine.

I give this movie 3 out of 4 stars.  It's the second best animated movie I've seen this year (behind Zootopia).  If you're looking for a good time out of the house, definitely go see it.

Captain America: Civil War... Hey DC, THIS is how you do a Superhero battle movie!

Captain America: Civil War
Movie Review by Brian Wezowicz

Earlier this "summer"(It looks like summer movie season starts in March now) I sat through the much maligned Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and came away with the opinion that it wasn't as bad as the critics made it out to be. And yet, it wasn't a particularly good movie either.  Sure,the action was top notch and the acting was fine, but it was lacking something. After further thought, the biggest problem with that film, and the entire DC Universe for that matter, is that it lacked heart.  The characters were empty vessels, purely designed to further a forced cinematic universe.  You didn't care for the people on screen because there was nothing to draw you in to their story.  In only the second film in DC's canon, they were already doing superhero mashups.  The only problem is that they forgot to develop any of the back stories.  We were supposed to care about them simply because Batman and Superman were on screen together for the first time.  On the other hand, after witnessing the latest entry in Marvel's cinematic juggernaut, I came away believing that they get everything right.  Every step up to this point has been meticulously planned out, and that is why Marvel will always be a step ahead of their cinematic (and comic book) brothers and sisters.

Captain America: Civil War  is essentially Avengers 2.5.  Nearly every superhero in Marvel's cinematic universe has a role in this film (Thor, The Hulk, and Nick Fury are the only absentee heroes), but all these heroes never overshadow the fact that this is Captain America's movie.  It is a continuation to the Steve Rogers story with a lot of supporting stars.  Civil War picks up two years after the events of Avengers: Age Of Ultron.  The Avengers find themselves in another sticky situation after another deadly mishap in a public area.  World leaders react in the only way they know how... by forcing the Avengers to register with the UN (and thus, fall under a strict set of guidelines and rules.).  They believe that The Winter Soldier is the cause for a bombing at a global summit, which results in the death of King T'Chaka of Wakanda (can I tell you how pumped I am for The Black Panther movie???).  Captain America is sure that his friend is not responsible for this bombing and is determined to seek out the truth.  He is also not willing to surrender his freedom to a group led by Tony Stark.  Tempers rise, trust breaks, and soon our heroes are picking sides.

The Russo brothers (who are also directing the 2 part Avengers finale) really do a great job with balancing all the spandex and masks, giving each superhero a chance to shine.  The mid-movie battle at an airport may be the best (and most humorous) superhero battle ever put to film.  Team Cap, on the trail of the truth, must fight their way through Team Iron Man, and the results had me smiling ear to ear.  I won't ruin anything here, but I will say this... Ant Man steals the show in this scene.  For a D level superhero, Ant Man (and the phenomenal Paul Rudd) is quickly establishing himself as an equal to his much more famous brethren.

This film also introduces two new characters, and they both shine.  The Black Panther (masterfuly played by the brilliant Chadwick Boseman) is particularly compelling in this film.  We know almost nothing about him, and by the end of the movie, you are begging for more (and we'll get it with Panther's solo film!).  We are also re-introduced to our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (finally in the cinematic universe after the very public Andrew Garfield flameout).  I am very excited to see what Marvel can do with this character now that he's finally back in the family.  He steals every scene that he's in.

Civil War is getting very deserved positive reviews.  There will be detractors, for sure, that claim that Marvel is only concentrated on setting up the next film (and there is plenty of that her), but it is not a distraction.  We get a nice self-contained story that adds to the never-ending cinematic universe.  Marvel will always be the cinematic king because it's able to tell an individual story while enhancing the overall cinematic universe without the two being in conflict with each other.

I'm giving this movie 3.5 stars out of 4.  My only complaint (and it's a very small one) is that this movie takes shaky handheld camera work to an almost unbearable level.  I wonder if some of the fights would have been better served with more stable camerawork.

This will certainly be one of the biggest movies of the year and it definitely deserves to be so.  Go see it again and again.

Stay through the credits for the standard scenes.  (Sidenote:  how do people still not realized that there's scenes during the credits?  Half the theater walked out.  We're like 27 movies deep at this point... get with the program, people!)

In defense of a bad movie - Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

Movie Review by Brian Wezowicz

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers initiative."  With those simple words, the Marvel cinematic universe was born.  In the years since Nick Fury first spoke to Tony Stark, the Marvel cinematic universe has spawned the most meticulously planned series of films in cinematic history.  Marvel knew what it wanted and it more than delivered.  In the same summer as Iron Man changed the cinematic landscape forever, DC Comics most popular superhero was in the middle of the most critically acclaimed, and commercially successful film trilogy of all-time (Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy).  At the time, nobody could imagine the billions and billions of dollars to come.  Flash forward to today, and it seems like every film studio is trying to spawn its own universe of films.  From Ghostbusters, to Transformers... trilogies are no longer good enough.  Every franchise is looking for ways to keep the gravy train going with a series of unending interconnected films.  However, it seems like the last company to get in on the action was DC comics.  The Dark Knight trilogy wouldn't wrap up until after the Avengers were already tearing up Manhatan.  DC knew they were already behind the eight ball in terms of a cinematic universe, and so after a relatively underwhelming Superman reboot (Man Of Steel, a film that I've grown to like the more times I watch it), the fast lane to The Justice League (DC's version of The Avengers) was laid.  I understand why they went with the fast track, I just don't agree with their method.  The problem is thus... In an effort to get The Justice League on the silver screen, DC (and Warner Brothers) forgot to develop any interesting characters.  They skipped what made The Avengers work (a series of individual films that laid the ground work for the super hero team up), and went straight to the end game, creating a film that should have been a crowning achievement, but feels like a giant missed opportunity.  Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

Going in to this film, I couldn't help but ask myself, has Zack Snyder become the new Michael Bay? The reviews of this film were brutal for sure, but the brutality of the reviews seemed almost personal.  Critics seemed to get off in their own sense of cleverness, the likes of which I had not seen since the architect of Total Bayhem released his last Transformers film.   I've always liked him.  300 is perhaps the best page to screen comic book adaptation, and I really enjoy his take on the unfilmable Watchmen.  However, I do not celebrate his entire catalog (Sucker Punch is one of my least favorite movies of all-time.).  He does have a tendency to showcase style over substance, but in my opinion, not to the length of Bay.  The bar was pretty low when I went in to the theater.  It couldn't be that bad, could it?  After sitting through nearly 2.5 hours of spandex induced destruction, I feel safe to say that this film is not the scourge on cinema as the reviews made it out to be.  It's not a good film, but it's not necessarily a bad film, either.

Dawn Of Justice picks up during the end sequence of Man Of Steel.  However, we view the destruction from Bruce Wayne's point of view as he rushes to save his employees a Wayne Enterprises.  The valiant effort that Gotham's most famous resident makes it a case of too little, too late.  Wayne Enterprises, and the people inside) are turned to dust in a scene almost too heavy with 9/11 style imagery.  After the opening scene, we flash forward to a later point in time.  Bruce Wayne (and his bat alter ego) are obsessed with stopping Krypton's last son.  The distrust of Superman is not limited to Wayne, either.  Congress is investigating an incident in the desert that paints Superman as a murderer, and public opinion is also split on whether Superman is a benefit or a menace to society.

We are also introduced to Lex Luthor (played with the Asperger's Syndrome turned up to 11 by Jesse Eisenberg), who is looking to weaponize Kryptonite as a way of defending Earth against other invading forces.  He, along with his company LexCorp, do not trust Superman, and believes that Kryptonite is the answer to Earth's inferior weapons systems.  Bruce Wayne senses that Luthor's noble intentions are not what they appear to be, and so he embarks upon a mission to get to the bottom of things.  For about half of the movie, Dawn Of Justice is a compelling tale of cat and mouse.  The only problem is that Snyder doesn't do a great job of setting up who is the cat and who is the mouse.  I could on more with plot, but the plot is almost secondary to getting the two superheroes together to fight.  It seems like when the film gets going on a solid path, it feels the need to change things up and jump around to a different story.

This film struggles with identity.  It doesn't know whether it's a Man Of Steel sequel, or a Batman origin film, or a Justice League prequel.  At 2.5 hours, this film should be long enough to answer that question, but I actually think it should have been longer.  It does not devote enough time to either Superman or Batman's story.  It seems like good parts of this film were left on the cutting room floor that should have been in the movie.  It jumps all over the place, and gets to the final fight without fully explaining the motivation of its two main characters.  They start using each others secret identity names without explaining how they figured them out.  It acts like it's the 5th or 6th movie in a cinematic universe, when in reality, it's just just the 2nd.  I would have liked to have seen a Batman solo film and a Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman appears out of nowhere) before jumping to the big show down.  Then DC (and director Zack Snyder) could have made a compelling film out of what should have been a no brainer cinematic triumph.  

That's not to say that Justice is a film without merit.  Affleck does a compelling job at showing an older, more vulnerable Batman.  Gal Gadot uses her limited screen time to do enough to make me want to see next year's Wonder Woman adaptation.  I enjoyed Eisenberg's over the top portrayal of Lex Luthor.  And Snyder does a solid job of showcasing his signature big time action sequences.  It has a lot of good parts that didn't add up to a great whole.  It is, at great lengths during the film, almost joyless (I counted two jokes in the entire movie).  It skips around at will and gets to conclusions without using logic.  I'm not mad that I saw the film, but I'm not in love with it, either.

I give Dawn Of Justice 2 stars out of 4.  It's worth a view and shouldn't be written off to the extent critics want it to be.  It could have been great, but just didn't live up to the hype.  My suggestion is to have some more fun.  Just because Christopher Nolan was successful without having any fun, doesn't mean every film has to be that way.  I also think it's time to move away from Zack Snyder.  He's had two successful films in spite of the critics, but how long can that last?