Twilight falls on Twilight

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2
My rating:




I said in my review of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 1 that I would defend the entire film series as being not as bad as everyone thinks they are. And believe me, I have heard some very bad things about them. Well, TMBF always (has a tendency to, on occasion, be known to) keeps his promises, so here it is: seriously, they're not all that bad. They're not all that good either, but they're a lot better than the books. Now, granted, I have not actually read Stephenie Meyer's books, but I read plenty of online commentary on them - which also means I had the entire storyline spoiled for me - long before I started watching the movies. And on my objectivity as an amateur film critic, I will attest that the Twilight movies - the movies, not the books - have been muchly unfairly maligned.

And it's certainly easier to attest as such when the last movie happens to be as not bad as it is.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has become what she has always wanted to be - a vampire. She is also mother to the newborn Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), her child with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and a vampire/human hybrid who matures at an accelerated rate. And Renesmee has a guardian in Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who has "imprinted" on the child and is bound to her for life. Even as Bella adjusts to her new existence - learning the ropes of being a vampire, raising her daughter, easing the worries of her long-suffering father Charlie (Billy Burke) - trouble brews. The Volturi, led by Aro (Michael Sheen), believe that Renesmee's existence is a violation of vampire law, and are coming to Forks to exact deadly retribution. The Cullens seek help from other vampire covens from around the world, but even though their band is joined by the Quileute werewolves, the Volturi will not be deterred - threatening a bloody battle that many may not survive.

The sole and only reason I am giving this movie a 3-½-star rating is that climactic battle scene. Wouldn't you know, turns out Twilight is at its best when it gives us proper action scenes that acknowledge the awesomeness of vampires vs. werewolves vs. vampires. (I say "acknowledge", because the rest of the time, they sparkle.) That is one big, long and epic battle scene, bigger and longer and epic-er than the last time the Cullens and the Quileutes joined forces against Victoria's army of newborns. That is also a battle scene that does not happen in the original book - and the fact that the plot built up to it only to chicken out at the last minute is one of the biggest complaints against the book. Director Bill Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg find a way to show us the battle and yet stay true to Meyer's ending. Some may think it a cheat, but I thought it was pretty clever and cool.

Which is exactly what Condon and Rosenberg should have done in adapting the book; and which is exactly what Rosenberg has been doing for five movies now. And these five movies, while never really very good, have been leaps and bounds better than their source material. There's none of Meyer's widely reviled prose; Bella Swan is much more tolerable, even sympathetic, when she's played by a human actor than when she's a first-person narrative stream of incessant self-pity and self-absorption. Kristen Stewart is even quite good in this, displaying more life and energy in her performance than ever before; perhaps Bella is right about the fact that she was born to be a vampire. As a matter of fact, I've never had any problems with Stewart's acting in these movies, and I think there's something sexist and ugly in all the hate she's been getting. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner sure don't get as much vitriol (and I personally think Lautner is the weakest actor among the three).

And I am certain that Rosenberg and every director on the franchise is fully aware of all the WTFery in Meyer's storyline, and has been doing their best to mitigate it. As much as Meyer's Bella is a spineless, feckless wet rag of a heroine, movie-Bella actually has moments of strength and courage. In Breaking Dawn part 1, Bella insists on keeping the baby that is slowly and gruesomely killing her - and Americans in particular went nuts arguing this is a metaphor for the pro-life side of the abortion debate, because America goes insane over the abortion issue like few other countries do. But Stewart and Rosenberg made it the choice of a young girl that is understandable and consistent with her character, even emphasising her strength of will in holding to that choice despite overwhelming objection from Edward and the Cullens. And then there's the part when Jacob imprinted on the newborn Renesmee - an astonishingly tone-deaf plot development that is unavoidably paedophiliac. But Condon stages the scene as a moment of divine grace, in which Jacob falls to his knees, humbled by the higher power that has transformed his murderous hate into love.

Okay, there's only so much a good screenwriter and director can mitigate that, since they're still hobbled by the need to stay faithful to the books. (If they weren't, I'm sure they'd cut out the whole grown-man-falls-in-love-with-a-baby-and-waits-till-she-conveniently-grows-to-adulthood-super-fast-to-marry-her thing.) In fact, their efforts to make palatable this, the single most insanely stupid thing Meyer has ever written, don't entirely succeed this time. Bella rages at Jacob once she learns of the imprinting, but the scene is played for laughs - and includes the line "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?!" that I don't know whether to laugh at or not. It's also very cagy about showing the relationship between Jacob and Renesmee - which, on one hand, is a relief - but on the other, it also means this hybrid human-vampire child, on which the entire plot revolves, is never more than a blank. She has no personality whatsoever; we're only told that everyone loves her, but we're never given any reason why we should.

It doesn't help that when she's a baby, she's this hideous inhuman CGI creation that is the movie's single biggest misstep. Was it too hard to find a real baby?? Whose idea was it to overlay an unnaturally wide-eyed, creepily smiling, computer-generated thing onto a goddamn baby?? Yes, there are things about this movie that that climactic fight scene can't make up for. The small army of sympathetic vampires that join the Cullens include several characters that look interesting, but don't get nearly enough screentime. (Maybe if Rosenberg had cut out that useless fan-pandering scene of Bella and Edward exploring their oh-so-pretty new house...) For all that Stewart tries to play Bella as a stronger-willed person this time round, she still isn't; when Edward credits her for bringing their small army together, it rings hollow. And truth be told, as cool as that fight scene is - made even cooler with the deaths of many long-time characters, and some of those deaths are pretty damn satisfying - there's a distinct sense that it was filmed by a director with little experience making action films.

Still, I pronounce Breaking Dawn part 2 an actually not-bad movie, and I feel no shame in doing so. I still feel the best of the series is Eclipse (no uncanny-valley-plunging CGI baby there, for one thing), but this one's a close second. And I feel no shame in saying the whole series is far from the trainwreck the books are. The first two are definitely the weakest, but the rest does offer some satisfaction for fans of supernatural thrillers, especially of the vampires 'n werewolves variety. (Maybe if you liked the Underworld franchise, but you wanted more Selene/Michael and Sonja/Lucian romance.) In any case, the saga is over; it ends with a credit sequence showing every actor who played every character throughout all five movies, which is pretty cool and a nice ode to fans. I'm not one, and you may never be one either - but give it a try, and you may just find yourself not hating them any more.

NEXT REVIEW: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Expectations: can't miss a movie like this when it makes it to our screens

"Best 3D Animated Feature Film" my ass

War of the Worlds: Goliath
My rating:




As soon as I got home from this movie, I Googled the Los Angeles 3D Film Festival straight away. Y'see, these are the guys who named this movie their Best Animated 3D Feature Film, beating out nominees that included major Hollywood releases such as ParaNorman and Madagascar 3. From what I can tell from their website, their raison d'etre is, indeed, the 3D film medium, the promotion of such, and the defense against any intimation that it's just a fad whose time will pass. So I'm guessing here that their idea of "best", when it comes to giving out their awards (and I have not been able to find out who their judges were - if they had any), refers to the purely technical quality of their 3D effects. And since I didn't watch this movie in 3D, I guess I missed out on its international-award-winning qualities.

Because by every other standard of filmmaking, War of the Worlds: Goliath suuuucks.

In 1899, the Martians attacked Earth - but were defeated by infections from the bacteria in our air. Fifteen years later, our technology has improved by leaps and bounds due to reverse-engineering the Martian war machines. As a child, Eric Wells (Peter Wingfield) witnessed the death of his parents during the first invasion; now he is a Captain in the A.R.E.S. (Allied Resistance Earth Squadrons) multinational force formed to combat the extraterrestrial threat, led by Secretary of War Theodore Roosevelt (Jim Byrnes) and General Kushnirov (Rob Middleton). He and his crew - comprising Jennifer Carter (Elizabeth Gracen), Patrick O'Brien (Adrian Paul), Shah (Tony Eusoff) and Abraham Douglas (Beau Billingsley) - receive command of the Goliath, their latest and most advanced battle tripod. But it comes not a moment too soon - because the Martians have returned, this time stronger than ever.

Yes, this is indeed a made-in-Malaysia film, because it's production company Tripod Films is a homegrown outfit. This despite the fact that its director (Joe Pearson), screenwriter (David Abramowitz), executive producer (Kevin Eastman) and majority of the voice cast (a bunch of former cast members of that '90s Highlander TV show) are all, um, "import players". Not that hiring import players is a bad thing, had it actually produced a good movie. But Joe Pearson is an animation director of much experience but little distinction; David Abramowitz is known only for the aforementioned Highlander TV series, several episodes of MacGyver and V from the '80s, and a direct-to-video Highlander anime spinoff movie; and Kevin Eastman is a co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it appears his name is attached to this solely because he holds the film rights for the Heavy Metal comic magazine, and this movie is based on one of the comic storylines. Not that I want to get nasty on these gentlemen, or imply that they are incapable of producing good work. But the fact is, they did terrible work here.

I had misgivings the moment I laid eyes on that poster. Look at those character designs. Do they look any better than a cheapo '90s Saturday morning cartoon? Oh, I thought, maybe they'll look better in motion, maybe the animation could be good. But it isn't. And it isn't even just the technical quality that's lacking; everything about the animation is lame and uninspired. From the way the characters move, to the palette of about 4 or 5 emotions each character's face is limited to, to the boring and unimaginative - and interminable - action scenes, to the fact that every male character has broader shoulders than a WWE wrestler. This is TV-quality animation; worse, it's TV-quality animation from at least 15 years ago. Charging cinema ticket prices (and 3D cinema ticket prices at that) for this is criminal.

Okay, there are the 3D-animated mechs, airships, WW1-era triplanes and Martian walkers - and the animation on these is jerky and cheap too. Which I could forgive if their designs were more imaginative, or even more true to the steampunk aesthetic that the movie is being advertised on. Considering the time period - and considering the fact that none of these vehicles appear to be running on steam - it's closer to dieselpunk, and this distinction is actually important to the fans you're advertising your movie to. Worst of all, the designs are dull. Every mech is a similar-looking, three-legged, boxy mass of guns that doesn't even look like a credible piece of early-20th-century technology.

And the storyline, the dialogue... good God, is Abramowitz really an experienced and produced Hollywood screenwriter? Was Highlander ever this bad? (I only watched a few episodes; I know the show has its fans, but I was never one.) Or did he just half-ass this screenplay? I think he half-assed this screenplay. The plot is slapdash, the characterisation is nonexistent, and the dialogue sounds like an extremely rushed first draft that Abramowitz never bothered to turn into a second draft. Even the character names are dull; they might as well have names like Girly McFemale and Paddy O'Stereotype. Like the animation quality, it's all lame and uninspired. The voice actors certainly can't do a damn thing with the dialogue - not even geek-cred luminaries like Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck) and Mark Sheppard (Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural), both wasted in extremely minor roles. Adrian Paul sounds positively bored out of his skull reading his lines. 

Oh, there's a Malaysian character in here. Shah is actually Raja Iskandar Shah, a Malay prince exiled from his royal court for joining A.R.E.S., and he's played by our very own Tony Eusoff. And at one point, he kills a Martian with a keris. Yay, Malaysia Boleh! (He also delivers one laughable line of Malay dialogue that I bet my right pinky will get cut out of international releases.) So with this ridiculous attempt at pandering to the homebase, are we supposed to be proud of this movie? No. There is nothing to be proud of - not even your meaningless award from an inconsequential film festival. Sorry guys; your movie sucks. It will satisfy no one other than 7-year-old children of harried parents rummaging through discount DVD bins looking for something to keep the little brats quiet for 82 minutes. 

NEXT REVIEW: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2
Expectations: well, it's finally over 

Let James Bond fall where he may

Skyfall
My rating:




You know what I was planning to do? Do a Retro Review series on the entire James Bond 007 series to date. That would be 23 movies in total (and yes, I'd include the "unofficial" Never Say Never Again), an arduous task even before my current reduced reviewing schedule. (Let us not speak of my lengthy hiatus, shall we?) My initial plan was to write them and time the last one to just before the release of Skyfall, in conjunction with Bond's 50th anniversary - which, well, too late for that now - but I may still do it. Because I'm a Bond fan, man; I have 'em all on DVD, I've seen 'em all, and man, there ain't much to compare to the joy of seeing how the world's longest-running film franchise has evolved over half a century. But first, Skyfall - the latest instalment in the world's longest-running film franchise, much delayed after its parent studio MGM ran into financial troubles. And hailed by early reviews as the best one yet.

Well, no, it isn't. But I can see why they're calling it that. And it is very good - perhaps even very very good.

James Bond (Daniel Craig), aided by fellow MI6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris), is in pursuit of a terrorist (Ola Rapace) who has stolen a list of names of undercover NATO agents around the world - and fails. Wounded and left for dead, he returns to active duty to help his superior M (Dame Judi Dench) fight the shadowy figure who has declared war on MI6 - although M has troubles of her own, pressured to resign by government official Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) due to her current failures. With a little help from the new Q (Ben Whishaw), Bond gets on the case and meets the seductive Sévérine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe), mistress of the very man he's seeking - Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), whose vendetta against MI6 is intensely personal, and whose machinations are skillful, intricate, and nigh unbeatable.

The thing about being the world's longest-running film franchise is that it has evolved in many, many ways over its run - ways that may be surprising to someone who hasn't seen them all. There are Bond films in which Bond does not use any gadgets; there are films in which Bond sleeps with only one woman throughout the film; there are films in which Bond does not drive an expensive sports car with tricked-out weaponry. But the greatest variation has been in tone. Some Bond films are largely serious spy thrillers, even though most are the over-the-top, wildly fantastical action movies with larger-than-life villains plotting world-conquering schemes that the franchise is known for. The biggest tonal shift has been in 2006's Casino Royale, which rebooted the series with a new actor in Daniel Craig, an origin story, and an emphasis on gritty reality as well as a much more human and fallible James Bond. Skyfall, however, is a conscious effort to bring back the classic elements of Bond - as well as pulling back slightly from the grittiness and seriousness.

It still walks a fine line between the two tonalities though. The plot is by no means fluff; Bond engages in meaningless sex and self-loathing alcoholism during his time presumed dead, which we certainly didn't see in You Only Live Twice when the Sean Connery Bond similarly faked his death. And the physical toll his wounds take on him suggest that he's gotten too old, and that the entire era of the two-fisted Double-0 agent has been eclipsed by the new age of cyber-security and techno-terrorism. (Seems a little early to get into that though; this is only Craig's third outing as Bond.) But the storyline's real meat deals with M and what she did to earn the enmity of the villain Silva. It elevates M to a full-fledged supporting character for the first time, and gives us an uncharacteristically small-scale climax at a remote Scottish manor in which Bond's goal is merely to protect her, rather than an explosive action scene at the villain's headquarters of world domination. Nor does this subplot overshadow our hero; M's history with Silva raises questions regarding Bond's own contentious relationship with his superior - and the Scottish manor illuminates a part of Bond we've never seen before in 50 years of films.

But then there are those returning classic elements. Some are given a welcome new spin; the new, younger and nerdier Q is terrific, who gets to be Bond's partner in scenes beyond just the requisite gadget-supplying one, and that also showcase Ben Whishaw's enjoyable chemistry with Craig. However, there's a scene involving komodo dragons - yes, komodo dragons - that feels more suited to a Roger Moore-era film than part of the current gritty reinvented Bond. (In fact, it's a deliberate reference to a bit in Live and Let Die.) And then there's the return of the Aston Martin DB5. Which I initially thought was a callback to the DB5 that Bond won in a poker game in Casino Royale - only, it isn't that DB5. It's Goldfinger's DB5, with the ejector seat and hidden machine guns. I may be alone amongst long-time Bond fans in being less than thrilled by its appearance, because where the hell did that thing come from? It plays merry havoc with the notion that the series from Casino Royale onwards is a brand new, internally consistent continuity. Is this the same DB5 that was used against Auric Goldfinger in 1964? Was that the same James Bond as this one??

(Yes yes, I know there's a fan theory that states "James Bond" is a codename given to several other MI6 agents over the decades. I'll have no truck with that theory. I can't imagine any of the other James Bonds have names other than James Bloody Bond. But one thing I did like about Skyfall is how it both nods to and disproves it. Good.)

Sam Mendes - he of arthouse fare such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road - seemed an odd choice to direct a Bond movie at first, but he does a fantastic job here. Aided by cinematographer Roger Deakins, this may be the most gorgeously-filmed Bond film ever; a fight scene in a Shanghai high-rise tower shot entirely in silhouette, and the climactic sequence set on a Scottish moor at night lit only by a burning building, are two of the most drop-dead beautiful scenes in a film full of them. Mendes himself succeeds at putting a personal stamp on this franchise entry, with deliberately slow and methodical shots and editing - all the better to show off Deakins' cinematography, probably. Mendes has also acknowledged the influence of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy on this film, and it's noticeable - most evidently in one mid-point plot twist, a villain who's simultaneously eccentric, terrifying and mesmerising, and who's always two steps ahead of the good guys. If you're a Nolan hater, you might find this annoying. I'm not and I don't.

If it weren't for the komodo dragon scene and the DB5 - and really, I'd've been fine with a DB5 that didn't sport the ejector seat and machine guns - Skyfall would be a 4-½-starrer. See, I'm a little concerned. I like Classic Bond, and I even like Cheesy, Campy, Fantastical Bond when it's done right. (The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best, and certainly Moore's best.) But I really, really like Gritty Reinvented Bond. If there's one thing I learned from having watched all 24 Bond movies, it's that the cheesy, silly, gratuitously male-fantasy-pandering elements are never far behind the wings. I thought they'd put that all behind with Casino Royale. I thought Gritty Reinvented Bond is here to stay. But now it looks like they're back to Classic Bond, which takes it a step closer to Cheesy Bond. Can you imagine Craig in something as over-the-top goofy as Die Another Day? It'd be an embarrassment on the level of, well, Die Another Day. As I said, Skyfall is very good, perhaps very very good; I'm just worried what it heralds for where James Bond 007 will go next. But, if the overwhelming acclaim for this instalment is any indication, I may be the only one. After all, I'm the one who liked Quantum of Solace and don't understand why no one else did.

NEXT REVIEW: Istanbul Aku Datang
Expectations: oh, Bernard Chauly ye? Okay jugak

Get thrown for a loop

Looper
My rating:

I loved Brick, Rian Johnson's 2005 directorial debut and his first collaboration with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Hard-boiled noir in a high school setting is such an incongruous combination, but good gravy Johnson made it work and gave us one of the most clever and original films of that decade. I confess to having missed The Brothers Bloom, his second film; reviews I read gave me the impression that it was a well-done if unoriginal caper flick, and while I like those just fine, they're not something I go out of my way to catch. Science fiction, on the other hand, is just the kind of thing I'm very eager to watch, and I was very pumped for Johnson's foray into time-travel sci-fi. And for another thing, Gordon-Levitt is in it, and it seems like that guy just can't make a bad movie.

And this time - with Johnson - he's made one of the best time-travel movies of all time.

In 2044, there is a new breed of criminal known as "loopers". Their job is to murder people sent back from the future of 2074, when time travel has been invented and is only used by major crime syndicates. Eventually, one of the people they kill will be themself from the future, indicating that they've "closed their loop" and have the next 30 years to enjoy their riches. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, and he sees first hand what his boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) and Abe's hired thug Kid Blue (Noah Segan) will do to a looper who fails to kill his future self - namely, Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano). Thus, when Joe's own future self (Bruce Willis) appears and escapes, Young Joe desperately tries to hunt Old Joe down and kill him. But Old Joe has his own reasons for coming to the past, which involve an isolated farm inhabited by a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her preternaturally intelligent young son Cid (Pierce Gagnon).

What impressed me most about Brick was how self-assured it was. For a film by a first-time writer-director and featuring a premise that sounds ridiculous on paper, it displayed a remarkable confidence in itself and that its central conceit would work. (And work it did.) That confidence and self-assurance is on display in Looper as well; take, for instance, the part when Old Joe first appears in 2044 and escapes his younger self's grasp. The very next scene is Young Joe killing his future self in an apparent repeat of what we've just seen, only with a different outcome. This initial "Huh?" moment is followed by a montage of how Joe spends the next 30 years of his "retirement" in Shanghai, and how he eventually meets his wife (Qing Xu). And in the middle of this montage, Gordon-Levitt becomes Bruce Willis, simultaneously establishing that Old Joe and Young Joe are the same person as well as marking the distinction between them. The entire sequence is a flashback from Old Joe's point of view - and the way we switch between both Joes' POVs is yet another narrative trick that Johnson employs with aplomb.

Because this is essentially an action thriller in which the hero and villain are the same person - and a none-too-heroic person at that. For much of the movie, it isn't clear whether it's Old Joe or Young Joe whom we should root for; both of them are at times pretty unlikable, and at one point one of them crosses a major moral horizon in a shocking manner. Imagine how a lesser writer or filmmaker would've handled such a premise; in fact, don't imagine, it's been done. It's arguably as much a character study as it is a sci-fi action thriller, delving deep into the psychology of Old and Young Joe - again, the same person. Such a focus on character is rare for this genre, and the time travel premise gives it an innovative new spin; Old Joe dealing with the fallout of his younger self's actions, Young Joe trying to avoid his older self's fate. Themes of destiny, free will and morality intertwine, and ultimately resolve in a marvelously satisfying climax. Seriously, I was open-mouthed in shock at the ending - shock that quickly turned into awe at how great an ending it was.

Oh, did I mention there's telekinesis in this movie? Why no, I didn't in the synopsis above, so I shall discuss it here. Yes, this is a future in which 10% of the population are born with telekinetic abilities, albeit limited to simple parlour tricks - hence it is treated as another mundane part of life in dystopian 2044. (And yes, it is dystopian, as Johnson wisely shows but never outright tells; there are roving gangs of murderous vagrants in almost every street, while criminals like Joe and his fellow loopers flaunt their wealth above it all. Which adds economic inequality to its themes.) Some have criticised it as an unnecessary and tacked-on element, but they're wrong; throwing telekinesis into a time-travel action thriller is yet another daring decision by Johnson that he pulls off with that same self-assurance. It turns out Cid is a telekinetic, which adds an even greater sense of unpredictable danger to the tense climactic confrontation set entirely on Sara's and Cid's farm. Without telekinesis in the mix, that entire sequence would be much less thrilling and suspenseful.

It's almost a cliché by now to praise Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting. He wears prosthetic makeup meant to make him look like a young Bruce Willis, and it's a credit to both his talent and the makeup artist that the prosthetics do not drown his performance. It's also been reported that he deliberately mimicked Willis' mannerisms, which I did not notice, but which I certainly will when I get this film on DVD - particularly in the diner scene between Young Joe and his older self. Willis' current career alternates between paycheck roles and parts in which he gets to display his real acting chops, and this is one of the latter. But frankly, I thought they were both overshadowed by two of their co-stars. Emily Blunt is fantastic here, playing the tough yet vulnerable, frightened yet warm single mother Sara, one of the most sympathetic heroines of the year. (She's also one of very few sexually aggressive heroines - yet another example of Johnson breaking convention because he knows he can do it well.) And Pierce Gagnon is revelatory. I couldn't believe he's 10 years old; his delivery of his precociously eloquent dialogue makes Cid sound half his age, and his incredibly controlled performance gives the character layers beyond the Creepy Child trope and bespeaks a talent beyond his years.

And there's also Jeff Daniels' laidback mob boss Abe, and his pathetically ineffectual lackey Kid Blue - both of whom tease possibilities that, this being about time travel and all, they might turn out to be more important than they seem. (Abe is in fact from the future, and he gets the movie's funniest line when he tells Joe which country to spend his retirement in.) And there's the virtuouso scene that shows us, in stunningly gruesome-yet-bloodless detail, what happens to a looper who fails to close his loop. Yes, this one gets a  4-½-star rating all right, only the third one I'm giving out this year. It damn well is one of the best time-travel movies ever. It's clever, inventive, humanistic and thought-provoking, yet never forgets that it's also an action thriller. And all pulled off with equal amounts skill and surety by Johnson. Rian Johnson, man. Look out for this guy. If Looper's success - modest, but nothing to be ashamed of - vaults him out of the indie realm and into big-budget studio projects, the future looks like something worth looking forward to.

NEXT REVIEW: Skyfall
Expectations: sky high!

This one is the law

Dredd
My rating:

Confession time: I actually enjoyed the 1995 Sylvester Stallone-starring Judge Dredd at the time. Stallone was a pretty good choice to play Dredd, Diane Lane was at the peak of her hawtness, and even Rob Schneider was still somewhat fresh and funny. Only the direction and the action scenes were somewhat lacklustre, but overall it was a fun time at the movies (for an excitable teenage TMBF who wasn't too discerning about what he paid to watch). And not being a huge fan of the comics, it didn't bother me that Dredd took off his helmet. But 17 years later, it's a franchise ripe for a reboot, one that's more faithful to the source material. And with Alex Garland - frequent collaborator with Danny Boyle - on writing and producing duties and a British production company and crew (the 2000 AD comic where Judge Dredd was introduced is based in the U.K.), it looked like the franchise is in good hands.

It's certainly entirely different from the first film, and it comes with strengths as well as weaknesses.

In the future, America is an irradiated wasteland, and the survivors live in Mega-City One - a vast dystopian metropolis that houses 800 million inhabitants. Law and order is upheld by the Judges of the Hall of Justice, who are authorised to act as judge, jury and executioner, and the most feared among them is Judge Dredd (Karl Urban). Dredd is partnered with and tasked with evaluating rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), who is inexperienced but possesses unique psychic powers; their first assignment is to investigate a murder case at the Peach Trees tower block. The 200-story slum tower is controlled by the psychotic gang leader Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), who also controls the production and distribution of a new drug called Slo-Mo. When Dredd and Anderson arrest Kay (Wood Harris), one of Ma-Ma's lieutenants, she orders the entire block sealed in order to trap the two Judges inside - and for her men to hunt them down and kill them.

The main thing this adaptation gets right is the tone. This is grim, moody, stylish and ultraviolent action, just as the comic was. Ma-Ma's drug is called Slo-Mo because it makes the brain feel as if time is moving at a crawl, which is an excuse for director Pete Travis to employ extreme slow-motion in shots that look pretty awesome - especially when it is also used during hard-R-rated action scenes. I'm not one for cinematic gore, but Dredd actually makes a bullet ripping through a guy's jaw - in Slo-Mo - look beautiful, and that is some feat. There's some gorgeous visuals here, married to a unique approach to action scenes that's reminiscent of John Carpenter's Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13; a slow and deliberate doling out of violence rather than the usual frenzied, rapid-fire pyrotechnics. It's almost not even an action movie, closer to a thriller.

Which had the unfortunate effect of leaving me somewhat cold. I can respect the creative decision to be different, but I rarely found this movie to be thrilling or suspenseful. Maybe because I'd just watched The Raid: Redemption (a severely marred version that is totally not worth watching, that is), which has a near-identical premise of cops trapped in an apartment building full of murderous criminals, but the film never really gripped me the way a good action thriller should. I feel like in its commitment to avoid all the usual action film clichés, it also left out a lot of the genre's tropes that make it fun; intricate and creative action sequences, cheesy witty one-liners, even opportunities for the titular character to display some awesome badassery. And Judge Dredd is a character who absolutely needs to be awesomely badass. It relies too much on Karl Urban's performance to deliver the awesome and the badass.

But Urban delivers. He is clearly aware that he is playing an iconic character and does a deliberately mannered performance, in his body language and the lower half of his face not obscured by Dredd's trademark helmet. As befits the comicbook character, Dredd seems like he's always in complete control of the situation, yet it does not undercut the sense of danger inherent in the plot. And Ma-Ma makes for a pretty dangerous situation; a none-too-physically-imposing woman like her is a unique villain, and Lena Headey gives her an unhinged viciousness that makes her effectively threatening. But personally, I thought Olivia Thirlby's Judge Anderson stole the show. Her psychic powers were cool, and though Thirlby looks tiny and vulnerable next to Ma-Ma's psychotic goons, she keeps her nerves under control and her wits about her enough to kick plenty of ass.

So a great cast, some terrific visuals, a unique (albeit a little too low-key) tone and a much greater respect for the source material; all these are enough to make Dredd a better movie than 1995's Judge Dredd. Unfortunately, it falls short in one respect, and that's in the realization of the dystopian future of Mega-City One. This is a low-budget British/South African co-production, and it shows - in the cars on the highways during the opening car chase scene (especially the van that Dredd chases, that looks like a 1979 Mitsubishi Delica), in the design of the Judges' Lawmaster motorbike, and in how Mega-City One looks just like the modern-day slums of Johannesburg where it was filmed. Judge Dredd had flying cars and stuff, and even the comics played up the bizarre futurism of its setting. Its lack of a big budget is probably why they chose the premise of being trapped in a single building, but during the scenes outside of it, it shows.

But I can respect Travis wanting to give it a more real, gritty look. I can respect them doing away with the giant eagle epaulettes on the Judges' uniforms in favour of a more utilitarian body-armour look. I can respect them designing a Lawmaster that is actually road-worthy, instead of Judge Dredd's bike that can't actually steer. And I can totally respect a faithful adaptation of 2000 AD that gets the cynicism, the fatalism, the stylishness and the graphic violence right. I'd be down for a sequel that would get a bigger budget to play with and give us more Dredd and Anderson - but it looks like that's not going to happen, seeing as the movie was a major flop and didn't make much money even in the U.K. That's sad. I could've liked it better, but it deserved better than what it's getting.

(By the way, I just got done watching a few clips of Judge Dredd on YouTube. Man, TMBF circa 1995 had terrible taste.)

NEXT REVIEW: Untuk Tiga Hari
Expectations: hanya kerana anda, Afdlin Shauki 

Hurry hurry biker come to me

Premium Rush
My rating:




This movie owes a lot to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and I mean a lot. It was filmed two years ago and had its release delayed (due to a copyright infringement lawsuit), and may not have even gotten into theatres if its lead actor hadn't broken out in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises since then. Gordon-Levitt is also responsible for this review you're reading right now, because he's the only reason I decided to watch this. I no longer review a new release every week, and this movie looked insignificant enough that I could skip it. Although I might've made an exception for David Koepp, who's on writing and directing duty. As one of Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriters, anything Koepp does in which he actually gets to hold the reins should be interesting; case in point, 1999's Stir of Echoes, a pretty good supernatural thriller unfairly overshadowed by The Sixth Sense.

Turns out this is much more a David Koepp movie - and possibly a Michael Shannon one - than a Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie.

Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is New York City's best bike messenger, and probably also its most reckless - which puts a strain on his relationship with fellow messenger Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and gives an opening to his romantic rival Manny (Wolé Parks). One day, his dispatcher Raj (Aasif Mandvi) assigns him to a package from Vanessa's roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) - but then he is accosted by police detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) who tries to take it from him. The package is actually a ticket worth a great deal of money, that Nima intends to use to bring her son to the States from China, but Monday needs it to pay off his gambling debts. So begins a massive chase across the city between Monday and Wilee that will also involve Vanessa, Manny, one hapless bicycle cop (Christopher Place), and the entire NYC bike courier industry.

TMBF is not the kind of movie buff that follows actors. What I look for in a film is story more than anything else, and that's why screenwriters and directors come first in my list of People Whose Films I Choose to Look Out For (Or Alternatively, to Avoid). So when I say that the fact that Gordon-Levitt is in this movie is the only reason I decided to watch it, it isn't because I love watching him so much that I gotta catch everything he's in - although of course, his performances are always good if not great. It's because in the past few years, he's shown that rare ability to pick projects that always turn out to be good films; yes, even G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. And it's rare because it's pretty damn hard to tell how good a movie will turn out when all you have is a screenplay and a director giving you the spiel about how good it'll turn out.

But if that director is David Koepp, then you're at least guaranteed that the screenplay will be a solid piece of genre writing. His filmography as writer includes some very big blockbusters, none of which are truly representative of his writing; the bigger the movie, the bigger the names attached to it (i.e. director and star), the more the script will be altered and revised - with or without the writer's involvement. So I tend to look out for movies by writers-turned-directors, because they will invariably be as gleeful as a kid in a candy store to finally have full creative control. (Well, sort of, there's still the studio to please, but if it's willing to greenlight a project directed by a screenwriter, then it's most likely willing to be hands-off on a movie that they also don't expect to be a big hit anyway.) And Koepp's glee is pretty darn evident in Premium Rush.

Okay, okay, let's get to the movie finally. It's an action thriller that's a lot more light-hearted and fun than most movies that fall under that genre. AV Club's Scott Tobias describes it as a live-action cartoon in which our hero Wilee is more the Roadrunner, and everyone who tries to apprehend or catch up to him, the coyote. This is not at all an inaccurate depiction of the movie, in fact it's probably the best frame of reference to have while watching it. Koepp is having a grand old time with twists, turns, reversals, all the tricks of the thriller trade to keep you on the edge of your seat. He even toys with chronology, with a non-linear timeline that starts somewhere around 5.30pm (and the ticket needs to reach its destination by 7pm) but has a tendency to rewind to earlier in the day and fill in a little backstory - e.g. exactly what kind of trouble Monday got himself into to need so much money so desperately.

And there are also bits where Wilee makes split-second decisions on which way to weave around traffic, and we see the disastrous outcomes of the wrong decisions; go left and he crashes into a baby carriage, go right and a guy gets run over by a truck with a hilarious Wilhelm scream. The movie's playful tone is also accentuated by a gloriously over-the-top performance by Michael Shannon, playing a villain who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and knows it damn well. Shannon actually outshines Gordon-Levitt here, whose role doesn't challenge him beyond providing a solidly charismatic and likeable hero for the audience to root for. Unfortunately, the cast has a weak link in Jamie Chung, who can only frown prettily for almost the entire movie. And in the Chinatown scenes when the dialogue switches to Mandarin, her lack of proficiency in the language is apparent.

But as good as it is, it appears to be a confirmed box-office flop. Sigh... I guess "biker action thriller" doesn't pull in the crowds, even with Gordon-Levitt's name attached. However, I think it's destined to be one of those films that only finds an audience on DVD and screenings on HBO, prompting people to ask "why have I never heard of this movie?" and "why did nobody watch it when it was released in theatres?" I haven't even mentioned the chase scenes, of which there are plenty and are plenty exciting - or the minor antagonist in the nameless bike cop who also tries to apprehend Wilee and fails as spectacularly as Monday. Seriously, this movie is just a heap o' fun. Watch it if you can - when it shows up on HBO.

NEXT REVIEW: 29 Februari
Expectations: hmm, premis yang menarik

All brawn, still not much fun

The Expendables 2
My rating:




I wasn't too keen on The Expendables two years ago. There were four ensemble action movies that year, and I felt that one was clearly the weakest of them all; the least clever, the least fun, and the least funny (also the most in need of a sense of humour). And for a movie predicated on putting together a supergroup of '80s action movie icons, it cheated big time with never-beens like (MMA champion) Randy Couture and (NFL player and deodorant spokesman) Terry Crews. Yet it's the only one that gets a sequel, so shows how much I know. I guess the nostalgia value of seeing old-school action heroes from the '80s really does sell tickets worldwide, though its charms were somewhat lost on me.

And they're still not working.

The mercenary team led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and comprising Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and new member Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) are forced into a new mission by CIA operative Church (Bruce Willis). The job involves retrieving an item from a safe in a crashed plane in Eastern Europe - and also comes with another new member Maggie Chan (Yu Nan) as the safecracker. But after obtaining the Macguffin, they are ambushed by Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who leads his own private army called the Sangs. Vilain takes the item - which turns out to be blueprints of an abandoned mine in which is hidden five tons of weapons-grade plutonium - and kills one of the team. Swearing revenge, Ross and the Expendables must now track down Vilain and stop him - and along the way, they'll get a little help from fellow veteran mercenaries Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Booker (Chuck Norris).

In certain ways, this sequel is an improvement on it predecessor. Instead of having Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis in a mere cameo, this time they're in a proper action scene - and throws in Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme to boot. It's more aware of its cheesy appeal; there are references to "I'll be back" and "Yippee-ki-yay", and Norris recites a Chuck Norris Fact. (Also, "Vilain".) Crews and Couture have more presence this time, making it feel like a proper ensemble instead of a Sylvester Stallone-Jason Statham buddy movie like the first one was. Simon West is a more competent director of action movies than Stallone (or most likely his 2nd-unit director), and the action scenes are better composed and edited. There are even a couple of funny lines of dialogue. But none of this made much of an impression on me, nor persuaded me to give it a higher rating.

See, maybe I just don't get the whole '80s action thing. I actually missed out on a lot of those movies, particularly those with Norris and Van Damme, who were always more low-rent than Schwarzenegger and Stallone. (And I don't think I've even watched Rambo III all the way. Have it on DVD, tried it once, fell asleep.) So pulling them out of retirement and putting them all together doesn't really do anything for me; in fact, all it does is highlight how little appeal they have besides kicking ass on camera. They're dull. The titular team, supposedly a tightly-knit band of fighting men, have little chemistry with each other. Every time they're not in an action scene, they all just seem really awkward. And in the case of the 72-year-old Norris, we're meant to believe he's an awesome badass when he barely even throws a punch.

Perhaps it's not that they don't have any real screen presence - because they certainly don't in this movie - but that they would if the movie found ways to play up their natural personalities. Or maybe if the screenplay gave them some. Dolph Lundgren gets to be the comic relief - a role for which, unfortunately, he is eminently unsuited - and that's the kind of thing that suffices to distinguish one macho lunkhead from another in this movie. These guys just aren't much fun to be around, even when they're kicking ass and mowing down hundreds of faceless bad guys. I mentioned Red, another movie with a similar senior-citizen-action-heroes premise, and that one was so much more fun - because John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox and Richard Dreyfuss are much better actors who can liven up even a cheesy action movie that should be beneath their talents.

And so the problems with the original remain - namely, not knowing how to be as much fun as it should be. It doesn't know whether to be a straight-faced throwback to ultraviolent '80s action flicks (no it shouldn't) or a more winking, deliberately cheesy homage-cum-parody of same (yes, that's more like it). Stallone - 'cos it's clearly him driving this franchise, even if he isn't directing this time - seems like he's leaning more towards the former, whereas the humourous self-referential elements seem more like afterthoughts. At times, this film asks to be taken seriously, such as the aforementioned death of a member of the team and the funeral scene that follows. Which is clearly meant to be all sad and tragic, but is more likely to evoke boredom at best, derisive laughter at worst. We didn't come to this movie for pathos, Stallone - we came to cheer and whoop and laugh, and if you can't make us laugh with you then we'll laugh at you.

Still, it's as well-made as an action film can be. The action sequences have a bit more creativity to them than in the last one, and there is a thrill in watching Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis side by side going all God Mode on a bunch of goons. But watching Chuck Norris walk out of smoke in slo-mo to a steel guitar soundtrack does nothing for me. A climactic Stallone-Van Damme fight scene... meh. (The Statham-Scott Adkins fight was more fun.) Lundgren making cracks about his real-life academic credentials... could've been fun, but it's Lundgren making them, and he's just no comedian. And though I doubt more of his presence would've made much difference, Jet Li is summarily and inexplicably written out of the movie after the opening action scene. Maybe he realised, like I did, that all this series has going for it is its premise, but it never really does anything with it.

NEXT REVIEW: Premium Rush
Expectations: yay Joseph Gordon-Levitt... and yay David Koepp?

The Bourne pretender

The Bourne Legacy
My rating:




A Bourne movie with no Bourne in it - that is, no Matt Damon, and no Paul Greengrass either. Everything about that screams "cash-grab sequel", and a particularly blatant one considering the absent main character still has his name in the title. Yet I was willing to cut it some slack and be somewhat optimistic about The Bourne Legacy. Primarily because Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter who's been on board the franchise since the beginning - and whose vision for it was not fully realised - is taking over both writing and directing duties. Gilroy is a thriller writer with a list of solid credentials behind him, and his first directorial effort was one of 2007's best-received films, Michael Clayton (a film that I liked a lot too). So, unnecessary sequel or not, its pedigree looked pretty good - but honestly, I was hopeful about this one because I liked the previous trilogy so much, and I wouldn't have minded more of the same at all.

I didn't get it.

As Jason Bourne is about to expose Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar, hasty decisions need to be made regarding yet another of the CIA's black ops programs: Operation Outcome. Admiral Mark Turso (Stacy Keach) and Colonel Eric Byer (Edward Norton) decide to bury the entire thing, which means killing everyone involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is an Outcome operative on a training exercise in Alaska who survives the attempt on his life, as did Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a scientist who monitored the operatives. Cross seeks out Shearing in order to obtain his medication - the drugs that enhance his physical and mental abilities - as well as the means to wean himself off them. But as they go on the run together, they will have to avoid Byers' and Turso's relentless hunt as the CIA brings all its intelligence resources to bear against them.

I just said it. Didn't I just say it? Action movies that try to imitate the Bourne series always tend to miss the fundamental, intangible things that make it so good - and sadly, this now includes its own official fourth instalment. The pacing is off. The plot is tissue-thin. The characters are uninteresting. There is little tension or suspense. There isn't even a signature fight scene between faux-Jason Bourne Cross and the equally badass assassin who's the only character in the movie that can match him in badassery. Worst of all, it's dull.

I don't know how this could've come from Gilroy. He was the one who championed the plot of The Bourne Supremacy being about Bourne seeking atonement, which gave it the unexpected emotional depth that made it the best of the series. What is Aaron Cross after here? What is his entire motivation for this story? Pills. The little blue and green pills that apparently give him the chemically-enhanced mental and physical abilities to be a badass government assassin. (Which takes the series into vaguely science-fictional territory, another dubious decision of Gilroy's.) There's some stuff about how he was borderline mentally-handicapped before he joined Operation Outcome, and this is supposed to make us sympathise for him. But there's too little substance there to make it work. There's nothing emotionally compelling in this story of a guy who just wants his meds.

And Jeremy Renner is no replacement for Matt Damon. I like the guy, I liked him in The Avengers, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Hurt Locker. But instead of a brainwashed, emotionless, humanity-less killing machine slowly regaining his humanity like Bourne, Cross seems perfectly normal. Renner even plays him with the subtle swagger that comes naturally to him, which works for some of his roles - but next to Damon's haunted, wounded protagonist, it's a jarring step down. Rachel Weisz's Dr. Shearing is little more than a damsel in distress; what little characterisation she has is about how ignorant she was as to what her research was really used for, which endears us to her not at all. Ed Norton and Stacy Keach do nothing but bark orders in their high-tech control room, lacking the personality of the series' previous villains - the pathetic desperation of Brian Cox's Ward Abbott or the oily pompusness of David Strathairn's Noah Vosen.

The latter of which actually makes an appearance here - as does other franchise mainstays Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney), Guardian reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) and CIA Director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn). Which are Gilroy's attempts at continuity tie-backs to the previous trilogy, as is the fact that it's set almost concurrently with the events of The Bourne Ultimatum. It doesn't work; their appearances are perfunctory and superfluous, and viewers new to the franchise would just be wondering who they are and what they're there for. It just doesn't feel like a Bourne movie. The plot business in between action scenes is dull and tiresome; Cross and Shearing trudge from plot point A to plot point B, while Byer and Turso laboriously follow their footsteps. Where are the action scenes? There's a good long first act in which Cross and another Outcome operative (played by Oscar Isaac) warily circle each other in an isolated Alaskan cabin, and it couldn't even give us a good fight scene between the two?

I'll say it again: it doesn't feel like a Bourne movie. Gilroy's vision to continue the franchise is fundamentally misconceived. (There was Treadstone, and Blackbriar, and hey look, here's another unethical government assassin program that needs to be covered up by eliminating everyone involved! It's like the CIA just goes through a dozen of these a year, don't they?) If it weren't for Bourne's name in the title, it'd be a reasonably slick - yet still somewhat anodyne - Hollywood spy action thriller. But as a bona fide official new entry in the series, it's a huge disappointment. Because once again, how the hell can you think of making a Bourne movie without a signature hand-to-hand fight scene? Aiyoo, Tony Gilroy, what laa??

NEXT REVIEW: SAM
Expectations: amboi, psychological thriller, beraninyaaaa

Bourne to be classics

The first three Bourne films is one of my favourite film series, but I've never actually seen all three back-to-back - in fact, I may have not even rewatched any of them from start to finish. Mostly I just watch clips of its action sequences; each one has at least one signature hand-to-hand fight scene and one car chase scene. And most of them are terrific action sequences, among the best of the entire action film genre - which is why, as an action film aficionado, I like this series so much. But partly also why I like it is that it is, in my book, one of the most consistently good movie series ever. Unlike most trilogies, there's not a single disappointing entry, and certainly not any one that feels like a major letdown from its predecessors. Which is a pretty rare accomplishment - but since Hollywood just can't leave well enough alone, there's now a fourth instalment to potentially spoil that record. So before we review that, let's take a look back at what was previously known as the Bourne Trilogy (and will probably still be known as the Bourne Trilogy with Matt Damon In It.)


The Bourne Identity (2002)
My rating:




Perhaps the most notable thing about the first of the series is that it turned out as good as it is. It underwent a troubled production, with reshoots and script rewrites that took it over budget and delayed its initial release. This is undoubtedly why director Doug Liman was removed from (or quit) the series - which, given his replacement in Paul Greengrass, was likely for the better. Still, Liman helmed the film that started it all, and his vision of a smart, realistic spy action film survives despite the studio interference. In 2002, the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond films was winding down with Die Another Day, one of the cheesiest and most over-the-top in the long-running series - and that same year, the Vin Diesel-starring xXx tried to be the "extreme attitude" version of Bond. Compared to those two, The Bourne Identity felt like a breath of fresh air.

In particular, the fight scene between Bourne and Castel, the first of the CIA assassins sent to kill our amnesiac hero. It's short and brutal and I unreservedly love it; it's perhaps the first time I've ever seen a fight between two combatants who are trained not to fight, but to kill. A great many action movies made in the succeeding years owe a debt to this one scene. Aside from it, there's a fun little car chase (that would be eclipsed by Greengrass' work in the sequels) and a tense cat-and-mouse hunt through a rural countryside (with Clive Owen!). Still, nothing beats that early fight scene; certainly nothing in the climax, which feels curiously anti-climactic, perhaps a casualty of the bickering between Liman and Universal Pictures. It also doesn't feel as consistent tonally as the later Greengrass-helmed entries; at times, there are glimpses of a light-heartedness that seems incongruous with its two sequels.

But that may be due to the romance between Jason Bourne and Marie Kreutz, played by Franka Potente. It's the only film in the series in which Bourne isn't alone and hunted for the majority of the running time, and thus it's the only one in which he gets to make an emotional connection with another person. Their romance works, largely due to both actors; Potente is appealing, and Damon ever only allows a hint of a genuine smile when he's talking to her. But what Damon's performance is most notable for is turning him into a terrifically effective action hero. Back then, no one thought he had that in him at all - and while he proved up to the physical requirements by doing most of his own stunts, his tightly-controlled acting also helped create an indelible character in the tormented, deceptively deadly Bourne. As a thinking person's action movie, it succeeds handily, and did it it many ways that we had never seen before.


The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
My rating




A new director, a new visual and narrative style, and a bona fide classic film franchise is Bourne (hee). The Bourne Identity was a respectable success, if a little more critically than financially, but The Bourne Supremacy ramps up all its predecessor's strengths and improves on the flaws. The signature hand-to-hand fight scene is every bit as brutal and bloody. The car chase features a lot more vehicular carnage and makes the one from the first film look lame (which it isn't; it's just that this one is so much more thrilling). Where the pace of the previous one felt conventional, with expositionary and character-building scenes interspersed between action setpieces, this one is gripping and propulsive from start to finish. If there's one weakness, it's that the plot is almost too hard to follow. There's no easy audience surrogate character like Marie; Bourne is practically as much an enigma as anyone else, in a story full of practiced deception and hidden agendas.

Of course, Greengrass' direction doesn't make it any easier either. But I'll defend his much-maligned shaky-cam style anytime; there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, and Greengrass knows how to do it right. His most well-known previous credit, the faux-documentary Bloody Sunday, made him an unusual choice for a big-budget Hollywood actioner, but it proved to be an inspired one. Unlike the imitators, his style of filming action scenes isn't haphazard and mindlessly chaotic; he chooses his shots, angles and cuts very, very deliberately. He plays scrupulously fair in showing you exactly what you need to figure out what's going on, and you can figure it out if you're attentive enough. And you can then immerse yourself in the immensely thrilling sense of immediacy and urgency that it creates, and that just so happens to be terrifically well-suited to a spy action thriller.

But what makes this film perhaps the best in the series - and yes, I do think it's the best in the series - is the emotional journey that Bourne undertakes. Credit for this goes to screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who took the previous entry's happy ending and completely shits over it - but in so, gives Jason Bourne a motive that we've never seen in an action hero before. People still make the mistake that the movie is all about his revenge; it's not, not at all. It's about his need to know the truth of who he was and what he did, and why the girl he loved had to pay the price for his sins. It isn't till almost the very end that this is revealed, but upon subsequent viewings, it's there in Damon's remarkably subtle performance. Bourne is never truly angry or vicious throughout - just frustrated by his memory loss and haunted by his guilt. And it culminates in a quietly poignant scene that's the last thing you'd expect in a spy action thriller. For doing what it does tremendously well, and daring to be even more... yes, I think this is the one that'll stand out as the best in the franchise.


The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
My rating:




I remember being pretty pumped for this movie, to the point where I forked out good dough for Gold Class seats. It was worth it. The early scene set at London's Waterloo Station is a bravura sequence of crackerjack tension, in which Bourne tries to herd a hapless journalist out of a gauntlet of CIA assassins, demonstrating our hero's quick thinking and street smarts in addition to his already-known badassery. This third entry greatly extends the role of Nicky Parsons, a character who had been on the fringes of the previous two; Julia Stiles is an always welcome presence and makes a good match with Damon. (Although it's never very clear why she would help Bourne - seems like Stockholm Syndrome more than anything else.) Once again we get one terrific fight scene and one terrific car chase scene; the latter especially is the most bone-jarring (and expensive) one yet. And as a conclusion to the trilogy, it does a nice job of calling back to scenes from the previous films, and even reinterprets the final scene from The Bourne Supremacy in a clever way.

So why the lower rating? Because what's lost is the emotional depth of its immediate predecessor. This time, Bourne is on a quest to discover the truth of his past as a man-made killing machine, which is a little less compelling than a man driven to atone for his past sins out of mourning for his lost love. There are small references to the grief he still feels for Marie, but they don't stand out amidst the railroad plot. Which is what this movie is almost entirely - a bullet train of an action-thriller that dashes breathlessly from one plot point to another. The Bourne Supremacy was that too, until the scene with Neski's daughter changed everything. This one doesn't. What it has is when Bourne returns to the research centre where Operation Treadstone began, where he first started becoming what he is now - and frankly, it feels a bit of a letdown. It feels like the whole movie should've been leading up to something more revelatory, more surprising.

It feels much more like a Greengrass film, less of a Gilroy one. Gilroy's emphasis on Bourne's emotional journey is replaced by Greengrass' political leanings, seen in how he villainises the CIA as running a black ops unit that seems to spend as much time killing civilians who threaten to expose them as they do stopping actual terrorist threats. (Gilroy's screenplay draft was reportedly completely unused, and Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi were doing emergency rewrites in the midst of shooting.) And it's also telling that of all the heartless CIA suits in the series, the only two with a conscience are women. Still, the white-knuckle tension and intelligent, realistic take on modern spy action are present and accounted for, making this a worthy entry and conclusion to the series. There's sure as hell no drop in quality in the action scenes, which, let's face it, is what we come to these movies for.

-----

I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating and elaborating on: the Bourne series is notable as much for how influential it is as how good it is. The fight scenes in particular; if The Bourne Identity's fight was fresh and unique at the time, since then there've been an embarrassment of riches in terms of quick, brutal and realistic (well, more realistic) fight scenes. But often, that's the only thing the other movies managed to imitate successfully. The unrelenting pace, the grittily real tone, the scrupulous respect for the audience's intelligence - these more intangible things are still unparalleled. So yeah, as this post title indicates, the Bourne Trilogy (with Matt Damon In It) are bona fide modern film classics in my book. They sit at the pinnacles of their genre. Anyone who doesn't like 'em, you can pretty much write them off as someone who just doesn't get action movies. (Yes, such people exist.)