Jason Bourne

More than one person told me that Jason Bourne only says 25 words in the new film, the eponymous, Jason Bourne. actually, it's 25 lines not 25 words, but really, when did Bourne ever say more than that? I think he has said more words to Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) than anyone else. She is the last character still hanging in there through The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and now Jason Bourne. She did not appear in the multiverse version, The Bourne Legacy, that didn't include Matt Damon either. That one starred Jeremy Renner. The other surviving character, Pam Landy (Joan Allen), has disappeared. There is a new CIA director (Tommy Lee Jones), an up-and-coming analyst (Alicia Vikander), and the usual assassin, known as The Asset (Vincent Cassel). Nicky, as you may remember from 9 years ago, is still on the run having cast in her lot with Bourne.

The plot of Jason Bourne is ripped from today's headlines, as they say. The CIA director is in cahoots with a Mark Zuckerberg clone (Riz Ahmed). His platform, Deep Dream, is being used by the CIA to spy on all Americans. What a shock. Beyond this, it all gets a bit murky as is the norm for anything Bourne. Bourne is taking part in high-stakes bare-fisted boxing matches in Russia and would probably have happily stayed there if the CIA would just stop trying to kill him. Plus Nicky is making trouble. So Bourne gets sucked back into the whole thing. You would think after all this time that the CIA would have learned that fucking with Jason Bourne is not a good idea. But no. I don't think I need to say anything more about the plot.

If you like Jason Bourne movies, which I do, you will like this one. Although something troubling does happen which takes some of the fun of it. But then, I'm still mad that they killed off Bourne's girlfriend (Franka Potente) five minutes into movie #2 (The Bourne Supremacy). There will be another Bourne movie and Alicia Vikander, who is full of secrets, will definitely be back. She is really good in everything I've seen. It was only last year that she became the "it" girl, appearing in The Danish Girl, Ex Machina, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , and won an Oscar. Vincent Cassel is a very entertaining assassin, and Tommy Lee Jones plays Tommy Lee Jones, which is also entertaining. And Matt Damon, well, he is Jason Bourne. I hope he will be back for the next sequel too.

Jason Bourne was directed by Paul Greengrass, who also directed Ultimatum and Supremacy, but not Identity or Legacy. The Bourne movies sort of invented the the half-second cut. By this I mean cutting the scene every half second during fights and chases. But these movies are very well put together. I like them a lot. Jason Bourne is no different. And he doesn't need to talk if he doesn't want to.

Star Trek Beyond

It's so nice that there is Star Trek in my life again. The new film Star Trek Beyond is the third film in the reboot, which goes where no one has gone before, because it puts Star Trek into the multiverse for the first time. Also, just released at Comic-Con this weekend was the first teaser trailer for the new Star Trek TV series, Discovery, starting next year. I have been very happy with the Star Trek reboot. The first film re-introduced us to the original Classic Star Trek characters, living in a universe with a timeline that has been altered somewhat due to some Romulans and a wormhole.  I loved it. The second film, Star Trek into Darkness, was a clever reworking of The Wrath of Khan where the classic Spock/Kirk death scene is reversed. I particularly love the Spock/Uhura relationship which has been created in the multiverse. The new/old characters played by new actors have all been enjoyable. But I get the most joy out of Karl Urban's portrayal of Bones McCoy. He is perfect. In fact, he may be better than DeForest Kelley. 

The new film is Star Trek Beyond. (A few mild spoilers follow) The Enterprise is three years into its five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Anyway, Kirk (Chris Pine) has a birthday coming up and is wondering what the point of it all is. He has even applied for a desk job. This setup reminds me of the beginning of the original Wrath of Khan when Kirk has already taken a desk job and Spock gives him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities for his birthday. He also gets some Romulan Ale from Bones. In the new Star Trek Beyond, Bones and Kirk enjoy some whiskey liberated from Chekov's (Anton Yelchin) locker. The rest of the crew is doing ok except that Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are having serious relationship problems. And as you may know, there is a revelation about Sulu (John Cho) that George Takei wasn't that happy about. 

Anyway, Kirk's reveries are disturbed by a distress signal, and, yes, as usual, the Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant available for the rescue mission. As you may expect the mission does not go as planned, and if you have seen the trailers, the Enterprise gets destroyed and the crew is stranded on an alien planet. This may have happened once or twice before. And I can announce (spoiler alert) that there is a Saucer Separation. Haven't seen one of those in a long, long time. Lots of ships have crashed on this planet thanks to the evil villain of this movie, Krall (Idris Elba). The crew are aided by a nice new alien character, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), who has been stranded so long on this planet that she has built her own starship out of Lego. Ok, just kidding about the Lego. She likes Scotty (Simon Pegg) and I think the feeling is mutual. Jaylah is a fun character and there's some indication that she might be in the next film. Then again, there was no sign or mention of Carol Marcus in Star Trek Beyond so maybe not. 

Idris Elba is pretty much unrecognizable as Krall for most of the movie, and is not nearly as fun as Benedict Cumberbatch was as Khan in the last movie. The Beastie Boys are instrumental in defeating Krall. Who knew that they would still be popular in the 23rd century. You may remember that young Kirk was playing the Beastie Boys on the radio when he drove his stolen car off the cliff in the first movie.

The first two new Star Trek movies were directed by J. J. Abrams who was mainly responsible for the reboot. He remains as a producer on Star Trek Beyond but the movie is directed by Justin Lin, who also directed many of the Fast & Furious movies. There are no cars in this one, but a motorcycle does figure in the plot. Star Trek Beyond is very entertaining and moves right along. It continues the nice plot and character development of the new multiverse Star Trek. The writing is good with some very nice lines, written by Simon Pegg (Scotty) and Doug Jung. My favorite is when Krall says, "This is where the frontier pushes back!" 

Anyway, what's not to like in Star Trek Beyond, except for feeling a bit verklempt every time Chekov is on the screen. I am a lifelong Trekkie. It is now 50 years since the original, now classic, Star Trek first aired with me watching. It's great that Star Trek has been reborn in this way. 

Ghostbusters

It is with a heavy heart that I cannot give a thumbs up to the new and highly anticipated (by me) Ghostbusters. For those of you living under rocks, Ghostbusters has been rebooted with all the gender roles reversed (except for the Mayor of NYC). In this new film, Kristin Wiig is Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy is Dan Aykroyd, Kate McKinnon is Harold Ramis, Leslie Jones is Ernie Hudson, and Chris Hemsworth (aka Thor) is the secretary (Annie Potts). They have reversed gender but not race so Jones and Hudson are both African-American. Even though Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis et al. were amazing, the new cast is great too. The SNL connection is still strong. Aykroyd and Murray were on SNL back in the day as were/are Kristin Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. The casting for the new Ghostbusters is perfect. I like Wiig and McCarthy a lot from previous movies, and I instantly liked McKinnon, who I hadn't seen before (ok I don't watch SNL anymore).

There are cameos by all the surviving Ghostbusters, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson, as well as Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver, oh, and the the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Daniel Ramis, the son of Harold Ramis does appear. Harold Ramis is missed, not just because he died and can't do a cameo, but in the writing or lack thereof in the new Ghostbusters. The original Ghostbusters was written by Ramis and Aykroyd. Reboots are always problematic because they will be compared to the original, and in this case the original is pretty damn good. Ghostbusters had great comic actors, a really funny script, and some snappy directing by Ivan Reitman. There are several lines that I still quote regularly in conversation, "Don't cross the streams." "When someone asks you if you are a god, you say yes!" "Generally, you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance." and my favorite quote of all time, "Cats and dogs living together!"

The new Ghostbusters has a great comic cast, but it leans very heavily on physical gags and is quite light on the brilliant repartee. The plot is a bit vague. It is more like Ghostbusters II in that there is an actual bad guy (Neil Casey), who is creating the paranormal emergency. Not that Zuul wasn't the baddest dude ever. BTW, Zuul does get mentioned in the new movie, but you have to wait for the scene at the end of the credits which indicates that a sequel is planned. Speaking of the credits, they are dominated by Chris Hemsworth, who plays the role-reversed secretary.  The writers and director seem to think that the only significant male character in this movie is the funniest thing in the movie. It's a bit creepy actually.

Where was I? Oh ya, the plot is a bit vague and tends to wander. There are some strange directorial choices. The last scene of the movie is a cameo by Ernie Hudson which ends things on a very weird note.  The new Ghostbusters only actually catch one ghost and then they let him go. And I hate to say it, but it isn't very funny. I don't think I laughed out loud once, ok once, but that was during Dan Aykroyd's cameo. The CGI is obviously better than in the original but there is no need to see this movie in 3D. With the exception of a little slime coming out of the screen they don't make much use of it.

Besides all the cameos, the hearse and the fire station return unchanged. Although, for most of the movie they are living above an ethnic takeout restaurant which is the source of several vaguely racist and extremely unfunny scenes. It was great to see the backpacks and have them "light 'em up." And there are some scenes that play homage to the original like one with Wiig that is reminiscent of Rick Moranis' scene where he is banging on the window of the restaurant. They also have a meeting with the Mayor of New York (Andy Garcia), which is much less dramatic than in the original.

I was really looking forward to the new Ghostbusters. I wanted to love this movie but I didn't. Oh well. Back off man. I'm a Scientist!

Swiss Army Man

Sometimes, it is easy to describe the plot of a movie. Swiss Army Man is Cast Away crossed with Weekend at Bernie's. A man (Paul Dano), stranded, possibly, on a desert island, is trying to commit suicide when he notices a body washed up on the beach. The body, played by Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, is dead. As Charles Dickens said, "There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate." The dead body does have some superpowers related to the gases forming in the body as it decomposes. In Cast Away, as Tom Hanks starts to lose it, he befriends and talks to his volleyball, Wilson. Similarly, in Swiss Army Man, the dead body begins to come to life and becomes a friend to Paul Dano.

Dano's charater is batshit crazy so we don't believe that the body is actually alive anymore than Wilson the volleyball was alive. Nevertheless, Dano and the body set off to find their way home, inspired by the woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whose picture is on Dano's phone. Dano keeps checking for a cell signal even though his charge is only at 10%, and the body, Dano's alter ego, becomes obsessed with the woman, who Dano had loved from afar.

All of this is in the trailers for the movie, but I won't say more about what happens. No spoilers. Paul Dano has made a career playing slightly crazed characters, most recently, an actor about to play Hitler in Youth, the Beach Boy's Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy, and a sadistic plantation owner in 12 Years a Slave. Daniel Radcliffe forever associated with Harry Potter has been trying, I think, to pick roles as far away from Hogwarts as possible. Both Dano and Radcliffe are great here. Swiss Army Man is an unusual movie, to say the least, and you just have to accept everything it throws at you including what comes shooting out of the dead body. And in the end, there is a resolution. We do find out what the reality is. And the dead body is alive in a certain way. So if you are tired of superheroes and sequels, you might want to go for something different and see Swiss Army Man.

Independence Day: Resurgence

As everyone knows, Independence Day: Resurgence, is a sequel to the original Independence Day, which came out 20 years ago. Most of the characters who survived the original are back. The one exception is Will Smith. I guess he didn't want to do it. He cannot really be replaced, and there is no way to replace Randy Quaid, who turned out to be just like his character in Independence Day in real life. The plot of the new movie is almost identical to the original. The Aliens are coming back to destroy the Earth and Earth isn't ready. Like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, people are having dreams where they see a round shape with a slash through it. So added to the cast is Charlotte Gainsborough as a sort of Robert Langdon Symbologist. I'm not sure why she is there, but it's nice to see her. She's wonderful, but usually makes arty foreign films. I hope she made some money. Robert Loggia, who was perhaps the best thing in the original Independence Day died recently, but has been inserted by CGI into one scene as a tribute. He is missed. 

The President is now a woman (Sela Ward), but the ex-president (Bill Pullman) is still around, and tries to channel his inner Randy Quaid. The crazy scientist at Area 51, played by the wonderful and crazy Brent Spiner, has been in a coma for 20 years but wakes up just in time. Jeff Goldblum is now a respected Alien expert, but his father (Judd Hirsch) is still insufferable. Will Smith is gone, but is represented by his now grown up son (Jessie T. Usher) a hot-shot pilot, and Viveca Fox returns as the boy's mother. Two other young pilots, one Pullman's daughter (Maika Monroe) and Gale from Hunger Games (Liam Hemsworth) make up a love/hate triangle. 

The original Independence Day is a classic not because it is a great film, but because it falls in the category of a bad film that somehow rises above the material to make a very entertaining movie. The sequel is fun too, but Spiner and Pullman cannot make up for the crazy out-there performances by Smith, Loggia, and Quaid in the original. And what's wrong with Jeff Goldblum? He almost seems like a normal person in Independence Day: Resurgence. What's with that?