Jason Bourne

Plot: Memory-challenged assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is hacking the CIA to learn about his past when gets noticed by CIA Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and cute but cold CIA CyberOps chief Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander). Dewey sends an agent from a previous installment called "Asset" (Vincent Cassel) along with many regular agents and battalions of police to catch Bourne. Bourne slips though their fingers in spectacular chases moving on to the next city and then the next. Meanwhile Dewey and Lee try to outmaneuver each other, like spy-masters do, while trying to control Mark-Zuckerberg-like billionaire Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed).  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Jason Bourne is a wonderful, two hour blur of flashing lights, fights, and chase scenes. As you watch the chase scene or the fight scene or the next chase scene -- occasionally broken up by a computer hacking scene. You don't have to worry about remembering the story because its dead simple, and it's hasn't changed from the last movie. Jason Bourne is like a music video -- just unplug and experience it. It is kind of fun to watch.

The style Jason Bourne requires the spies to be super-professional--cold, calculating. The body count is high. Jason and "Asset" both just kill bystanders because their in the way. No moral calculation. I assume the cold-bloodedness is because of their "programming" in childhood, but it is a lot like a first-person shooter game. Our cast is good at tough-guy acting, but the characters are not very deep, and there isn't much dialog.

During the journey, the camera bounces around alot, and director Greengrass quickly cuts from view to view. It creates a great scene of movement and danger. He does it well because it never was frustrating to me, and the jerky camera work in other movies can be.

Cast: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander

Directed by: Paul Greengrass

The Music: .The music is under-stated with the sound effects in the foreground. The orchestral music is not drum heavy, but also not very noticable. The best song is a new harder version of Moby's song Extreme Ways -- sadly not available for sale as a single. 

The Visuals: .Bouncy and colorful. Fine special effects. 

Rating: 2.0 stars: I enjoyed it as a summer, popcorn movie. 

More: . . . just unplug and experience it.

Even More: . . . it doesn't need to make sense, it is a Hollywood movie.



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Star Trek Beyond

Plot: The Enterprise gets attacked and dismantled by a bee-swarm of little ships lead by Krall (Idris Elba) hidden behind gobs of silver make-up. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) end up stranded on a wasteland planet -- all separated and many captured by Krall. Scotty meets friendly alien Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) who wants to escape on the Franklin an old earth ship that crashed a century ago. Working in small groups the crew saves themselves and the Federation too.[imdb]    [photos]

Review: The second half of the movie is far better than the first. The first half is not fun: filled with flashy visuals that were hard to follow. Lots of meaningless engineering bullshit that doesn't make sense. Lots of space explosions and flying objects that don't tell a story. The eight major characters have conversations that only make sense in retrospect.

I appreciate the need to get the heroes in a bad situation to ratchet up the tension, but I didn't like this part. The Enterprise's crash takes a long time. Krall is robotic and mechanical, plus Elba is hidden behind too much make-up to act. Krall backstory should have come out earlier to build up tension.

Eventually the action moves to the planet where in twos and threes the acting and the story get stronger.

Many of the actors are good. Chris Pine has depth and texture. Quinto has good scenes with both Urban and Saldana. Saldana is strong in her scenes with Elba and in many reaction shots. Simon Pegg is a little humorous, and Sofia Broutella has some good lines. This is a movie with eight distinct and meaningful characters, and they handle that well.

Having such a large cast lends well into the theme of the movie that unity is better than isolation. The message is timely even though it was made well before Brexit and Trump's fortress America speeches. 

Cast: Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella 

Directed by: Justin Lin

The Music: Solid orchestral score by Michael Giacchino. Plus two hard rock songs not on the soundtrack. 

The Visuals: There are some new special effects. I like Jaylah's fighting scene with her holographic images. I liked the Yorktown spacestation's design, so angular and creative. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: The good part is the cast acting. The bad part is the battles & tech which can't followed. The real fault is the writing. The first half is unpleasant, and the second half has its moments. I don't want to see it again. 

More: Too many movies have magical ancient relics that the characters have to collect -- just like a video game quest. It was stupid to have a magic relic here. The writers should have tried harder.

Even More: I liked the Swarm bots. This was new is space battles, and the way they fought them made sense.

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Ghostbusters (2016)

Plot: In a remake of the old movie, four paranormal enthusiasts, Erin (Kristen Wiig), Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Jillian (Kate McKinnon), and Patty (Leslie Jones) run around New York fighting and capturing ghosts. When a bad guy releases tons of ghosts into the city, they are ready.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Ghostbusters was fun, and I loved it. Quickly, Wiig, McCarthy, and McKinnon establish new characters that enact the Ghostbusters story. It felt new and funny, and didn't repeat the old jokes. Wiig and McCarthy are always good, but Kate McKinnon was a surprise. She was so spunky and funny.

Chris Hemsworth plays a pretty but dumb receptionist in a role reversal. He was pretty funny. If the genders were reversed, it would still be funny, but politically incorrect.

I don't care about this being a remake of an old beloved movie.  Batman, Spiderman and the X-Men are always rehashing their origin stories. This version of Ghostbusters had the female twist as well as plenty of modernizations.

Cast:  Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth

Directed by: Paul Feig

The Music: Great. Uses the themes from the first movie, but updated.

The Visuals: It's a comedy. The ghosts look like humorous and occasionally creepy. The fights with the balloon people were especially good.  I liked the two ghosts driving the hearse because they were having fun too. 

Rating: 3.5 stars: It was just fun to watch. 

More: .I saw it in 2D, but I understand the 3D is worth the money.

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The Shallows

Plot: Nancy (Blake Lively) goes to a Mexican beach that her now dead mother visited. She has fun surfing, when a super-giant shark attacks. Injured, she is stranded on a little rock with the tide coming in. The rest of the movie is about surviving.    [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The Shallows is a good shark movie, but still a shark movie, which all turn into monster movies at the end.  Blake Lively does nice acting in what is almost a one-woman show. Kudos to her.

The shark is omnipresent, stronger than the Hulk, and smarter than a chess master. In the realm of shark movies this is a good one, but nothing genre bending.

Highlights were the water photography, Blake's acting, the suspenseful plot and the overarching presence of the dead mother.

The unmistakable generic shark with its stereotype master movie plot twists. 

Cast: Blake Lively

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra

The Music: Two good songs; the best was a instrumental version of Trouble by Neon Jungle that they played during the surfing -- very fun. The closing credits song was also good: Sia's Bird Set Free. 

The Visuals: I liked the surfing scenes, and I am partial to jellyfish too. I'd love to get a tank of jellyfish.  

Rating: 2.5 stars: Fun to watch. Kinda mindless, but you knew that didn't you?

More: Blake Lively has great abs, and she had already had a baby when she made The Shallows. She is now expecting #2. I am sure Blake's bod is sending a lot of people to the gym.

Even More & SPOILER: How many girls really surf in a skimpy bikini? I noticed she had a one-piece in the epilogue.

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Temple Grandin (2010)

Plot: This is a biography of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who works as a professor at Colorado State studying Animal Husbandry. It shows her walking through many doors and overcoming many hardships.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Temple Grandin, the movie, is an inspiring story, while some parts are seem fictionalized, overall it is inspirational. Claire Danes does a wonderful job play Temple who is constantly troubled, or confused. It is with sympathy and with intellect.

It is a docudrama; it feels educational, but it is fun too. 

Cast: Claire Danes, Julia Ormond, David Strathairn, Catherine O'Hara

Directed by: Mick Jackson

Written by: Screenplay by Christopher Monger and Merritt Johnson based on the books Emergence by Temple Grandin and Margret Scariano, and the book Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. 

The Visuals:  Nice use of visuals to show how to think in pictures, and nice work with the cattle photography.

Rating: 3.5 stars: Nice story. Great performance by Claire Danes

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Now You See Me 2

Plot: The four magicians [Atlas (Jessie Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack (Dave Franco), and new girl Lula (Lizzy Caplan)] from the first movie are in hiding and looking for something to do. Mastermind Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) gives them a new job, but it turns out to be an FBI sting, and they slide through tube all the way to China. They meet Daniel Radcliffe, and he is mad at them from the first movie. After this the plot becomes too complicated to write down, let's say lots of magic happens and then the movie ends. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Less than the sum of the parts. The mind just glazes over with all the wheels within wheels, and hats being pulled out of rabbits [sic]. It's not real magic, and not stage magic that actually has to work, it's special effect movie magic that is bound by no rules at all. Superimpose a twisty thriller plot, and I got lost and then bored, and actually napped during the middle.

The first movie was cool. The outlaw, Robin Hood-like magicians were so cool as they held these spectacular shows. In this movie they go global, with theoretically bigger illusions, but also way more far-fetched.

The best scene was the fight scene with Mark Ruffalo using magic tricks to get away. The worst was trying to remember what was going on with the plot. Who cares about this computer chip?

Cast: Jessie Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Michael Caine, Moran Freeman, Sanna Lathan

Directed by: Jon M Chu

The Music: Lively orchestral music by Brian Tyler; nothing notable.

The Visuals: There are some cool visual during the performances. I liked the urban nightscapes in Macao too.   

Rating: 1.5 stars: Actually took a nap during the middle.

 

More: Your eyes are not deceiving you. Now You See Me 3, is already in production

Even More: And why was there an FBI van driving around in London? And why were they arresting people?

Yet More: Filming was in London and Macao. Macao looked to authentic to be anything else. I wonder if there are more Chinese language scenes in the Mandarin version.

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Popstar -- Never Stop Never Stopping

Plot: Conner (Andy Samberg) and  his two friends form Owen(Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) form a boy band. Afterwhile they get in a fight and Conner begins a hugely successful solo career. Conner gets all the trappings of stardom and then becomes an asshole to his old friends and everyone else. After while his stardom fades and Conner has to deal with it. The film is cut like a documentary that is intercut with interviews with music types from Ringo to Simon Cowell. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Popstar is a comedy and a satire. It pokes fun at the music business and the culture of celebrity. There isn't much plot or character development is a simple sitcom story that is mined for jokes, including some subtle jokes. It is refreshingly free from potty humor -- though there are a lot of penis jokes, and a very funny missing penis joke.

Some of it was very funny, but it is pretty forgettable too. It was always interesting, and mostly fun-to-watch. It would have been better if the characters were a little deeper. 

Cast: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer who form the music/comedy group Lonely Island

Directed by: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

Written by: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer

The Music: Many songs by Lonely Island; some very funny.

The Visuals: They had a big enough budget to all the scenes they needed. The big venue shows look good. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: At the theater, I liked it well enough for 3 stars. On the other hand, it is devoid of serious ideas and interesting relationships, but it had funny parts. 

 

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