It would be too harsh to say that “The Bourne Supremacy
” is a bad movie, but compared to the relatively straightforward plot of the first film, this was at times difficult to follow, with some explanations only showing up in the deleted scenes.
The basics are good: Bourne is living in India, still on the run (he thinks) from Treadstone. Then a CIA operation goes bad, agents are killed, and Bourne’s fingerprint is left behind … in Berlin. At the same time, his girlfriend is shot in a bullet meant for him, which brings him roaring back to the West to settle matters once and for all, unaware that he’s been framed as a traitor who kills CIA agents.
So far, so good. Throw in a ripped-from-today’s-headlines Russian oil magnate and you’d think we’d be in good company, but neither Matt Damon nor Joan Allen (in a stellar performance) can save this. Things get confused to the point where one suspects the director wasn’t really sure what was going on. Some loose ends are wrapped up, there’s a lot of really good action and other set pieces, but the whole does not add up to the sum of its parts.
I have high hopes that the third part of this trilogy will return it to form. In the meantime, this is a rental.
“Sideways,” the first comedy (well, dramedy) to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture in recent memory, is in serious danger of being overhyped. Viewers will come to it expecting “one of the best films of the last decade” or a “hilarious” film and be disappointed, which is a shame, because the modest charms it actually has are quite engaging.
To wit: This is a film that substitutes quiet charm for laugh-out-loud jokes, wry observations for deep insights into the human condition, and a mellow rambling pace for a plot that pulls the characters (or viewers) along. It is more a mellow afternoon spent at an out of the way winery than it is a glitzy event of a movie.
This is definitely worth a rental, but do not go in expecting to have your life changed by “Sideways.” And, frankly, thank goodness for that. If only more Best Picture nominees were created by film makers content to make a satisfying film, instead of a religious experience.
Given that the “24” writers are the only ones in television attempting something like this, I suppose it’s not surprising they do not seem to feel the need to improve on their writing from the first season. The real time gimmick is still a big enough gimmick that they seem to be coasting on it.
And that’s a pity. The writing in this second season of “24” is flabby, silly and typically telegraphed miles and miles off. Fans tuning in looking for edge of their seat thrills aren’t going to find them here; they’d be better off switching from Fox to sister station FX and “The Shield.”
The very first hour telegraphs things that the characters will be blissfully ignorant of for several hours — Hey, there’s a conspiracy inside the White House to subvert the president’s authority! Hey, this cartoonishly evil bully Kim works for isn’t going to just let her get away with defying her authority! Jack is mad and he’s a loose cannon!
Plot elements seem to have been lifted from online fanfic: When running from the evil father, Kim runs, not into the crowded public street, but into an alley empty of people; Kim is an au pair instead of a nanny despite the fact that most people have no idea what an au pair is and despite the fact that she neither seems to be a foreign student nor a college student at all; an expensive sports car’s trunk conveniently springs a leak in time for police to investigate the sudden gusher of blood despite the fact that even the cheapest car trunk won’t drip a drop if you spill a 2 liter of soda back there (learned the hard way); no one seems capable of getting along with each other, and instead White House officials and intelligence agency officials alike have to snarl half-threats at each other and refuse to do even the most rudementary cooperation; this bizarre inability to connect with each other extends outside the workplace — instead of calling up his estranged son and saying he’s been badly hurt on the job, the humorously named George Mason has his son arrested and brought in wearing handcuffs, in a failed attempt to win the Father of the Year award.
If they cut most of this nonsense out — along with the entirely pointless Kim storyline — the show would be half its length, which just might make it tight enough to watch. As it is, this is a rental, at best. Flabby, slow and silly.
“Saved!” is very cute, although not a perfect movie.
I liked the sense of humor, and the (mostly) naturalistic cinematography and casting — the girls from “Mean Girls” would look like space aliens here. The kids all looked and acted like kids — even Mandy Moore had a fairly bad haircut by the standards of movie teenagers — although it slipped once or twice (the dialogue about the clinic on the Vespa didn’t sound like kids, but rather a Moral dropped in by the writer).
I didn’t go to a religious school myself, so I can’t speak to how spot-on the characterizations of the students and teachers is, but Hesperia is very religious and I have a lot of interaction with the “Christian community,” and I was certainly nodding in recognition quite a bit at some of the personality types. The humor wasn’t necessarily AT the Christian community — or, if it was, it was the sort of humor of someone laughing at themselves.
And, of course, one of the all-time greatest scenes in a movie is Mandy Moore flinging a Bible at another girl, screeching “I am FILLED with Jesus’ love!”
Good stuff.
I can’t remember the last time I laughed so consistently all the way through a movie. I have to wonder what is going on with Saturday Night Live, since this was produced by Lorne Michaels, written by Tina Faye, and every adult but one is a current or former SNL cast member. Why does the show suck so much when this movie was so great?
In any case, “Mean Girls” is probably the best teen comedy ever, sharp, funny, relentlessly unsentimental, with strong (but not perfect) acting, some clever twists and a solid soundtrack.
I don’t know of any film that so well observed the nature of high school cliques (and cheerfully discusses groups like the “angry hot black chicks” who certainly were a clique in my high school), the way teenagers (particularly girls) treat each other and even the quirks of the teachers (unlike most teen films, they aren’t all ciphers or buffoons here). A lot of the bits feel very authentic, including the central plot element of the Burn Book, in which the titular mean girls write things about the other students in the school to make themselves feel better. Other great bits include real-looking high school students (except for the four mean girls themselves), the terribly true to life wannabe “cool” parent and one of the girls dumbing herself down to be able to talk to a cute guy without it being corny and ridiculous like a feature-length afterschool special.
There’s a bit of drinking (which ends with someone getting very drunk and embarassed) and a bit of talk about sex (which never goes anywhere beyond someone taking off their shirt), so it’s a surprisingly family friendly film for parents of preteens.
A great film with an actual decent message, but which relentlessly refuses to give into cliches or heartwarming schmaltz. Strongly recommended to anyone who ever really wanted to like teen movies, stretching all the way back to the John Hughes era, but who found them a bit too nauseating at the end of the day.
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