Bourne Again

Matt Damon reprises his role as the CIA’s most wanted rogue assassin-turned-fugitive and all-around don’t-mess-with-me badass Jason Bourne in the self-titled fifth installment of the alpha male action spy series (the fourth if you discount ‘The Bourne Legacy,’ which featured a different protagonist played by Jeremy Renner) based on the popular novels of Robert Ludlum.  With Paul Greengrass (‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’) back in the director’s chair, ‘Jason Bourne’ promises to be another suspense-packed, exciting and violent chapter in Jason Bourne’s life as well as the sinister and unaccountable black program that spawned him and those like him in the name of safeguarding our “national security.”

 

It’s been 14 years since Doug Liman’s ‘The Bourne Identity,’ which begs the oft-used sports question: “Does Bourne have any gas left in the tank? “  Worry not Bourne fans, the ex-Assassin with amnesia is still as kick-ass as ever as he proved in the movie’s opening scene, making a living “off the grid” by competing in anonymous fight clubs beating down other alpha males in a primeval contest of who’s King of the friggin' Jungle.  Alas, he gets pulled back into the spy-vs-spy world he hoped he left behind for good when ex-CIA operative Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) from ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ uncovered the resurrection of Treadstone/Blackbriar and needed her ass saved, I mean, his help.

 

JB is similar to all the previous installments (including ‘The Bourne Legacy’) in one important aspect: it is essentially a chase movie at heart.  Once again, top CIA movers-and-shakers mark this “one man army” for immediate termination and send wet work specialists to do the job, only to epically fail in the attempt.  The players may change but the result remains the same.  This time, the governmental villains are Tommy Lee Jones as an unscrupulous old-school CIA director spouting the usual "the ends justify the means" bullshit, the lovely Alicia Vikander as a rising young star in the CIA who “volunteered” to help capture or kill Bourne and Vincent Cassel as the “Asset,” a Blackbriar operative who had a personal score to settle with Bourne and wanted him dead 10 times over.  Despite its familiarity to the other Bourne movies, I can’t help but give this latest entry top marks because it managed to be another gritty hard-hitting thriller in which there’s never a dull moment.  Besides, I love the chaotic close-up shifty-cam jumpy quick-cut action sequences that have become a mainstay of the Bourne series.  Seriously.

Grade: A 

 

Games People Play

In our age of social media, live networks and the "Pokémon Go" craze, a movie like ‘Nerve’ comes across as both relevant and timely indeed.  Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, whose 2010 debut 'Catfish' was equally a reflection of our times and was so influential and eye-opening that it gave new meaning to the word,  hit the target once again with this gripping online reality game show thriller starring Emma Roberts, Dave Franco and Juliette Lewis.

 

‘Nerve’ is a "high-concept" movie about NY high-schooler and all-around good girl Vee Delmonico (Roberts, who turned out to be a decent young actress despite her famous aunt Julia), who’s regarded by her more spontaneous and adventurous best friend to be “boring” due to her laid-back, tame and risk-averse style.  At the urging from the friend, she got involved (reluctantly of course) in a shady online dare game called “Nerve” in which she was prompted to complete a series of increasingly high-stakes, risky and embarrassing challenges for cash reward.  With the help of a handsome young stranger (Franco, making a name for himself despite his more accomplished big brother James) who seemingly shares her own interests, how can she resist the potential romance?  But as in all such undertakings, the more she plays the deeper she sinks and the more things spiral out of control.

 

Like David Fincher’s 1997 movie ‘The Game,’ ‘Nerve’ is admittedly far-fetched and requires us to suspend our disbelief and keep our natural skepticism in check.  Luckily, this isn’t overly difficult to pull off because ‘Nerve’ is a fascinating thrill-ride with a nice twist in its final act.  Roberts and Franco possess great chemistry, propelling an otherwise unbelievable story along on the strengths of their charisma and personalities.  While ‘Nerve’ may not be wholly original (it owes its spirit to the Fincher film mentioned above), we still can’t help but become the vicarious “watchers” in the movie when all is said and done.

Grade: A-
  

Star Trek Fast & Furious

From watching the chic young ‘90210’ cast of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek movie franchise, it’s hard to fathom that Gene Roddenberry’s venerable sci-fi space opera just turned 50 this year.  Then again, it’s equally hard to imagine that ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’ (TOS) was axed by NBC back in 1969 after just three seasons as a result of dismal ratings, only to become a big hit in syndication and remain one of the most enduring cultural phenomena of our time with legions of fans called Trekkies (I mean “Trekkers”) five decades later.

 

‘Star Trek Beyond’ is the third entry in the new ST cinematic universe (to borrow Marvel’s terminology) and is the first not directed by J.J. Abrams who, in an act of betrayal worthy of Kylo Ren himself, took on a certain other space opera project and stayed on only as producer this time around.  Holy Benedict Arnold, Batman!  Filling in is Taiwanese director Justin Lin, who’s everything Ang Lee isn’t and whom I regard as the Chinese answer to Michael Bay.  For those unfamiliar, Lin is the guy responsible for pulling 'Fast & Furious' out of straight-to-DVD obscurity and making it into one of the most inexplicably lucrative film franchises in recent memory.  Lin brought his fast-and-furious style to this latest installment, making ‘Star Trek Beyond’ the most fast-paced and jam-packed-with-nonstop-action ST movie we’ve seen yet.  Case in point, while it took Abrams most of ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ just to damage the Enterprise, it only took Lin the first half hour or so to totally obliterate the iconic starship at the hands of the movie’s baddie, a villain by the name of General Krall (Idris Elba).

 

In spite of its cinematic excess, ‘Star Trek Beyond’ managed to be another solid addition to the ST franchise, providing viewers with a fun and action-packed deep space adventure yarn in the grand tradition of popcorn movies.  Filled with individual exploits of derring-do, dastardly villainy and a colorful cast of characters (including the feisty alien heroine played by Sofia Boutella shown below), it is an immensely satisfying thrill ride worth taking not just for the diehard Trekkers but for anyone who simply enjoys a good sci-fi/action flick. 

Well well well....     Look who's the Captain now!


Grade: A

 

Fear of the Dark

Good horror movies are hard to come by nowadays largely due to their susceptibility to sequel-itis and tendency to follow the same tired formulas, but in light of their popularity with young moviegoers looking for a good fright and favorable return-on-investment they are often a lucrative and safe bet.  While Hollywood will never stop swinging for the all-or-nothing home runs by making blockbuster tent-poles costing hundreds of millions in the vain hopes of recouping three times the films’ budgets at the box office, producers of horror films have discovered their own little secret: that settling for hitting singles often isn't such a bad deal.  First-time director David Sandberg’s new supernatural horror movie, ‘Lights Out,’ is the latest example of this limited approach. With a mere budget of $5 million, it has already grossed nearly $30 million worldwide.  Even if it drops substantially over its second weekend and disappears from theaters by week 3, the movie will be considered an unqualified success.

 

‘Lights Out’ (co-produced by James Wan) is a PG-13 rated supernatural thriller about a family terrorized by a malevolent entity that takes form in the darkness.  It is quite an intriguing – if unoriginal – hook.  But good horror movies can’t simply rely on gimmicks and must immerse us in the story and make us care about the characters.  ‘Lights Out’ delivers in this regard.  As with most James Wan movies (either as director or producer), the film centers around a small group of people whom the audience gains sympathy with in their worsening predicament, in this case a young woman named Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and her little brother Martin (Gabriel Martin), who lives with his deranged mother Sophie (Maria Bello) and an entity of pure and unadulterated evil named Diana.

 

‘Lights Out’ is an effective little chiller due to its simplicity and sparseness.  From its nightmarishly creepy opening scene inside a mannequin factory to its final act, the movie’s scary moments are well parsed out for maximum impact without overdoing it and thereby rendering us immune, like many horror movies couldn’t resist doing.  Likewise, the performances by its cast of relative unknowns are subtle and understated yet no less powerful, driving the story briskly along and making us true “believers” in its outlandish supernatural premise.

 

Grade: A-

Ghostbusterettes

Ivan Reitman’s 1984 supernatural comedy ‘Ghostbusters’ gets a shot of estrogen in actor/director Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot.  Paul Feig (‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘Heat’ and ‘Spy’) is best known for collaborating with A-list comedic actress Melissa McCarthy, who’s one of the four Ghostbusters in this update, but did you know that he also created the short-lived coming-of-age cult comedy series ‘Freaks and Geeks’ produced by Judd Apatow?  Didn't think so.  Bringing back ‘Ghostbusters’ is no mean feat for the director, because he has to walk a fine line between attracting a new generation of viewers while not straying too far from the original and alienating fans of the 1984 classic.

 

Like the ‘Ghostbusters’ of auld with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, the  new ‘Ghostbusters’ leans heavily on SNL with ¾ of its team comprised of current or recent SNL cast members in Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, with the fourth being McCarthy who’s hosted SNL quite a few times.  Even more than the original, the all-female Ghostbusters are nerdy science types who would fit right in on ‘Big Bang Theory’; Wiig as a straight-laced and socially awkward physics professor, McCarthy as a PhD outcast weird science paranormal investigator, and McKinnon’s Dr. Jillian Holtzmann is a tomboyish and gay mad engineer whose madcap experiments would give Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmet Brown a decent run for his money.  The lone holdout of the geek club is Leslie Jones’s Patty, who makes up for her lack of science smarts with her street smarts and like-the-back-of-her-hand knowledge of NYC.  Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth (‘Thor’) proves that he has comedic chops as the Ghostbuster’s hunky male receptionist/secretary Kevin, who’s kept on for his looks despite being dumb as a bag of hammers in a classic example of gender role reversal.

 

‘Ghostbusters 2016’ is a fun if somewhat familiar exercise in 1980’s nostalgia.  Paying homage and staying true to the spirit of the original, the film is a respectful reboot and featured cameos from the original cast including Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson (sadly, Harold Ramis passed away in 2014) and Slimer the ectoplasm-spewing ghost.  The four female leads were all game and did justice to the Ghostbusters franchise, demonstrating that they can walk the walk as well as talk the pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. 

Grade: B+
 

Alice and Tatiana Need a Vacay

Bad behavior and immature shenanigans make for good comedy, and the latest raunchy R-rated offering, ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,’ is no exception.  Fresh off reprising his role as a party animal frat-boy in ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,’ Zac Efron plays the younger (and surprisingly) more mature and level headed of two dorky brothers who, at the directive of their long suffering parents, had to find respectable dates to bring to their little sister’s wedding in Hawaii.  They did so by posting an ad on Craigslist plus a Youtube invitation for open auditions and appearing on Wendy Williams when it goes viral.  Whoo boy, what could possibly go wrong?

 

The two winners of a free “vacay” to Hawaii turned out to be saucy and irresponsible Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and sweet and dopey Alice (Anna Kendrick).  Alice is still recovering from the emotional trauma of her own recent wedding disaster and Tatiana thought going to Hawaii would be just the thing for her BFF to “get her groove back.”  At first, the two dates seem pleasant enough and appear to be just what the doctor ordered to hold Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Efron) in check, but first impressions can be deceiving and the girls soon proved to be even wilder and more of a handful than the hapless siblings.

 

M&DNWD has its share of funny moments amidst all the dysfunctional family drama, and the predictable redemption moment in the end is true to formula.  Nothing is really new or anything we haven’t seen before, but the movie also has “heart” and its four young stars bring just enough to the wedding in their roles to make the movie a worthwhile diversion.  Besides, a movie featuring the comely Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza can’t be all that bad, right?

Grade: B 

The Purge: Election Tear

‘The Purge: Election Year’ (aka “How I saved a presidential candidate from being purged”) is the second follow-up to the surprising 2013 box office hit ‘The Purge,’ which earned nearly $90 million on a budget of $3 million.  The second film, ‘Purge: Anarchy,’ didn’t do too shabbily either, raking in well over $100 million on an $11 million investment.  Which means the producers at Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay's production company) risk being purged themselves if they didn’t keep spinning off this proven moneymaker.  Although we’re seeing some diminishing returns, ‘The Purge: Election Year’ (with a budget of just $10 million) has made over $60 million thus far over two weekends, which suggests that we may have the next ‘Saw’ franchise on our hands.  Thankfully, ‘The Purge’ may well end on this note while it’s still on top.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the outrageous premise, ‘The Purge’ postulates a dystopian contemporary America in which one day a year, from dusk til dawn on March 21-22, people can commit murder and other crimes with impunity to their heart’s content.  A good purging “cleanses” society and relieves pressures that create economic hardship on our nation, so the belief goes.  But come on, nobody really cares about that.  People purge because they want to let their inner demons out in an orgy of wanton catharsis.  In ‘The Purge: Election Year,’ there are even foreigners who come to America in pursuit of this happiness.

 

‘Election Year’ takes full advantage of its timeliness and in some ways reflects the deep political, socio-economic and, yes, racial divisions, disillusionment, and rifts in America today.  It’s not particularly deep, nor does it pretend to be since it’s essentially an exploitation B-movie relying on not-so-subtle subtexts, but there is that certain undefined quality that speaks to us on a purely instinctual gut level.  Maybe it’s the visceral thrill of seeing poetic justice being done and the bad guys getting their just desserts, or the rebellious Anti-Establishment streak in these films, but somehow it works because on the surface these films really have no business making such a shitload of money.

Grade: B-