Movie Catching Up, Part Two

Welcome back to the return of regular blog posts! Hmmmm...well, that may be asking for a bit much, but at least I'm getting these movies out of the way. After this I have three more that I saw in theaters and two more via On Demand.

So Jason Bourne came out of hiding. Just skipping over whaterver happened in the Matt Damon-less C-less "Bourne Legacy," this sequel finds him in hiding but recovered from his amnesia. What brings him back this time? He's contacted by the former CIA operative (Julia Stiles) who helped him in the past and is now also on the run. Through computer hacking she's discovered files about how Bourne became part of the program that turned him into a killing machine -- and it involves his father. Soon they're both being hunted by CIA assassins. The action sequences are what you'd expect, but the film gets bogged down a bit by a subplot involving privacy rights and a secret deal in which the CIA is funding a social media venture to use it to spy on everyone. My grade: B.

Suicide Squad is one DC comic book that I've never been interested in, and in the wake of the film that hasn't changed. The premise: government operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles a team of imprisoned villains, either wiith special skills (Deadshot, Will Smith), metahuman powers (El Diablo, Jay Herndandez), or just plain psycho (Harley Quinn, Margot Robbie), who are coerced to participate The team's job is to do whatever it takes should someone like, say, Superman (currently still dead in the movies) decided to destroy the planet. Soon there is such a threat and the "team" is sent into action. But secrets and lies threaten everything.

Having Harley Quinn in the mix led to adding the Joker, and there are a couple of cameos by Ben Affleck's Batman. (Meaning all of this takes in the DC movieverse DC Extended Universe alongside Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, etc.) And Jared Leto's Joker is awful, annoying in every scene in which he appears. Oh, Heath Ledger, why did you have to die?

And too many of the Squad members leave no impression as characters. They're just along for the ride or to serve to move the plot a bit. Fortunately, Robbie's Harley Quinn is a live wire, and Amanda Waller proves to be a total badass -- a term that fits Viola Davis as well. And a scene inserted into the credits makes me glad she's part of the DC movieverse DC Extended Universe. My grade: C.

P.S. I suddenly want to go see it again.

Quick (Not) Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (SPOILERS)

It's been a week, but SPOILER ALERT anyway.

The 2013 reboot of Supeman on film, "Man of Steel," was financially successful enough to earn a sequel. But  that sequel was turned into much more: a hoped-for, full-fledged DC Comics movie universe, taking its place alongside the Marvel Movieverse. But many people had misgivings, seeing as how director Zack Snyder handled "Man of Steel." 

To jump-start the Justice League, in the quest for Avengers-sized box office, the decision was made to pair DC's two biggest icons for the first time. And have them fight. (Cliche alert.) And then throw in Wonder Woman, never before on the big screen. And add cameos of other heroes.  Thus, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was born. After seeing it twice in three days and digesting various opinions and reviews, as well as my own feelings on what Superman represents, here are some observations, in no particular order:

Warning: SPOILERS from here on out!

Quick Review: Gone Girl

Okay, so I slipped away from blogging again for a few days. I actually saw Gone Girl two weeks ago. Heavily hyped, I managed to avoid spoilers before seeing it. Sometimes I don't actually mind spoilers, but in this case I really wanted to be surprised. It's the story of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) who comes home on the day of his fifth anniversary to find his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) is missing. After he reports this to the police the investigation (with the help of a media frenzy) tilts towards him as a suspect in his wife's disappearance. Although I figured out a primary part of the mystery quickly, the details and subsequent events proved quite twisty, right up to the end -- which, as the final scene faded to black and the credits began, led at least three people in the theater to yell things like "THAT'S IT?" and "WHAT THE...!" I was not one of them. I enjoy an unconventional ending, as long as it's not so far-fetched or really stupid. This one? Definitely not how I would react if I were in Nick's place, but not too far...gone. (Pun intended.) My grade: A-minus.

P.S. I was watching very closely during the moment where reports indicated Ben Affleck's junk is supposedly onscreen. If it was, I missed it. I'll wait for someone to screengrab it.

Quick Reviews: Two Out Of Three...

You can probably guess how these grades are going to go down, based on the post title...

The first one's simple: "Argo" is the best movie I've seen this year. When you can make a movie that's not only humorous but truly suspenseful, and make it suspenseful even though it's based on a pretty well-known true story -- the smuggling out of Iran of six Americans who escaped the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 when it was swarmed by followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini -- you've done your job. Kudos, Ben Affleck. And I really enjoyed the little touches such as actual news broadcasts from the time (remember when ABC's Ted Koppel did those nightly hostage crisis updates, which evolved into "Nightline" as the crisis dragged on and on?). My grade: A-plus.

Not on the same level, but enjoyable on its own, is "Pitch Perfect." When you make a movie about acapella singing groups competing for a national title and manage to avoid it seeming too much like "Glee Goes to College," again, you've done your job. Kudos, uh, I don't know who directed this, but kudos to him or her anyway. (Okay, I looked it up. Jason Moore. Wikipedia says it's his feature film debut.) A lot of laughs and the singing's not bad, either. Rebel Wilson is a flat-out riot. My grade: A-minus.

And now for the bad news. I was hoping for good things from "Seven Psychopaths," because it was directed by Martin McDonagh, who did "In Bruges" with Colin Farrell, who also co-stars in this film. I really enjoyed "In Bruges." I really hated this movie. I wanted to walk out a number of times. Its only redeeming values are the performance by Christopher Walken and the fact that Farrell is so damned pretty. My grade: D-plus.

Quick Review: Extract

"Extract" is a pretty solid, amusing film from Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis & Butthead" and "King Of The Hill." Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of a factory that makes, you guessed it, extract. He's become unhappy with everything he puts up with at work, and to make things worse he isn't getting any sex from his wife (Kristen Wiig). He gets an offer to buy the factory, but it's complicated by a freak accident -- which also results in the hiring of a temp worker, Cindy (Mila Kunis), whom Joel becomes infatuated with. With the his friend (Ben Affleck with long hair and a beard) and some mind-altering substances, Joel concocts a plan that will allow him to sleep with Cindy and not feel guilty. Jason Bateman does good work -- I like how he overcame his really slow career stretch after his child TV stardom and now gets good roles on a regular basis.

This movie has been described as something of a reverse on Judge's earlier "Office Space," this time with a more pro-management view. Since I still haven't seen "Office Space" I can't really compare them, but I think it's more balanced than that. "Extract" made me laugh a good deal, though, and in that it performs the primary duty of any comedy. My grade: B.