Ford v Ferrari (2019) review

As its title suggests, Ford v Ferrari delves into the heated rivalry between two of the most prominent manufacturers in the automobile industry. On one side, you have the Ford Motor Company, whose founder Henry Ford invented the first ‘affordable’ automobile, the Model T, and revolutionized the process of assembly-line production for his company’s line of cars. On the other side, there’s Enzo Ferrari and his prestigious brand of Italian sports cars that quickly became a staple of auto racing, especially in the 1960s when it won the annual race event known as the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Le Mans, France for six straight years. Ford v Ferrari specifically focuses on the former’s attempt to finally beat Ferrari at this historic event, which it ultimately managed to accomplish in 1966. It is the latest directorial effort from director James Mangold, who has had a considerably lengthy career in the industry with hits such as the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and his 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma. In recent years, however, Mangold has also become known for his major contributions to the superhero genre through the two films that he made with Hugh Jackman starring in his iconic role as the legendary X-Men member Wolverine. The first of these was 2013’s The Wolverine, which fared a lot better with critics and audiences than Wolverine’s first solo outing in 2009, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and was then followed by 2017’s Logan, which gave Jackman’s version of the character the emotionally satisfying send-off that he damn well deserved. And with Ford v Ferrari, James Mangold ends up having yet another hit on his hands thanks to a finely tuned racing biopic that fully benefits from its dynamite cast, thrilling racing sequences, and all-around sharp direction.

It is 1963 and the Ford Motor Company, as led by Henry Ford’s grandson Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), is dealing with a severe decline in car sales. To fix this problem, Ford’s Vice President Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) proposes that the company should start getting into racing to properly appeal to the current generation of potential car owners, which they can achieve through a deal with Ferrari, who has also been struggling financially. However, when Iacocca proposes this deal to company founder Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone), the legendary entrepreneur refuses, takes a deal with Fiat instead, and vehemently blasts Ford for “building ugly little cars in ugly factories”. Fueled by this criticism, Henry Ford II launches the company’s new racing division and proclaims that they will defeat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. To accomplish this, Ford hires Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), who had previously won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 before being forced to retire due to a heart condition, to run the division and build what ends up becoming the GT40. In turn, Shelby enlists the help of his long-time friend Ken Miles (Christian Bale) with the promise that Miles will be part of the company’s drivers at Le Mans. However, Ford executive Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) strongly opposes the idea since Miles’ hot-headed nature doesn’t gel with the company’s usual image. Shelby persists, however, since he knows that Miles is quite possibly the only driver that can seriously pose a threat to Ferrari’s success.

Given the nature of this film’s plot, it goes without saying that Ford v Ferrari features some incredible racing sequences. Every single one of them benefits from excellent cinematography and they flawlessly recreate the pure kinetic energy that stems from a day at the racetrack (and yes, they were all done for real). However, this energetic spirit isn’t just limited to the racing sequences. While Ford v Ferrari does boast a hefty 2-½ hour runtime, its strong pacing and impeccably tight editing from James Mangold’s go-to editor Michael McCusker and up-and-coming editor Andrew Buckland (who has also worked on a few of Mangold’s previous films) means that there’s never a dull moment. A lot of this is also thanks to how Mangold excellently handles what can best be described as a ‘David and Goliath’ story on two different fronts. As much as this is a story about how a perennial underdog like Ford managed to dethrone Ferrari, one of the most successful auto racing teams in the world, it’s also very much a story about the two men who played the most prominent roles in making it all happen. They may not have been the kind of guys who flawlessly represent the company’s image, but they knew that going against the norm was the only way that they could possibly beat Ferrari at their own game. All this is especially prevalent when it comes to how the film ends. Without directly spoiling anything (which, I admit, may not be that necessary of a thing to point out since this is a true story), Ford v Ferrari boldly decides to end on a note that, in a different biopic, would’ve just been relegated to the closing text that pops up before the credits roll. But in this case, the decision to include that final plot point is what ultimately gives Ford v Ferrari its most prominent emotional beat.  

The other factor behind this film’s success is its amazing ensemble cast headlined by the potent duo of Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Not only do these two have phenomenal on-screen camaraderie, but they also provide an incredibly fun dynamic that stems from their characters’ radically different personalities. Whereas Carroll Shelby is the smooth-talking, charismatic Southerner, Ken Miles is the cockier Brit who isn’t afraid to express his particularly blunt opinions on any given matter but is also a fully devoted family man. On that note, the film does a nice job of handling the roles of Miles’ wife Mollie (Caitriona Balfe) and their son Peter (Noah Jupe) in the story even though they don’t directly factor into the work that Carroll and Ken do for Ford. Caitriona Balfe benefits nicely from Mollie Miles having just as much of a feisty personality as her husband, thus allowing her to be far more than just a passive supporting character, while Noah Jupe does a solid job with the simple but highly effective arc of a young racing fan who’s forced to learn about the dangers of the sport the hard way. After that, the film is chock-full of excellent supporting turns from the likes of reliable names such as Jon Bernthal as Lee Iacocca, the only Ford executive who doesn’t clash with Shelby and Miles’ ways, and Tracy Letts, who brings the right amount of bold conviction to the role of Henry Ford II.

Ford v Ferrari is easily one of the best films of 2019. Simply put, this is one of those films that flawlessly manages to hit all the right notes when it comes to everything that went into making it. James Mangold’s phenomenal direction sets the stage for an utterly thrilling racing biopic that thrives thanks to its incredible racing sequences and pitch-perfect pacing, with the latter being a vital factor in overcoming the pressure of the film’s weighty runtime. But to be clear, the fact that Ford v Ferrari is 2 ½ hours long is never once an issue because it always maintains an incredibly compelling underdog story with a solid emotional hook thanks to its emphasis on the two men who practically made it all happen. These two men, Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, are excellently portrayed by Matt Damon and Christian Bale, respectively, as they do, indeed, carry the whole film while still being backed by a phenomenal supporting cast. Because of this, it’s safe to say that these two will be major frontrunners for all the big acting awards during this year’s awards season. And yet, perhaps the best aspect of Ford v Ferrari is that it’s one of those films that’s so universally appealing that you don’t have to be a big fan of auto racing to enjoy it. In other words, James Mangold manages to craft a film that fully succeeds at being both an incredibly well-made awards contender and a good old-fashioned crowd-pleaser.   

Rating: 5/5!

Ocean's Trilogy Retrospective

There is a lot of hype surrounding one of this weekend’s new releases, Logan Lucky. And one of the reasons why is because of who it’s directed by; none other than director Steven Soderbergh. This film serves as a much-heralded return to the big-screen for the director, who ‘retired’ from directing feature films in 2013. Prior to that, Soderbergh had made quite a name for himself in the film industry through his work on various projects. These have ranged from indie flicks like 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape to A-list releases like his pair of efforts from 2000, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, the latter of which won him the Oscar for Best Director at that year’s ceremony. However, just like with Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit earlier this month, today I won’t be doing a full directorial retrospective on Soderbergh’s work because, once again, I don’t have enough time to watch all his films to get this out in time for Logan Lucky. Instead, today we’ll be looking at one of his most famous directorial efforts, the Ocean’s trilogy. The first of these three films, 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, was a remake of a 1960 film of the same name. The original film featured an all-star ensemble cast highlighted by several members of the era’s iconic ‘group’ of entertainers known as the ‘Rat Pack’, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., etc. The remake features an equally stacked ensemble cast that includes the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Julia Roberts… and that’s just to name a few. And while the critical reception of this series has varied with each release, all three films have been solid commercial hits with a combined total of over $1.1 billion earned at the box-office. There’s even a spin-off in the works directed by Gary Ross, Ocean’s Eight, which will be headlined by an all-female cast. Today, though, it’s time to hit the casinos and tag along with the charismatic Danny Ocean and his crew as we look back at Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy.

OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001)

In Ocean’s Eleven, George Clooney stars as Danny Ocean, a charming thief who’s just been released from prison. As soon as he gets out, he enlists 10 of his old associates for a heist on three of Vegas’ biggest casinos; the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand. All three are owned by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who just so happens to be dating Danny’s ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts), which proves to be one of the main reasons why Danny is undertaking this operation. And really, that’s all that this film has in terms of its plot; at the end of the day, it’s just a simple heist story with minimal character development. Aside from Danny, Tess, his best friend Rusty (Brad Pitt), and ‘rookie’ Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), everyone else is mostly just ‘there’, meaning that there’s not much emotional weight to these proceedings. With that said, though, when the film delivers on exactly what the audience came for (i.e. the heist), that’s where it really shines. Soderbergh does succeed at crafting a slick, stylish, and all-around fun heist thriller that benefits from some excellent cinematography by Peter Andrews… who is really Soderbergh. Yeah, Soderbergh’s one of those directors known for doing the cinematography and editing on their own films under a pseudonym. Anyway, as for the film’s cast, while it’s often been said that they’re mostly just mugging for the camera in these films which, to be fair, is kind of true, they’re still a lot of fun to watch and work off each other incredibly well. Thus, Ocean’s Eleven ultimately succeeds at being exactly what it is; an admittedly simple but overall fun thriller, nothing more, nothing less.

Rating: 4/5

OCEAN’S TWELVE (2004)

Steven Soderbergh has gone on record stating that Ocean’s Twelve is his personal favorite of the three Ocean’s films that he’s directed. However, he’s sort of in the minority on that one, as Ocean’s Twelve received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and is generally considered to be the weakest of the trilogy. And overall… unfortunately, Mr. Soderbergh, I find that I agree with the critics on this one. Ocean’s Twelve is an oddly assembled sequel, as it doesn’t do much of what it’s meant to be about, heists. In fact, most of the main protagonists end up in jail at one point or another, meaning that they’re often separated from each other for most of the runtime which, therefore, goes against the series’ team dynamic. And despite starting out with what appears to be another simple heist plot, this film then goes all over the place in terms of its narrative, including the infamous scene where Danny’s wife Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts for a heist (just as a reminder, Tess is played by Julia Roberts). This scene, complete with a random Bruce Willis cameo, soon descends into complete absurdity, to the point where I genuinely got disoriented at one point as to just what the heck was going on in it. Now, in Soderbergh’s defense, I can at least understand as to why this is his favorite entry in the trilogy. Stylistically speaking, this entry in the series feels the most Soderbergh-esque, with experimental camera work (i.e. a TON of panning shots) and a meta vibe to the proceedings. In fact, it could be argued that, with this film, Soderbergh was going against the norms of a traditional Hollywood sequel. Still, I think that he was being a bit too experimental with this one, resulting in a frustrating film that doesn’t really have a lot of what made the first film so entertaining. Whereas that film left me entertained, this film just left me feeling empty.

Rating: 1.5/5

OCEAN’S THIRTEEN (2007)

After experimenting with Ocean’s Twelve to mixed results, Soderbergh returned to basics with the third and final installment of the trilogy, Ocean’s Thirteen… which makes it more of a superior sequel than its immediate predecessor. Now, sure, it could be argued that, by doing so, this makes the film more of a ‘safe’ sequel. However, this also means that, unlike the previous film, this film’s focus is exactly where it needs to be, and that is on Danny Ocean and co. and their heist. In fact, this film benefits from much stronger pacing compared to both the previous two films. Whereas those films started off slow to set things up, this film gets right into the action. Plus, while there wasn’t really anything to get emotionally attached to in either of the first two films’ plots, this one does, in fact, have more to it in terms of its emotional stakes. The main plot revolves around Danny and the gang attempting a heist on a new Vegas casino owned by hotel owner Willy Bank, a highly entertaining villain played by Al Pacino. This also happens to be more of a personal job for the group, as Bank had screwed over their ally Reuben (Elliott Gould) when building it. The film also does a nice job of showcasing how things have changed in the gaming industry since the original film. This ends up making things harder for the group during the heist, like when they must deal with the casino’s advanced computer system which can track the legitimacy of a player’s winnings. Granted, I’m not saying that all this makes the plot and character development that much better compared to what we saw before. But, thanks to what is easily Soderbergh’s best directing job on this entire trilogy, Ocean’s Thirteen ends up being the rare case in which a threequel is ultimately the best installment of its trilogy. Yeah, it’s mainly just popcorn entertainment, but when it’s this well-made, who am I to judge?

Rating: 4.5/5

89th Academy Awards: Results + Recap Post

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: THE JUNGLE BOOK

BEST EDITING: HACKSAW RIDGE

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

BEST MAKEUP/HAIRSTYLING: SUICIDE SQUAD

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: LA LA LAND

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: LA LA LAND

BEST SOUND MIXING: HACKSAW RIDGE

BEST SOUND EDITING: ARRIVAL

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: CITY OF STARS (LA LA LAND)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: LA LA LAND

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: PIPER

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT: SING

(Disclaimer: Not to be confused with the animated film of the same name)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: THE WHITE HELMETS

BEST DOCUMENTARY: O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: THE SALESMAN (from Iran)

BEST ANIMATED FILM: ZOOTOPIA

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: MOONLIGHT

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: VIOLA DAVIS (FENCES)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: MAHERSHALA ALI (MOONLIGHT)

BEST ACTRESS: EMMA STONE (LA LA LAND)

BEST ACTOR: CASEY AFFLECK (MANCHESTER BY THE SEA)

BEST DIRECTOR: DAMIEN CHAZELLE (LA LA LAND)

BEST PICTURE: LA LA LAND… Wait, sorry, my mistake… MOONLIGHT

THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW

Holy crap, that ending! Talk about one of the craziest endings in Oscars history! Anyway, I’ll get into that finale later. First, it’s time to talk about the show in general, and I must say, even with that crazy ending, this was a great ceremony. Now, as far as my experience with late-night talk shows is concerned, I’ll admit that I usually don’t watch them live. Like many, I tend to just watch a lot of these shows’ clips on YouTube when they’re posted the following day after a broadcast. The only one of these shows that I can say that I do watch live, on occasion, is Jimmy Kimmel Live! Jimmy Kimmel is an entertaining face in the current crop of late-night talk show hosts. He’s a likable TV personality and there are plenty of entertaining recurring segments on his show, including Mean Tweets and his legendary rivalry with a famous Hollywood star (who I won’t mention just yet…). Plus, seeing how he’s on a Disney-owned network, he almost always gets to debut the newest MCU trailer on his show. As for his turn as this year’s Oscar host, I thought that he did a great job. He got to use some of the classic segments from his show and he didn’t overload his monologues with political jokes, even when considering that this past year, in general, warranted a lot of material for those kinds of jokes. But, as he admitted in the opening monologue, he’s just not that kind of host. As for this year’s award results, I can’t complain with any of the winners. A lot of great films and performances got the recognition that they deserved.

And now it’s time for my favorite (and least favorite) moments from this year’s ceremony. And this year, I’m pleased to say that almost all these moments were great ones.

BEST: THIS PHOTOBOMB

Justin Timberlake orchestrated the best photobomb of the night, which he did to Emma Stone during an interview on the red carpet.

BEST: THIS REACTION SHOT

I can’t explain why, but this shot of Mel Gibson eating a Red Vine after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke directed at him might just be one of my new favorite reaction shots ever.

HILARIOUS: WHEN SUICIDE SQUAD WON AN OSCAR

Hands down, one of the biggest surprises of the night was when Suicide Squad beat Star Trek Beyond to win Best Makeup and Hairstyling. And, as I hinted at in my ‘Predictions’ post, this was a hilarious moment just because of the obvious reason that Suicide Squad was savaged by critics upon release. Of course, Twitter went nuts when this happened (one of my favorite tweets was one that said ‘Suicide Squad has more Oscars than you do’, and keep in mind, I’m saying this as someone who did like the film) but, like I said, at the very least, the makeup design for the film was one of its better aspects. I mean, it’s not like it won Best Picture or anything. The only real downside to this, if you ask me, is that DC fanboys are now going to use this win to belittle Marvel any chance that they get. Doctor Strange didn’t win Best Visual Effects, meaning that a DCEU film has won an Oscar before an MCU film. I’ll give you folks a minute to let that sink in…

BEST: GREAT MUSICAL PERFORMANCES

Surprisingly, the show started with one of the ‘Best Original Song’ performances right out the gate; Justin Timberlake performed his hit song ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’ from the film Trolls, starting the night off on a great note. That was then followed by the performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Oscar-nominated song from Moana, ‘How Far I’ll Go’, performed by Auli’i Cravalho. Her co-star, Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson, came out to introduce the performance, even managing to get in a part of his own solo from the film, ‘You’re Welcome’ (The Academy Awards’ apparent response to it being performed in full; “Nah, we’re good!”). Before Cravalho, Lin-Manuel opened the performance with an original rap, once again asserting his status as the musical genius that he is. And then, Cravalho once again asserted herself as one of the industry’s newest shining stars with an excellent performance of the song. Also, kudos to her for handling the moment when one of the flag twirlers behind her accidentally hit her with a flag like a champ. You had one job, flag twirler! Then, Sting came out to perform his song ‘The Empty Chair’ from the documentary Jim: The James Foley Story. As I said in my ‘Predictions’ post, I think it’s a decent song. The best part of his performance, though, was the finale, when a final image of James Foley appeared on-screen with a great quote from him about the importance of journalism. Finally, John Legend performed a medley of the two nominated songs from La La Land; ‘City of Stars’ and ‘Audition (The Fools Who Dream)’. While he did do a great job with the performance, I’ll admit that I’m rather mixed on him being the one performing the songs. Why not just let Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone do them, instead of just having the two of them introduce him? Ah, well…

BEST: AS USUAL, SOME GREAT SPEECHES

As always, there were some great speeches from this year’s award winners. Some were great because of how personal they were while others were great for their powerful political statements. In the case of the former, this included Mahershala Ali’s speech when he won Best Supporting Actor, in which he noted that he and his wife just had a baby a few days earlier (good for you, man!), Viola Davis’ amazing speech when she won Best Supporting Actress (“I became an artist, and thank god I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”) and the speech by sound engineer Kevin O’Connell, who won for Best Sound Mixing for Hacksaw Ridge. In his speech, he thanked his mom, who helped him get his first job in the film industry. It’s also worth noting that this was his 21^st Academy Award nomination… and his first win. He’s got more Oscar nominations than Meryl Streep. He was previously nominated for films like the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, Transformers, and The Rock. As for the more political speeches, the most notable of the bunch was when The Salesman won for Best Foreign Film. Prior to the show, controversy arose when it was revealed that, due to Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban, director Asghar Farhadi would’ve been barred from entering the U.S., therefore being unable to attend the show. In response, Farhadi decided to skip out on attending; instead, when the film won the award, it was accepted by Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian astronaut to go up into space, and Firouz Naderi, a former NASA employee who was involved in some of NASA’s most iconic robotic space missions. Ansari then proceeded to read a prepared speech from Farhadi, in which he honored those who, like him, were affected by the ban. In short, while he may not have been there to say it himself, Farhadi had one of the best speeches of the night. Speaking of Ol’ Don…

BEST: THIS JAB AT DONALD TRUMP

Obviously, a few jokes from last night’s ceremony were directed squarely at Donald Trump. For me, the funniest of these occurred about halfway through the show. Jimmy Kimmel pointed out that, at that point, Trump hadn’t made any inflammatory remarks on Twitter, as he, of course, is known to do. In response, Kimmel sent out a tweet asking Trump if he’s up; a tweet which, might I add, somehow appeared online BEFORE he ‘posted it’ during the show. And then, he proceeded to post another tweet with the hashtag #Merylsayshi, which of course references the backlash that Meryl Streep got from Trump and his fan-base when she made her big speech at the Golden Globes back in January condemning some of his actions during the election. In other words, the one that got called ‘overrated’ got the last laugh…

BEST: FREE CANDY!

During the 86^th Academy Awards, host Ellen DeGeneres ordered pizza for the no-doubt very hungry Oscar crowd. Last year, host Chris Rock had a Girl Scout troop sell cookies in the audience. So, what did Jimmy Kimmel do this year to continue this apparent new tradition? He parachuted candy down from the theater roof, specifically Red Vines and Junior Mints. He did it again a second time, after doing a Lion King recreation with Sunny Pawar, who played young Saroo in Lion, sending down Lemonheads and Mike and Ike’s. This resulted in a rather hilarious ‘gif-able’ moment in which we see Casey Affleck looking up as the second batch of candy parachuted down. I was originally then going to say ‘someone get that man some candy, damn it!’, which was a reference to a tweet that the website The A.V. Club posted, but then I watched the footage on replay and noticed that Andrew Garfield tossed some candy over to him during the first round of candy dropping. And, finally, Kimmel gave the crowd something a little bit more ‘substantial’… cookies and donuts. Cue another hilarious crowd reaction, this time from Taraji P. Henson, which is fitting due to her playing a character named Cookie on Empire. You could see her urging her Hidden Figures co-star Octavia Spencer to share. In short, this was a fun little recurring segment which, to reference another tweet (this one by AMC Theaters), is something that I wouldn’t mind seeing happen in real life whenever we go to the theater. Just parachute down some Zours, Sour Patch, or Skittles and I’ll be a happy camper.

BEST: THE ‘HOLLYWOOD TOURISTS’

I’ll admit that there was a possibility that this gag could’ve turned out to be a disaster but, thankfully, it didn’t. It started when Jimmy Kimmel announced that he had orchestrated a plan in which a bunch of tourists on one of those Hollywood tour buses were to be led into the theater during the show, under the guise of it being for an Oscar dress exhibit (“And, in a way, it’s true, they will see dresses and gowns but they will be on people.”). When they were led in, on the count of ‘3, 2, 1, Mahershala!’, I must say that it was a cool little moment, seeing regular tourists interact with Hollywood stars. Highlights from this segment included Denzel Washington acting as a faux priest for a soon-to-be-married couple (“It’s Denzel, so it’s legal!”) and each of the tourists getting to touch Mahershala Ali’s Oscar on the way out. The only real downside to this segment was that it admittedly was a bit overlong, though not to the point where it ruined the whole thing. 

BEST: THE ‘ACTORS/ACTRESSES WHO INSPIRED ME’ SEGMENTS

(Disclaimer: Not the actual title; it’s just the best that I could come up with)

Another neat recurring segment that they did for this year’s show were a series of videos in which an actor or actress was seen sitting in a theater, watching a classic film, and praising the work of one of the film’s stars. After the video concluded, we then saw those two come out on stage together to announce the next award. Charlize Theron presented the award for Best Foreign Film with Shirley MacLaine after praising her work in the 1960 classic The Apartment. Javier Bardem praised Meryl Streep for her work in 1995’s The Bridges of Madison County before coming out together to announce Best Cinematography. The other two videos… well, I’ll get to those in a bit. Again, I thought this was a nice addition to the show. I’ve seen some be a bit more critical on these videos for mainly being montage-based. However, the reason why I appreciated them was because they celebrated iconic performances through the eyes of actors and actresses who were inspired by them. In fact, I honestly wouldn’t mind if they brought this back every year. As for my favorite of this year’s bunch…

BEST MOMENT OF THE NIGHT: SETH ROGEN AND MARTY MCFLY

For his ‘Actors/Actresses who Inspired Me’ segment, Seth Rogen highlighted the 1985 classic, and my personal favorite film of all time, Back to the Future. Cut to him and Michael J. Fox stepping out of the DeLorean to announce the winner for Best Editing, complete with Rogen wearing the iconic self-tying shoes from Back to the Future Part II. As if that wasn’t awesome enough, Rogen then proceeded to do something else on his ‘bucket list’; sing a song from Hamilton onstage. He sang part of ‘The Schuyler Sisters’ while Michael J. Fox chimed in with the lyric ‘Eliza’. Cue the appropriate response from Lin-Manuel Miranda in the audience and you have one of the most awesome things that I’ve ever seen. And yes, I know I’m clearly biased because I love Back to the Future and have also been on a Hamilton binge recently.  

BEST/HILARIOUS: THE MEAN TWEETS

Of course, being that this year’s show was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, he got to use his popular ‘Mean Tweets’ gag, in which actors read trolling tweets from real-life Twitter users. As usual, it was hilarious to see some of the responses from the actors targeted by these mean tweets, as they were all clearly taking them like a champ. Some of my favorites include Natalie Portman responding to a tweet saying that she probably wouldn’t order an entrée at lunch by showing off her pregnant belly (which is why she didn’t attend the ceremony) and remarking “you’re wrong” to the user who sent that tweet, Jessica Chastain being confused (as I’m sure many of us were) by a user tweeting that they’d ‘white balance their TV on her chest’, and Robert De Niro responding to a tweet claiming that he’s “too old to be making gangster films” and should “start playing grandfather roles” by saying that he already does play grandfather roles and will soon be playing ‘great-grandfather roles’.  

BEST: IN MEMORIAM

As usual, the saddest moment of the show was the ‘In Memoriam’ montage. This year’s montage was particularly rough given the large number of celebrity deaths that occurred since the last Oscars, including but not limited to; Gene Wilder, Anton Yelchin, and of course, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. In fact, that same day, we were hit with yet another passing; that of Bill Paxton, who got mentioned by Jennifer Aniston during her introduction of the segment. During the segment, Sara Bareilles performed the song ‘Both Sides, Now’, providing a nice melody for the moment. And I know that this segment of the show always gets flak for excluding a few names here and there but at the end of the day, it’s still always the most emotional moment of the show and this year’s montage concluded on the perfect note with Carrie Fisher, as Leia, saying the iconic line “May the Force be With You”. The only real mistake of this year’s montage was when they honored Australian costume designer Janet Patterson… but used a photo of Australian producer Jan Chapman, who is still alive. Whoops...

BEST: JIMMY KIMMEL’S TROLLING OF MATT DAMON

If you’re familiar with Jimmy Kimmel, then you’ll know that he’s had a long-running feud with Matt Damon, which has resulted in some of his show’s most iconic moments. Obviously, that feud was brought up again during the Oscars; in fact, it even came up during the opening monologue. But, in this moment, Kimmel surprisingly complimented Damon, though obviously in a backhanded way, by noting that Damon was originally set to star in Manchester by the Sea before the role went to Casey Affleck… and then went on to star in the rather controversial The Great Wall (“Smooth move, dumbass!”). But, ultimately, Kimmel’s biggest joke on Damon came when he and Ben Affleck came out to announce the winner for Best Original Screenplay. Prior to them coming out, there was another one of the previously mentioned segments in which an actor/actress praises the work of another actor/actress in a classic film of theirs. In this case, however, it was Jimmy Kimmel who was featured in this segment as he talked about a film that ‘inspired’ him, the 2011 film that Damon starred in, We Bought a Zoo. After that segment, the show’s announcer announced the next two presenters as Ben Affleck… and guest. And then, to top it all off, the usual ‘send-off’ music that’s sometimes played during an award winner’s speech (which, might I add, thankfully didn’t happen at all during this year’s ceremony) began to play while Damon was talking. The camera then panned down to reveal that Kimmel was leading the orchestra at that moment (“Wrap it up, we want to go home!”). What can I say? It would’ve been a missed opportunity had Kimmel not pulled this kind of move.

Time to talk about the only negative moment of this year’s show, in my opinion. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything during the show itself.

WORST: SOME OF THE BACKLASH TOWARDS LA LA LAND

Now, let me be clear for a moment; this is not in regards to what happened at the end of the show (I’ll get into that momentarily). I’m happy that Moonlight won Best Picture, as it is a great film that earned all the praise it got. But, going back to what I said in my ‘Predictions’ post, I still don’t understand some of the backlash that was being directed towards La La Land in the weeks leading up to the Oscars. Obviously, part of that backlash was from those who weren’t too big on the film. And that’s fine; film is subjective, after all. The side of this backlash that I didn’t get was the fact that some said that it would’ve been a huge mistake if La La Land swept the awards. To that, I ask… HOW? Seriously, what the hell would’ve been so wrong with La La Land winning a good chunk of this year’s Oscars? Because it was a musical about Hollywood that starred a predominantly white cast? Sure, that’s what it is on a technical level but I feel like this backlash severely negates the positive themes of the film. At its core, La La Land was a story about dreamers and romance, while also not being totally romanticized in how it addressed both these themes. With that said, I am aware that the main reason why many wanted Moonlight to win was due to the importance of its story. Instead of being a tale dedicated to classic Hollywood, like La La Land was, Moonlight was a personal story about a young African-American man struggling with his sexuality and identity in a rough neighborhood. Not only that, this became the first Best Picture winner to have an all-African-American cast.

But here’s the thing... if Moonlight didn’t win Best Picture last night, and La La Land did, that wouldn’t have diminished the importance of the former’s story in any way. Hell, Moonlight won Best Adapted Screenplay which, if you ask me, is probably the next best thing for the film to win (after Best Picture, of course) in terms of its story. La La Land didn’t even win Best Original Screenplay; Manchester by the Sea did. Again, if some of you out there didn’t like La La Land, that’s fine. No one’s forcing you to like it. But I swear, some people out there acted like the frigging world was going to blow up if La La Land won the biggest award of the night. Talk about one of the most extreme cases of hyperbole that I’ve ever seen. You see, this, folks, is why I don’t like to get very political when it comes to talking about film, hence why I’m not going to address the other big backlash of this year’s ceremony, which was mainly in regards to Casey Affleck winning Best Actor in the wake of the two sexual harassment lawsuits he got caught up in back in 2010. Because like I said before, those two lawsuits had NOTHING to do with Manchester by the Sea. In conclusion, to quote Jimmy Kimmel during the closing monologue, “it’s just an awards show”. There is no right or wrong in terms of who wins.

WTF: THAT MIX-UP

And now, here we are. We’ve finally come to what will forever be known as the definitive moment of the 89^th Academy Awards; the mix-up of La La Land and Moonlight for the biggest award of the night. It all started when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway came out to announce Best Picture, with the two being paired together in honor of the 50^th anniversary of their classic film, Bonnie and Clyde. When the envelope was opened, Beatty hesitated for a bit before giving it over to Dunaway, who announced that La La Land had won. The film’s crew came up to accept the award but while looking behind them while they were up on stage, you could see that something was up as a few Oscar crew members were scrambling around. And then La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz came to the mic, announcing that there was a mistake. Moonlight was the real winner for Best Picture, resulting in the Oscars equivalent of when Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner at the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. So, now the question is this, what the heck happened in that moment? Well, not too long after the Moonlight crew came up to accept the award, Beatty returned to the mic and stated that the envelope that he had read ‘Emma Stone, La La Land’, which was for when Stone won Best Actress, hence why he hesitated at first. When Emma Stone was later asked about the situation, she stated that she had been holding her ‘Best Actress’ envelope that whole time. But then how did Beatty have that same envelope? Finally, this incident was explained by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the U.K.-based accounting firm in charge of tallying votes. They had made two sets of envelopes for each of the 24 winners; these two sets were then placed at opposite sides of the stage. So, clearly, someone must’ve just given Beatty and Dunaway the wrong envelope.

And there you have it, one of the craziest moments in Oscars history. And overall, while it’s undoubtedly one of the most genuinely surprising moments in recent Oscars history, it’s also quite a crappy situation in regards to how it impacted everyone who was involved in it. One of these people was, of course, Warren Beatty, who I’m guessing is currently becoming the butt of many internet jokes and memes. To that, I say… knock it off, it wasn’t his fault. Again, he hesitated when he opened that envelope, so it’s not like this was intentional or anything; he knew something was up. Then, of course, this was definitely a crappy moment for the cast and crew of La La Land. Going back to what I said about the ‘backlash’ towards the film, if you didn’t like the film, that’s fine. But after what happened last night, can I ask those who didn’t like it to at least take it easy on them? Because I think that we can all agree that it sucks to go through what happened to them in that moment. Hell, just ask Ariadna Gutierrez (she was the one who was announced by Steve Harvey as the winner of Miss Universe by mistake). Not only that, it even had a negative impact on Moonlight because it wasn’t a clean victory for them. Had this mistake not occurred and the proper envelope was opened, we wouldn’t be here right now. Again, let me be clear, I have nothing against Moonlight winning Best Picture. It may have only been my #3 pick out of the 9 Best Picture nominees but it was truly a great film that genuinely earned that award. But I’m guessing that even the filmmakers are thinking to themselves, “That could’ve gone better…”

And those are my thoughts on this year’s Academy Awards. This sure was an eventful ceremony. With that in mind, be sure to sound off in the comments below with your thoughts on them, particularly the big mix-up.

Jason Bourne (2016) review

In 2002, Matt Damon took on what would arguably become his most famous role to date, Jason Bourne, in The Bourne Identity, loosely based on the 1980 novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum. Directed by Doug Liman, the film followed the titular amnesiac assassin as he tried to remember his past while staying on the run from his former employers at the CIA. The film was a solid critical and commercial hit but Liman did not return to direct the next two films due to creative conflicts that he had with Universal during its production. Instead, Paul Greengrass took over as director and the series ended up becoming even more successful, resulting in a solid sequel in 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy and culminating in the highly acclaimed third installment of the franchise, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. That film provided a pretty darn conclusive finale to the original trilogy and for quite a long time Damon and Greengrass made it clear that they weren’t planning on doing another film after that. But there was still talk about a potential sequel and so, under the direction of the series’ head writer Tony Gilroy, 2012’s The Bourne Legacy took the series in a different route, focusing in on a different character, Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner, but still taking place within the same timeframe as the other films. Sadly, the film proved to be highly disappointing for fans of the series and it seems as if plans to continue that specific part of the franchise have dissipated for now. And yet, just a few years ago, an unexpected development occurred when it was announced that Damon and Greengrass would indeed return to do another Bourne film. And so, here we are with Jason Bourne, which continues the story of its titular assassin as he begins to uncover even more about his past.

Over the course of the original trilogy, former CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) struggled to remember his past after a failed assassination mission resulted in him getting shot twice in the back and dealt with an extreme case of amnesia. By the end of it all, Bourne learned that his real name was David Webb and that he himself volunteered for the government program that he was once a part of, Treadstone. He then proceeded to expose many of the government’s black ops operations before going off the grid. This new film opens up a decade after the events of Ultimatum, as Bourne is shown to have been participating in illegal fight rings to make a living while at the same time managing to overcome the amnesia that had been affecting him for so long. Meanwhile, Bourne’s former Treadstone ally Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks the CIA’s servers in order to expose their newer black ops programs, specifically one known as ‘Iron Hand’ that is set to utilize assets from many of their former programs like Treadstone and Blackbriar. During this time, she also comes across more information about Bourne, specifically in regards to his late father Richard (Gregg Henry). The CIA, led by director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), catches wind of this intrusion and appoints the head of their cyber ops division, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), to the job of going after Parsons, who meets with Bourne in Greece to relay the information to him. Sure enough, this soon results in Bourne once again being pursued by the CIA as he begins to investigate this new black ops program and, more importantly, find out the truth about why he volunteered for the Treadstone program in the first place.

After the fairly lackluster affair that was The Bourne Legacy, the return of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass to the franchise is most certainly a welcome one. This of course means that the action sequences are all done in Greengrass’ trademark handheld style that utilizes a lot of fast cuts. As with the previous Greengrass-directed Bourne films, this is a style that you either love or hate and as for me, at the very least I will say that Greengrass’ latter two Bourne films have done much better jobs at controlling this shooting style, as well as the rapid editing, compared to his first, Supremacy. As a result, the action sequences are intense and keep you at the edge of your seat from beginning to end. However, there are a few problems that emerge from the writing, which this time around was handled not by Tony Gilroy but by Greengrass and his long-time editor Christopher Rouse. Maybe this is just the consequence of the fact that Ultimatum pretty much concluded the whole mystery surrounding Bourne’s past but the new additions to Bourne’s backstory, which in this film primarily revolve around his father, feel just a bit tacked on. I’m not saying that they’re absolutely ‘terrible’ plot developments but at this point we’ve already gotten a pretty clear sense of who Bourne used to be before he joined Treadstone. Also, the primary plot revolving around an impending social media platform known as Deep Dream created by Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed) is pretty darn undeveloped as well. Sure it does its job of maintaining the series’ ‘grounded in realism’ feel, especially when taking into account how much time has passed since Ultimatum, but at the end of the day the stuff with Bourne is what really matters more.

Even after nearly a whole decade since Ultimatum, Matt Damon is once again excellent in the role of Jason Bourne. In the months leading up to the film’s release there was quite a bit of talk over a report that claimed that he would only have about 25 lines in the new film and sure enough, that does seem to be the case as he doesn’t say that much in this film. Still, he does get across all of the emotional turmoil that Bourne has gone through over the years just as well as he did in the previous films. As Nicky Parsons, Julia Stiles is the only primary member of the previous trilogy’s cast to return. She too does a good job as well though without giving too much away, her role in the film is very minor. Instead, Alicia Vikander takes over as the film’s new female lead and she’s excellent as is her character’s whole motivation and how she works off of, and in some cases with, Bourne. The same goes for Tommy Lee Jones in the role of CIA director Dewey but for me one of the best additions to the cast is Vincent Cassel, who plays one of the CIA’s assassins, referred to only as ‘the Asset’, that is brought in to go after Bourne. This series has seen plenty of memorable CIA-backed assassins over the years, from Clive Owen’s ‘Professor’ in Identity to Karl Urban’s Kirill in Supremacy. And yet Cassel actually manages to be arguably the most layered of the bunch. It’s established that due to Bourne’s actions in Ultimatum, the ‘Asset’, who was a member of the CIA’s Blackbriar program, had been captured and tortured due to the program being leaked, giving him quite a personal grudge towards Bourne. And, again, without giving anything major away, we come to learn that Bourne has his own reasons to hold a grudge against him, resulting in one excellent conflict between the two.

Jason Bourne is a pretty solid return to form for this franchise, and that of course is primarily due to the return of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass. Some might argue that this film wasn’t really necessary due to the finality of the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum but at the very least their return is much appreciated, especially after the lackluster attempt at a spin-off a few years ago that neither of them were involved with. As a result of their return, the series very much returns to its roots, namely in regards to its unique though still very much polarizing handheld shooting, fast editing style that produces some incredible and tension-filled action sequences. Admittedly the writing isn’t as strong this time around which, again, could just be a result of Ultimatum wrapping everything up pretty neatly, but the film makes up for it with an excellent ensemble cast and the aforementioned technical mastery of Greengrass’ direction. So in short, I wouldn’t necessarily call this film the best of the series. If I were to rank this film alongside the other three Damon films (not counting Legacy in this case because, well, it’s not really worth bringing up at this point), I’d probably rank it above Supremacy but below Identity and Ultimatum. Still, while the film may not necessarily reach the same amazing heights as its predecessors, it’s still a very entertaining, fast-paced, and overall still very engrossing spy thriller that gives audiences another opportunity to go on an adventure with one of cinema’s most badass action heroes.  

Rating: 4/5

Jason Bourne (2002-2012) Franchise Retrospective

This past weekend saw the release of the highly anticipated return of one of cinema’s most famous action heroes; Jason Bourne. The new film, rather fittingly (or lazily depending on who you ask) called Jason Bourne, sees Matt Damon return as the badass former CIA assassin suffering from amnesia and is once again directed by Paul Greengrass, who helmed the latter two of the franchise’s original three installments. It’s a sequel that not many people were expecting would get made, seeing how after 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum it seemed as if the two were done with the franchise. An attempt was made to continue the franchise in 2012, with Jeremy Renner starring in the role of a new character in a film that still took place within the world of the previous Bourne films. Unfortunately for many people it ended up being a rather disappointing affair and while there seemed to be plans to continue this part of the franchise, with Justin Lin at one point attached to direct a fifth installment starring Renner’s character Aaron Cross, for now it seems like those plans won’t be materializing anytime soon. But perhaps that’s for the better at this point as the new film finally sees the duo of Damon and Greengrass return to the franchise that they made famous. So today, in honor of the release of Jason Bourne, it’s time we look back at the series of action films that are well-regarded for their attempts at developing a sense of realism while also being rather polarizing in regards to their filmmaking style. And yes, that includes both the original Matt Damon trilogy and the spin-off starring Jeremy Renner. These are the Bourne films…

THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002)

Believe it or not, the Bourne franchise did not start off under the direction of Paul Greengrass. Instead, the first film in the series, 2002’s The Bourne Identity, was directed by Doug Liman, director of films like 1996’s smash hit Swingers and 2014’s film fan favorite Edge of Tomorrow. And even though it no doubt ended up getting overshadowed by its two sequels, for a while the first Bourne was actually my personal favorite of the bunch. I think this film did a phenomenal job of doing what every good ‘first film’ in a franchise should do. It solidly sets up the story of its main character Jason Bourne, a man who is found floating adrift in the Mediterranean Sea with two bullets in his back. He has no idea who he is and embarks on a journey to figure out his true identity while also staying on the run from the government program that he may have been involved with. The film as a whole is a solid, well-paced, and well-edited spy thriller and we as an audience are immediately hooked by the mystery surrounding Bourne’s past. And while the action sequences weren’t necessarily shot in the same kind of hand-held style of Greengrass’ later two films, they are still very solid compared to what was to come later. Matt Damon, who apparently got dealt with the equivalent of a ‘superhero casting’ backlash upon being cast in the role, does a phenomenal job as Bourne as does Franka Potente in the role of Bourne’s primary ally Marie. There’s also a few solid supporting roles as well from the likes of Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, and Julia Stiles. In short, while I’m not saying it’s the absolute ‘best’ of the series, The Bourne Identity is a very nice start to this franchise. In fact, I have to agree with fellow film critic Chris Stuckmann in that this film is arguably the most layered of the franchise when it comes to story and character depth.

Rating: 4.5/5

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004)

Thanks to the success of Identity, a sequel was put into development and released two years later; The Bourne Supremacy. This time around, however, Doug Liman did not return as director due to creative conflicts that he had with the studio during production of the first film. So instead, Paul Greengrass was hired primarily due to his work on the film Bloody Sunday. And with Greengrass’ hiring, the series truly adopted its trademark style of handheld camerawork, a style that proved to be rather polarizing amongst critics and audiences. As for me, I’ll admit that I too am rather mixed on it. I appreciate what the filmmakers are trying to do in putting us right there in the middle of the action and they do succeed in that regard. However, my issue with this shooting style actually stems with the editing, which is very fast and does a lot of cuts during scenes like this to the point where sometimes it’s hard to tell where everything is spatially. By comparison, while there were some instances of ‘fast cuts’ in the previous film, Supremacy does it much more frequently. Sure this does a nice job of setting up the frenetic nature of the plot but it can get rather annoying at times. And to be perfectly frank, I think Supremacy is the weakest of the original trilogy. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think that this is a well-done spy thriller that is pretty darn well-paced and the main plot of this film, in which Bourne finds himself having to go back on the run when he’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit, during which he finds out more about his past, is still pretty darn engaging. Plus, Greengrass definitely upped the ante when it came to giving the series a nice sense of gritty realism. However, it wouldn’t be until the next film when he truly perfected his style into making a finely-tuned spy thriller based around Matt Damon’s once again excellent turn as Jason Bourne.

Rating: 4/5

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007)

Now given everything that I just said about Supremacy, some of you might think that I have similar feelings to Greengrass’ second film in the franchise, The Bourne Ultimatum… and yet that’s actually not the case. Ultimatum is easily the best of the original trilogy and quite frankly one of the best action films of the past few years. Because whereas Greengrass’ fast-editing and handheld style sometimes faltered in certain parts of Supremacy, he perfected this style with Ultimatum. As a result, this film flows much more smoothly and while it’s still very much an action-oriented film, this time around the story is structured much better. It does a very nice job at concluding the arc that Bourne (aka David Webb, his ‘real name’) goes through in this trilogy while also making the CIA agents going after him a legitimately threatening force to be reckoned with at every turn. All of this ends up giving the film some incredibly tense action sequences, from Bourne trying to protect a reporter that spilled the beans about him and a new government program, Blackbriar, from the CIA in the middle of the congested crowds of London’s Waterloo Station to the scene where Bourne and ally Nicky Parsons (Stiles) try to escape a Blackbriar assassin in Tangier. Sure the fast-cutting handheld style is still in effect for many of the film’s action sequences but I didn’t find it as annoying as it sometimes got in Supremacy. And that is why The Bourne Ultimatum not only serves as a fitting conclusion to the original Bourne trilogy but is also its finest installment; it’s a well-oiled, fantastically acted, and strongly directed spy thriller from beginning to end. If you recall, initially The Bourne Identity was my personal favorite of the franchise but upon re-watch, I think that honor now goes to Ultimatum.

Rating: 5/5!

THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012)

With The Bourne Ultimatum providing a pretty darn conclusive end to the story of Jason Bourne (at least that was the case until the new film), it seemed very much clear that Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass were done with the franchise. And yet in 2012, Universal moved on without the two of them and attempted to take the series in a brand new direction. Tony Gilroy, who had been the primary writer for all three of the previous films, took over directorial duties for this fourth installment, The Bourne Legacy. This time around, the focus shifted onto Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), an operative in another government program, Outcome. The film opens up around the same time as the events of Ultimatum, which effectively leads to the government shuttering all of their programs and wiping out all of their agents, which includes Cross. In the months leading up to its release, the film’s marketing kept pushing its connections to the original trilogy. I even remember a specific ad in which Cross stated that he was “going to finish what ‘he’ [Bourne] started”. However, that’s really not the case at all with this film. Sure there are a few cameos from the cast of Ultimatum (e.g. Joan Allen, David Strathairn, etc.) but there’s only a few mentions of the events of Ultimatum at the beginning of the film and even then they don’t really factor that much into this film’s plot. And that quote about Cross finishing what Bourne started? Yeah that line isn’t in the film… well, actually it is but it wasn’t at all connected to Bourne. Heck, Cross doesn’t even follow in Bourne’s footsteps whatsoever in this film. Literally the whole plot revolves around him trying to acquire the meds that Outcome agents take to become physically and mentally enhanced government agents.

And that pretty much translates to the fact that this film as a whole is pretty darn dull. It’s very light on action and yet it’s somehow the longest of the series at 2 hours and 15 minutes long whereas the previous three films were all under two hours each. It certainly doesn’t have the same fast pacing of the Damon films, that’s for sure. As for the action sequences that are in there, Gilroy opted to not go with the same handheld shooting style that Greengrass utilized in his films. For those who weren’t that big a fan of that style that may seem like a good thing but in reality that style is what allowed this series to stand out in the first place. As a result, the action sequences in this film are fairly lackluster compared to the other films. Now from a technical perspective, the film is decently shot, edited, directed and what not. I think Jeremy Renner is perfectly fine in the lead role of Aaron Cross. The same goes for Rachel Weisz as Cross’ main ally Dr. Marta Shearing, though with that said their on-screen chemistry is rather weak. Sadly, Edward Norton is quite underused in the role of Eric Byer, the Outcome program’s overseer who goes after Cross the same way that Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper), Ward Abbott (Brian Cox), and Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) pursued Bourne in each of the other three films. And yet Norton unfortunately doesn’t get much to work with here compared to the other three. He doesn’t even share a scene with Cross, at least not in the main story. The only scene that Renner and Norton have together is a flashback scene that quite frankly didn’t really explain anything about how the two of them are supposed to be connected.

I first reviewed this film way back in August 2012 when it originally came out. I was really looking forward to it at the time and had just watched all of the previous Bourne films back-to-back for three straight nights in anticipation of its release. But when I did see it, I’ll admit that I was rather disappointed by it. Sure I may have given it a 3.5/5 in my review but this is definitely one of those cases where I feel that I was being way too generous in regards to giving it a rating. Ultimately, when I did a post on my ‘Top 5 Most Disappointing Films’ in December of that year, I ended up putting it at the number one spot. And after watching it again in preparation for this retrospective… sadly my thoughts on it stay the same. Is it any wonder as to why this ‘review’ was longer compared to the Damon films? This is an extremely bare-bones thriller. The plot is not only rather simple, especially in regards to its measly attempts to connect to the Damon films, but sometimes even a bit confusing, which is a big problem for anyone going into it that hasn’t seen any of the other films. It may take place in the same universe as the Damon films but it ends up being such an insignificant part of it that nothing that happens in this film ultimately matters in the long run. Like I said before, it’s decently made from a technical perspective and I do feel that Jeremy Renner was perfectly capable of taking over for Matt Damon as the star of the franchise. But at the end of the day, the writing just wasn’t there for him and as a result, this unfortunately ended up being a failed attempt to continue the Bourne franchise without the involvement of its original star and primary director.

Rating: 2.5/5

In conclusion, here’s how I rank these four films;

4. THE BOURNE LEGACY

3. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

2. THE BOURNE IDENTITY

1. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM