The Bourne Identity (2002) Movie Review

Director: Doug Liman

Writers: Tony Gilroy, W. Black Herron

Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potenta, Chris Cooper

Amnesia is the focus of many films and generally, those films end up being either entertaining or fantastic. Memento is one of the best films I have ever seen and let’s be honest, if he didn’t have amnesia in that; it would have been pretty boring. Before I Go To Sleep came out just last year and from what I have seen heard and read about it, it is certainly not a bad movie. I feel that it’s safe to say that it is a subject matter with huge cinematic potential. Aided by the amnesiac premise, The Bourne Identity succeeds at blending the expected unravelling mystery with engaging action scenes.

The film opens with a living man being hauled onto a fishing boat. The man wakes up finds that he has been shot twice and is understandably agitated. The opening of the film is brilliantly suspenseful acting as the wind that sends the character boulders tumbling down plot mountain. The reason the scene stands out so much to me is that it refrains from just yelling information at you. Every time a film opens with a voiceover from the main character, I fill with rage and proceed to hate that character for the rest of time. The amount that you know at different points in the film is the exact same as Jason Bourne (that’s the name of the guy who got shot by the way). Memento also did this very well but decided it wanted to go one step further and do everything backwards, making you feel even more like an amnesiac.

I have heard a lot of praise for the fight scenes in this series as a whole but that portion of the action never particularly blew me away. When I was re-watching this, and a fight broke out, I struggled to keep the groans in when some of the worst sound effects I have ever heard reveal themselves. If you want me to not take your clearly serious fight scene seriously, using these sound effects is a quick to get there. They really did not support the praise bestowed upon the scenes.

The parts of the action that I loved the film were the cool, quick-thinking spy moments. Jason Bourne is a spy. It would be quite hard not to notice that considering he is holding a gun and looking cool on all the posters and the DVD cover. As a spy, he knows what to do in every situation and he is going to be enjoyable to watch when he’s doing it. The content in these scenes is excellent. He can escape from group of SWAT operatives just by walking up and down some stairs for a bit and he can even outsmart a fellow agent… two times. It’s great to see him being put into increasingly dire circumstances and muscling his way out.

As an amplifier to the quality of these scenes, no music plays! That never happens in movies. It is obvious that a good score can make an OK film fantastic. What is less obvious is that having no music at all can make scenes far more tense and suspenseful. Top-notch idea, lads!

While this film is a cracking beginning to one of the best action series in film history I feel that it doesn’t reach the levels or stakes of Supremacy or Ultimatum and Legacy is just its own thing that honestly doesn’t deserve to be called a Bourne film.

This being said, there is not a person I could not recommend this movie to. Suspense and tension are utilised incredibly well and everyone loves a bit of suspense and tension. The Bourne Identity is a big player in the amnesia category of film and for good reason.

The Bourne Identity receives an: 8/10

Interstellar (2014) Movie Review

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Mackenzie Foy

Christopher Nolan has one of the most impressive filmographies in cinema history. It is almost certain at this point that he has positively propelled himself into the imaginary directorial hall of fame. While Interstellar isn’t my favourite of Nolan’s films, it certainly doesn’t drop the confusingly entertaining ball.

Whilst watching the movie, it was extremely difficult not to draw obvious parallels to Inception. They are almost identical thematically (Anyone who has seen Inception would know that this is definitely not a bad thing). The films have different settings but at their core, is a story of a father trying to return to their children. In terms of this so-called ‘man’, I much prefer the character of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) in Interstellar to Cobb in Inception. Since the whole story is about the parental relationship, your belief of the relationship is paramount. In Inception you get one reused shot of some children in a garden but in Interstellar you get countless scenes with two great characters with great chemistry having very interesting dialogue. There is scene where Cooper is talking to his daughter’s teachers and just verbally backhands them and then jokingly breaks the news to her that he has gotten her suspended. It is a brilliantly memorable performance and most importantly; you just want Cooper to succeed because of how much he makes you like him.

The leading man is not the only great thing the movie has to bring to the table. There are some images the movie provides that have welded themselves deeply to my central nervous system and I haven’t been able to get them out of my head since I have seen it. In my opinion, the most impressive sequence (visually) in the entire movie is when the crew go through a wormhole (this isn’t a spoiler, the movie’s called Interstellar for god’s sake). As the ship eclipses the hole, it appears flat like the animated Chicken Little movie. It was an utterly jaw-dropping shot. It was as if something had glued the Hubble deep space image onto the inside of a Jupiter sized steel drum. When they went in it, I believe I recall my mind melting due to sheer mind numbing awesome. There were multiple times I found my mouth slightly agape.

One criticism I have heard from my friends and other life forms is about the complexity of the movie. I personally loved how much I had to think about the story as we were pulled along through it. Imagine a movie in which people go to other planets and things happen. I can think of ludicrous amounts of movies that can be described in that way and I’m happy to say that Interstellar isn’t one of them. It’s complexity means that it will be talked about in years to come much like Inception and Memento. If you said that the plot-driving ending is rather convenient, you would be rather correct if you have seen the movie, let’s be honest, you didn’t see that ending coming.

A definite criticism that I personally have of the movie is that it felt too long. They could have probably cut out a character that appears later on and not have hindered the movie too badly.  Everything that is in the movie certainly has a reason to be there but it did make it feel like time was slowing down at some points *wink*.

Interstellar is a solid addition to the list of Nolan movies that look incredible and question how much time you have to constantly think about it later. Its title is deceptive, its characters are great and its visuals are vibrant and memorable to say the least. While it wasn’t able to reversely murder Memento as my favourite Nolan movie, I see it being worshipped as Inception’s younger (yet equal) brother in the coming years.

Speaking of Memento, there is a line in Interstellar where Anne Hathaway says that you can’t travel backwards in time. Probably not a reference but I can certainly hope it is. In any case…

Recommendation Status: Unmissable

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Ocean's Eleven (2001) Movie Review

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writers: Ted Griffin, Harry Brown, Charles Lederer

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia

If you take nothing else away from this movie, just remember that the greatest heist of all time requires the suavest and suave men in the world. So basically, George Clooney.

First things first, this movie is really interesting to watch. You would expect that the most enjoyable bit is the heist itself but I found it really fun just to watch the plan come together and for all the characters to play their own special roles in the heist. Most of these characters are also really memorable. I found myself enjoying every part of the movie that had a character in it (especially if they were played by George Clooney, Brad Pitt of Matt Damon).

Unfortunately, for a viewer to truly understand a plan that goes into a heist as complex as this, it must be explained to them rather clearly, the movie forgets to do this. The line between setup for the heist and the heist itself was exceedingly blurred and I often had very little idea what was going to happen next (which was both good and bad). I thought it would have been cool for the characters to be such criminal masterminds that they can say they are going to do something and just do it without fail and still be suave as hell. This kind of did happen but Clooney never seemed like ‘oh no they are going to have me under surveillance at all times’. On top of this, the supposedly unexpected mini-twist at the end was rather predictable. All of these things are rather minor though.

Ocean’s Eleven makes robbing a casino look remarkably easy but doesn’t really explain to the viewer how they actually did it. The ending was rather underwhelming and predictable but despite these minor inconveniences that characters make this movie so endlessly enjoyable to watch and certainly compelled me to watch Ocean’s Twelve. Definitely worth your time and your money if you can accept the fact that at some points you won’t have a clue what the characters are doing.

Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!