The Bourne Ultimatum - Paul Greengrass is a geinus. That's right - the guy who wrote that United 93 was overrated is calling Paul Greengrass a genius. He's got to be considered the top action director in Hollywood right now on the strength of his two Bourne sequels. I haven't decided whether I like Ultimatum more than Supremacy, which had one of the best car chase sequences of all time. The Manhattan car chase in Ultimatum doesn't match Supremacy's climactic Moscow tunnel sequence, but Ultimatum is superior in other ways. For one thing, I like how there are multiple assassins who duel with Bourne. Plus, there's that amazing great running-on-rooftops/jumping-through-windows/kicking-ass sequence. The final revelation about Bourne's identity isn't as earth-shattering as I had expected, but I'd still give this movie an exemplary 2.5 PB Jars.
The Kingdom - I didn't really buy the team chemistry when Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Chris Cooper investigate a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. However, I let that slide because I was sucked into the story by the midway point. Sometimes movies feel too current and too political to be entertaining, but The Kingdom walks that fine line pretty successfully. Arrested Development fans, be prepared to see your boy get his ass handed to him by some Saudi extremists. 2.0 PB Jars
Failure to Launch - Scoff if you want, but this was a light-heartedly hilarious movie. The cast is very likable (with the possible exception of Sarah Jessica Parker, though she was aight). Best scene: The Daily Show's Rob Cordry plays a sheepish gun salesman. His performance, though brief, is an instant classic. 2.0 PB Jars
Rescue Dawn - This movie sucked. Critics who gushed about this movie should be ashamed. I'm not gonna give it a 0.0 rating or anything, probably because I have man-love for Christian Bale and can't bear the thought. Still, this movie sucked. It was boring. It felt like a re-make of other Vietnam movies. Part of the problem is that it's based on one guy's memoir (a German immigrant who joined the U.S. Navy during Vietnam), and you can tell that the guy did everything possible to make himself look like a hero in the story. I'm not saying that surviving in a Viet Cong prison camp was easy; it just wasn't very interesting in this case. Steve Zahn was pretty worthless as the second lead actor. I can't recommend this movie in good conscience, unless you really admire Christian Bale's method acting and want to see him drop some LB's like he did for The Machinist. 0.5 PB Jar
Batman Begins - After seeing the 6-minute prologue for The Dark Knight during the I Am Legend IMAX previews, I was pumped to re-watch Begins. It's even more enjoyable the second time around. I still think the movie is a little on the long side, but otherwise it's a flawless comic book adaptation. Not that I'm going to miss Katie Holmes, who bows out of the series in favor of Maggie Gyllenhall in Dark Knight. 3 PB Jars
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - I endeavored to watch it straight through during Christmas week, but it proved impossible to find a 10-hour block of uninterrupted time. Nevertheless, I'd highly recommend watching the three movies on back-to-back-to-back days. They really do play like three chapters of one giant movie. Having never read the Tolkien books, I understood the story and characters much better this time around. And as epic trilogies go, LOTR rivals The Godfather and Star Wars - and in my opinion, surpasses them both. 3 PB Jars
1 comment:
wow, you are such a nerd. LOTR surpasses The Godfather trilogy? not bloody likely. now that i'm done with bschool apps, i better get on my game and start reviewing movies so that our blog readers don't have to put up with such trash.
side note - rescue dawn is currently sitting in my dvd player, waiting for me to press play. should i reconsider?
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