Better than Identity, Bourne still remote

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2004)

I sat for two hours watching "The Bourne Supremacy" with a full audience at a 3:00 afternoon show. After the first twenty minutes, I could not concentrate for too long because I grew dizzy (added to that, I kept hearing an old guy snoring behind me). The dizziness was due to the constant hand-held camerawork, relentless to the point that the camera shakes more violently during an action sequence or a fistfight. And yet this movie is far more enjoyable than "The Bourne Identity," a bland thriller that coasted along its own bland energy.

The movie jumps into high action gears immediately. The slowly-getting-out-of-his-amnesiac-shell Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is now living in India with his girlfriend, Marie (Franka Potente), shut out from the rest of the world. Of course, like any Robert Ludlum spy thriller, you can't keep a good assassin down for long. Bourne notices a man dressed in the wrong clothes and driving the wrong car near the streets of this Indian pueblo - someone is after him and wants him killed. Bourne whisks Marie away in his jeep, crashes off a bridge, falls deep underwater, and tries to rescue Marie. Unfortunately, she is dead (and don't expect her to come back a la "Run Lola Run's" time-twisting narrative). So who is after Bourne? It turns out that Bourne is accused of killing someone during a CIA mission - his fingerprints are planted there! This begs the question: who got his fingerprints? Definitely not the Russian assassin who tried to kill Bourne in the opening sequence. Or maybe the hand-held camerawork swayed from any details that couldn't stay on screen longer than two seconds.

Bourne wants to clear his name. He goes after Pamela Landy (Joan Allen - always a welcome presence), a new agent who wants the truth as much as Bourne does. The trouble is that this Ludlum antihero is always one step ahead of everyone, including Landy and the reptilian CIA boss, Ward Abbott (Brian Cox). He travels from Naples to Berlin to Moscow, always evading the CIA. In one chilling moment, Bourne aims his telescopic rifle at the unaware Landy while communicating via cell phone. And he is still one hell of a fighter, even disabling someone with a rolled-up magazine! And boy, can this guy move! He jumps with the ease of a Jackie Chan and, at times, resembles a superhero with his dark overcoat. Oh, and he can do wonders with toasters!

The movie is murky with details and conspiracy rings, particularly involving Abbott who you know is as corrupt as anyone in the entire movie. We are never sure who or what is responsible or why. We just get carried along by Bourne's continuous search for the truth, especially the possibility that he murdered a Russian in Berlin (an apparent introductory drill into the life of an assassin).

"The Bourne Supremacy" is dense with details that do not amount to much. It is sort of a latter-day "The Fugitive" with Bourne visiting hotels, apartments, train stations - they serve as reminders of long-forgotten memories that can trigger his cabeza to dispel truths he wants the CIA to uncover. Yet we still never discover who this Jason Bourne really is. After two movies, we just know he is an able assassin and a quick-as-lighting fighter - Damon plays him as a robot with no sense of humor. Realistically, it makes sense but it can get on your nerves. To be fair, he seems more threatening than he was in "Identity" and we do get carried along by his charisma.

As for the interminable hand-held camerawork, it is unfathomable how director Paul Greengrass thought this was the best way to shoot. The camera swings between 180 to 360 degrees, rotating and panning with barely much stabilization. Some people on the movie discussion boards said it was a way of "implying action." How can you imply when you can't tell what may or may not be implied? Still, I grew accustomed to it (and the use of long lenses where there would be out-of-focus shots) but it could have used the more rapid-fire, stabilized approach of John Frankeheimer's "Ronin" or William Friedkin's "The French Connection." I will say that the climactic car chase involving a taxicab and a SUV is about as exciting as car chases ever get, and the hand-held camera approach exemplifies it.

"The Bourne Supremacy" is entertaining enough for its two-hour running time, but it is a hollow, cursory thriller. We don't know what is really at stake and we learn precious little about Jason Bourne. It is the latest Hollywood thrill ride and it is engaging in a remote way, but it needs more carbs.

Bland Identity

THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2003)

Spy thrillers that deal with secret agents often excite me if they are as dependent on the actions of the characters as much as the mechanics of the plot. For truly spine-tingling spy thrillers, I would recommend two of the best recent ones starring Donald Sutherland, 1991's "Eminent Domain" and 1981's "Eye of the Needle." And for thrilling, in-your-face melodrama dealing with assassins and an implicit touch of humanity, you can't do better than Luc Besson's "Le Femme Nikita." "The Bourne Identity" has some mild pizazz but it never really takes off because the hero never seems to take flight.

Based on Robert Ludlum's best-seller, Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, a highly skilled CIA assassin who is left for dead after attempting to kill an African leader. He is found near the port of Marseilles by a fisherman, is taken aboard, and is found with two bullet wounds and a device with a Swiss bank account number. The fisherman gives him money to go to Switzerland. The only problem is that Jason Bourne has no idea who he is or where he came from - he is a 100% amnesiac who somehow manages to kick and punch with the ease of a martial-arts fighter. He enters a Swiss bank without identification, retrieves his belongings which includes several passports and a gun, and leaves with a noticeably red bag (red as in "alert") while being hounded by CIA agents and efficient assassins. Jason convinces a German gypsy (Franka Potente) to drive him to his residency in Paris for 10,000 dollars. Meanwhile, Jason's boss, Ted Conklin (Chris Cooper), wants to eliminate him for failing his mission and arousing suspicions.

"The Bourne Identity" has the typical premise of corruption at the core of intelligence and makes the assassin amnesiac so that we identify with him through his inner identity search. All fine and dandy but the eventual explanation of why he was set up leaves a lot to be desired, resulting in one too many anticlimaxes. I barely cared enough about Jason Bourne to care about the outcome of his plight. We hardly get to see him in action enough to believe he possesses any ability to kill (to be fair, there is a hair-raising rooftop sequence where Bourne manages to climb down a building). Clive Owen plays another assassin on Bourne's tail and I would preferred if he was cast in the lead role - he brings some spark to the film in his part. It might have been a more unsentimental choice casting Owen but who wants sentiment in a Ludlum adaptation? Though Matt Damon does as well as he can, he is hardly convincing as an assassin and appears to be curiously remote and unaffected in every scene. Consider the excellent "La Femme Nikita" which showcased a character who was human and vulnerable despite being a cold-blooded assassin.

There is no level of urgency or weight to anything that occurs on screen in "The Bourne Identity." Sure, there are indispensable car chases, numerous shootouts, glass breakage and a sex scene (a tame one too considering the rating) but hardly any of it is the least bit exciting or tremulous. A bland hero, bland plot, bland villains - gosh, even popcorn has more taste than this.

May the Shark Farce Be With You

SHARKNADO: THE 4TH AWAKENS (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The latest "Sharknado" sequel reads like a laundry list of cheesily ballish, foolhardy and dunderheaded moments that make your head spin and your mouth salivate at the prospect of "how do we top this?" Accusing this series of being over-the-top is like saying silver-haired Alex Trebek will continue being host of "Jeopardy" for another thirty years - it is a given. So let us go through this laundry list of sheerly and unbelievably stupid moments from this hyped-up cartoon of a movie, shall we? 

Tara Reid returns as April, a half-bionic, half-human, mostly all-functioning Terminatrix badass heroine who can also fly! (She supposedly died in the cliffhanger finale of the last "Sharknado") Ian Ziering, ever the formidable hero who can fight sharknados like nobody's business, is back as Fin and does his usual heroic shenanigans, including landing a car safely on the street after being swept by a sharknado from an improbably high altitude. Oh, there are firenados, bouldernados, lightningnados, even a nuclearnado thanks to sharks whipping their bodies around a nuclear power plant!

Cameos pollute every single frame of this movie. My favorites are Caroline Williams (80's cult movie star from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" and "Stepfather 2") as a chainsaw seller who gets to hold one again for the first time since 1986, and co-founder of Troma Pictures, Lloyd Kaufman who issues warnings about the firenado that could crumble Mt. Rushmore. Steve Guttenberg appears for no discernible reason, presumably tying into his work in "Lavalantula," and Gary Busey actually plays it straight as a mad doctor who reanimated his daughter, April. Oh, and hell to the no with Carrot Top as an Uber Driver in Las Vegas, a presence that can grate my nerves. Oh, Hell to the No Part Deux with Gilbert Gottfried as some sort of field news correspondent who reports on the cownados (The "Twister" cow gag has already been in the series once before). Of course, cameos with these two comedians who are in desperate need of a nasal decongestant is still too much screen time. Stacey Dash also pops up in a hilarious turn as an aggressive politician who meets a Wicked Witch demise. I would like to have seen more of her.

As for new cast members, it is fun watching the ever-beaming Tommy Davidson as Aston, a CEO for Astro X which has helped terminate sharknados for five years. The one and only Dog the Bounty Hunter makes an appearance fleetingly as another chainsaw seller. Other than that, we get the usual gang of returnees from a haggard-looking David Hasselhoff as Fin's father to Natalie Morales and Al Roker as Today's anchors commenting on the sharknado weather patterns. I can't tell if the same actors playing Fin's kids are back or not, and I could care less since you will forget them as soon as they appear.

If anything could be improved with this endless SyFy series, it is finding a filmmaker who can shape and edit scenes together to deliver a payoff. For example, there is a peculiar scene towards the end where the cinematographer for whatever reason could not get a shot of Tara Reid giving mouth-to-mouth to Ian Ziering - did her contract stipulate that no shot can actually show Reid giving mouth-to-mouth to anyone? You see her giving mouth-to-mouth but the screen cuts her off at just above her mouth - huh? Some scenes are so randomly fragmented together during several climaxes that it is hard to tell what is happening to whom. That is the legacy of "Sharknado," a shapeless mess that is just meant to kick up the notch of incredulous Z movie entertainment. If you love sharknados of any kind and can enjoy a leather-strapped Tara Reid who often forces gazes at something in the distance, not to mention various "Star Wars", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Wizard of Oz" references, then may this Shark Farce be with you.