The Bourne Ultimatum

A short time back, a friend of mine opined that THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM was essentially the same movie as THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. While I agree that ULTIMATUM was nearly a remake of SUPREMACY, I didn't mind. I liked SUPREMACY, so more of that jump-cut action was fine with me.

The thing I like about the Bourne movies is that they make hard stuff look hard. The fights look like real, brutal fights for survival, not staged dances. There is no graceful parkour: running across rooftops is hard, and dangerous. People breathe heavily when they've been running or fighting, and actions have resonance. This is not a world of easy death or winking nihilism. This is a world in which real actions have real consequences, and I always enjoy visiting it.

Damon, Allen, and Strathairn are all top notch, and the filmmakers cared enough to get serious talents such as Paddy Considine, Albert Finney, and Scott Glenn for some of the smaller supporting roles. Yeah, the story doesn't go very far and the film doesn't resonate all that much, but it's a fun ride while it lasts.

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ is better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And I liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

SHAUN breaks down a bit in the third act, when it transitions from "zombie comedy" to "zombie horror." FUZZ, on the other hand, benefits from the action tradition it gently mocks - there's plenty of room for comedy in an action picture, and this film uses every square inch of it.

Here's the setup: Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is such a great London cop that he's superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) transfer him to a quiet little village in the country, where he won't make everyone else look so bad. Once he gets there, he finds that someone, presumably the creepily hale proprietor of the local supermarket (Timothy Dalton, finding the scenery delicious), is committing murder that would be most foul if it weren't in retribution for doing things like putting on laughably bad productions of "Romeo and Juliet." From there, as any action-movie aficionado can tell you, it's but a short step to massive explosions, the crackle of automatic gunfire, and a fugitive swan.

It's loads of fun, with wonderful comic turns from a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, and even Peter Jackson. It features gags from broad to subtle, as well as surprising performances from Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine, two actors I don't normally associate with comedy. HOT FUZZ kept me chuckling from beginning to end.

What a delightful film.

Cinderella Man

I enjoyed CINDERELLA MAN. Though I'm now comfortably ensconsed in the upper middle class, I grew up poor. Consequently, I have this constant sense that the wolf is always at the door, that my fortunes could shift in an instant and before I'll know it it'll be all I can do just to feed my family. CINDERELLA MAN's first act was all my fears played out before me, and I couldn't help but empathize with the Braddocks' plight.

Once I bought Braddock, it was easy to buy the rest of the movie, a process aided by the film's excellent photography and production values. I rooted for these people, I booed the delightful Craig Bierko, and I lost track of time for a solid two and a half hours. Consider me a satisfied customer.