The Bourne Legacy (2012)

2/5

The Bourne Legacy, the fourth Bourne movie, has a very confusing plot. The general outline is that a covert government agency is killing all their secret operatives after a benign-appearing YouTube video is leaked. One black ops agent (Renner) escapes death and travels to the Philippines with a scientist (Weisz) so that he can inject himself with a virus. Yes, it does sound absolutely preposterous. And to make matters worse, there are simply too many story lines and too many characters to keep track of. The director, Tony Gilroy, seems to focus on the wrong things in each scene, as if uncertain what the movie is about. He goes back and forth between time and place way too frequently without any real explanation or clear motivation. This results in an extended second half that doesn't make sense within the film's logic, where seemingly ever character (big, small, good, bad) takes enormous risks out of proportion to expected benefits.

Superficially, the movie looks very exciting. There is a lot of anger and yelling, a lot of drama and histrionics. But the action scenes aren't so much exciting as they are filled with loud action-y music. Instead of gunfights and fistfights, we get running and chasing. Instead of action, we get super-fast cuts. I estimate that the average length of each shot is around 1 second. Not to spoil the movie, but Matt Damon never appears in it, although his character is unendingly discussed peripherally. To make matters worse, it has an extremely unsatisfying ending. Do not recommend.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194173/

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

5/5

Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman is a cinematic masterpiece. The movie follows a washed-up actor (Keaton)--made famous by gaudy superhero movies--as he prepares for opening night of his Broadway debut after years of ignominy. He must hire an abrasive but extraordinary actor (Norton) at the last minute, ingratiate himself to a prejudiced theatre critic (Duncan), and combat his own personal neuroses and psychoses in the form of his Lycra-suited alter ego, the titular Birdman.

Sometimes a movie has all the right elements for success but they just don't fit together right. That is not the case with this movie. Here every spinning plate makes every other spinning plate that much more impressive, all building together to create an unforgettable experience. The screenplay is filled with smart observations, textured discussions on the differences between movies and theatre, performance and criticism, art and entertainment. The actors take that sharp and incisive writing to the next level with equally dynamic range--subtlety and loudness, introspection and histrionics--whenever the script calls for it. And it has one of the most genuinely ambiguous endings I can recall in years.

But Birdman will be remembered most for its inspired cinematography. The entire movie is filmed as if in one long camera take thanks to advanced CGI and unerring, excruciatingly detailed pre-planning. Not only is it visually mesmerizing and logistically jaw-dropping, it enriches the film by adding an element of claustrophobia to Keaton's mental deterioration. Movies like this are why movies exist, why creativity cannot survive in the world of books and music alone. It is a wholly fulfilling work of artistic genius. Birdman is a cinematic masterpiece.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

4/5

Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel is like many of Wes Anderson's other movies: delightful and magical if you like his style, banal and irritating if you don't. The plot follows a hotel concierge (Fiennes) who teams up with a lobby boy (Revolori) to prove his innocence after being framed for murder. The plotting is surprisingly intricate for a Wes Anderson movie, but is also somehow easy to follow at the same time.

What I like about Anderson's earlier movies is his ability to seamlessly switch between comedy and tragedy at the drop of a hat. Luckily, that opposition is still here, albeit in a less profound and less immediate form. Anderson superimposes an overall levity onto the relentless march of impending war, switching between the two moods from time to time, but The Grand Budapest Hotel focuses predominantly on the darker side of life.

Anderson has an undeniable visual style and he doesn't disappoint here. There's a reason this movie won the Oscar for best makeup and costume. He dresses his locales and his characters precisely and pristinely. The characters themselves (and the performances that underlie them) are not particularly deep or textured, but they are distinct and charming and unforgettable. They are brought to life by appealing, fast-paced storytelling and an irresistible, uncontainable magnetism. For Wes Anderson fans, The Grand Budapest Hotel is near-perfect filmmaking.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2278388/

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

2/5

Moonrise Kingdom is probably my least favorite Wes Anderson movie. I don't know what it is, but I just don't find it compelling at all. The story is about two strange kids who have a mutual attraction to each other (for no discernible reason whatsoever) and take it to unhealthy boundaries in a disturbing island environment. With a gnome-like narrator. Maybe it's me and my distaste of child acting or children's tales, but I couldn't get into it. And if you're not into the story, then you're just watching unusual events unfold in an unusual way on screen. That's Anderson's modus operandi I guess.

Honestly, I have nothing very positive to say about this movie. It's fine. It exists. It's a movie. It's not offensive. It's got its quirks and funny moments, it's got great actors impressing me with their talent, but all of these elements cannot bring the movie to life for me. It's a futile attempt to create fire out of sparks--the problem is there's no tinder, no content underneath it all.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748122/

The Illusionist (2006)

3/5

I saw The Illusionist with Sameer and my brother last night and was very entertained by it. However, I did have some complaints. It builds itself off of one big mystery. The rest of the movie is relatively pointless in that you could have seen the movie without the other parts and left the theater feeling exactly the same. There is no point to watching it more than once; the mystery is solved and that's about all this movie has to offer. Also, magic tricks in a movie just aren't that exciting. I especially disliked the use of in media res (starting in the middle of the action and then explaining how you got to that point). It didn't actually serve any purpose and merely justified sloppy (technique-wise) voiceover narration.

The "big mystery" itself was really refreshing and intriguing; I found myself guessing and just not finding the answer. Acting by Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti was superb as always, but they didn't particularly stand out in their roles for this movie compared to other projects they've done. Jessica Biel was mediocre; neither laudable nor laughable. The cinematography was pretty good, but I was vexed by Burger's choice of some queer angles. One thing I really like seeing was Paul Giamatti's teeth when he solves the big mystery. That almost made me happier than finally having the mystery solved.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0443543/