Bourne Again and Again

This is a repost of an article I originally wrote back in 2007.

Though I’ve been interested in movies as far back as I can remember, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that I seriously began following films. And though I’d consider the Summer of 1998 as a benchmark of my movie-mania, I didn’t really start going to movie theaters on an (almost) weekly basis until 2002.

bourne_identityThat year was an almost “perfect storm” of quality films released to cinemas. Movies like Spider-Man, The Mothman Prophecies, The Sum of All Fears, Minority Report, Solaris and The Bourne Identity all debuted in 2002. And though Spider-Man did go on to become one of the highest grossing franchises in modern movie history, the only other film in this list that would become a “franchise” in the strictest sense of the term would be The Bourne Identity.

Starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente (Run, Lola, Run), Brian Cox (Zodiac) and featuring Clive Owen (Children of Men) in an early non-UK role, The Bourne Identity follows CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Damon) who’s shot during a botched mission, nearly drowns and loses his memory in the process. Wandering Europe looking for clues to his past, Bourne doesn’t realize that the agency within the CIA responsible for his creation is out to eliminate him and any chance he might start remembering a bevy of agency secrets hidden away in Bourne’s head. It’s only because of Bourne’s embedded training, his sheer will to prevail and robotic-like fighting skills that he manages to stay one step ahead of the bad-guys.

Directed by Doug Liman, then known mostly for Indie flicks like Swingers (1996) and Go (1999), I seem to remember that although The Bourne Identity did well enough in theaters (opening to $27 and grossing $121 million according to IMDB) that it was the outstanding DVD sales and positive word of mouth that would guarantee a sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, in 2004.

Though Liman would remain with the Bourne franchise as producer, Brit director Paul Greengrass stepped in as director of The Bourne Supremacy. This time, Bourne is haunted by nightmarish visions of his past where he did a lot of bad things to a good people. When his girlfriend is murdered and Bourne is framed for killing two CIA assets, Bourne’s out to destroy whomever pulled the trigger no matter if it’s a Russian agent out to kill him or the CIA looking to avenge the death of their assets. Though some of the story of The Bourne Supremacy is a bit confusing, the car chase scene at the end of the film is worth the price of admission alone.

bourne_supremacyThe Bourne Supremacy would act as director Greengrass’ first real introduction to American audiences, but the first time I took note of the director was when I caught his film Bloody Sunday (2002) on TV late one Saturday night. This film follows the lead-up and eventual massacre of a group of Irish civil rights protesters in what would become known as “Bloody Sunday.” Shot from within the action in a fauxcumentary style (aka shaky camera and grainy film), Greengrass would go on to use these same docu-techniques he used to great effect in Bloody Sunday in both The Bourne Supremacy and his next film United 93 (2006).

But even after two films, dozens of wrecked cars, bruised egos and numerous corpses in his wake, the CIA isn’t finished chasing Jason Bourne yet – don’t they ever learn!? Due out later this Summer, and billed as the final movie of the series, is The Bourne Ultimatum. In this film, Jason Bourne must deal with a bevy of assassins and government agencies all out to stop Bourne from learning of his true origin. Somehow I doubt Bourne’s “true origin” is that of a celebrity chef missing from Food Network.

Actually, though, the very first version of The Bourne Identity appeared as a television movie back in 1988 and starred Richard Chamberlain, then 54, as Jason Bourne. Which is interesting since Damon was 32 when his version of The Bourne Identity hit theaters. I can only imagine that the definition of “heartthrob” in the 1988 was different than “heartthrob” in 2002.

2016 Summer movie preview

First up this summer, as it has been the last eight years, is a Marvel movie; this time a third Captain America film with Captain America: Civil War on May 6. Really Marvel Movie XII, Civil War features most of the heroes of the Marvel universe splitting up and picking sides against one and other — one side for the superheroes having to register their real identities with the government and the other side against.

horsemenposter_1200_1778_81_sThe Nice Guys, out May 20, is the rare summer movie this year that’s not based on any previous work. Written and directed by Shane Black who also wrote and directed Iron Man 3 and the wonderful Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys has a private eye and a mob goon, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe respectively, tooling around Los Angeles and getting into all sorts of Shane Black themed trouble.

The third movie of the recent X-Men movie series, but really the eighth in the overall franchise, is X-Men: Apocalypse out May 27. I’m a big fan of the most recent retro X-Men movies, the first taking place in the ’60s, the second in the ’70s and this latest one in the ‘90s with some of the characters from that decade I was realllllly into comics. My only concern here is that it seems like with Apocalypse the X-Team is fighting against an all powerful villain who threatens to enslave/destroy the human race. Which sounds a lot like Avengers: Age of Ultron from last summer to me.

WarCraft, based on the fantasy role playing game of the same name, is out June 10. Fantasy seems to be one of the hottest generas today with movies like The Hobbit and TV shows like Game of Thrones being fan-favorites. Except that there’s really nothing I’ve seen from WarCraft, which is admittedly not much, that makes it seem unique, or even all that different that what’s come before.

independence_day_resurgence20 years after the original comes a sequel to the sci-fi alien-invasion action film Independence Day with Independence Day Resurgence on June 24. Now I’ve got no problem with remakes, reboots or relaunches, but it does seem to me that at this point to make a sequel so long after the original is a decade or so too late.

A third Ghostbusters is out on July 15. What looks to be more of a remake/reboot of the original, this time around all of the Ghostbusters are played by women; Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, and is being directed by Paul Feig who’s directed a ton of movies the last decade but will always be remembered by me and many others as being the creator of the highly influential Freaks and Geeks TV series.

A third Star Trek movie of the recent films Star Trek Beyond warps into theaters July 22. What’s interesting here is that this latest Star Trek adventure is co-written by geek-god Simon Pegg. What’s no so interesting here is that it’s being directed by Justin Lin who helmed three of the Fast & Furious flicks.

Suicide Squad posterMatt Damon returns to the Jason Bourne role he originated 14 years ago with the aptly titled Jason Bourne July 29. Damon skipped the last Bourne movie with Jeremy Renner filling in as a non-Jason Bourne lead. And I don’t think anyone would argue that Renner’s The Bourne Legacy was as good as what had come before. That’s why I’m excited about this new Bourne movie that brings back Damon and director Paul Greengrass that made two of the other previous films so great for Bourne’s latest outing.

If Marvel gets to open the summer movie season then DC’s gonna close it out with Suicide Squad on August 5. Feeling a lot like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad pares a group of disparate, and so-far unpopular superheroes together to fight some greater evil. But with Suicide Squad instead of the superheroes being the good guys, they’re really bad guys like Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshoot (Will Smith) and, no joke, Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney). And while admittedly this might seem odd and strange, from what’s so far been released for the film Suicide Squad actually looks kind’a great.

Direct Beam Comms #10

Art

Meghan Hetrick

I’d never heard of artist Meghan Hetrick until last week, but I really dig her style of pen and ink and markers for color.

Super Bowl movie trailers

X-Men: Apocalypse: The X-Men is probably my favorite superhero group and I grew up reading X-Men comics in the ‘80s and ‘90s. And the latest retro X-Men: Apocalypse movie is going to be set in that time period and feature characters from those two decades so I’m really excited about this movie. What makes me the most concerned is once again this is a super hero movie about a group of heroes facing off against a villain who’s bend on world domination/destruction as per seemingly every super hero movie these days.

Captain America: Civil War: I find it interesting how the Marvel movies are almost a “greatest hits” version of the comics that were almost a “greatest hits” version of previous comic stories. What I’m most excited about here is that Marvel seems to be shaking things up a bit. There’s no main bad guy in Civil War threatening to destroy the world (see above.) Instead, Captain America: Civil War is about when the people who used to be teammates are forced to confront one and other when ideologies diverge. I did get goosebumps here from the image of Cap and Bucky teaming up again for the first time since WW2.

Jason Bourne: I’ve been a big fan of the Jason Bourne movie franchise since The Bourne Identity in ’02. That being said, the first movie was great, the second was better but the third was just alright and the fourth, where lead Matt Damon was replaced with a new character played by Jeremy Renner, was bad. So I have high hopes for the next Jason Bourne which reunites Damon and co-writer/director Paul Greengrass who departed the series after the third movie.

Toys

With the annual Toy Fair happening this weekend in NYC there’s going to be a lot of upcoming toy news and there’s already been a bit of toy news out there.

First up USA Today posted some images and information on new Batman: The Animated Series toys due out this year and next. Figured include Batman Beyond, The Dark Knight Batman, Robin and the Mutant Gang leader and more. Unfortunately, these sets run $50 for three figures, $80 for the “girl’s night out” set of four figures and a whopping $45 for a single Joker Christmas figure.

The new line of Matty Collector Filmation-style He-Man figures are awesome. They’re the perfect mix of looking like how I remember He-Man and his friends looked in the show with a few nice points of articulation. And it doesn’t seem like the price is astronomical with them being about $25 per figure retail.