Skiptrace (2016)

Skiptrace (2016)

6/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Fan Bingbing

Johnny Knoxville

Directed by Renny Harlin

Skiptrace have been tagged by critics as ignorable and you cannot blame them, because the movie plot is full of holes and everything the movie is based on is not worth making a movie on at all. The secret ingredient that made me like this movie is the comedy.

After dealing with the boring introduction of all the characters involved in the movie, I found myself laughing all the way through. Jackie Chan was in form with his comedy and so was Johnny Knoxville.

That said, the movie lacked enough of the Jackie Chan magic stunts that you would have expected and in the end of the movie we see how much of his life was placed on the line for our entertainment.

I guess his age may be a factor in the reduction of stunts and daring scenes. His career of wowing us on screen has spanned over 40 years. The last movie that I saw him in before this one was CZ (2012) and there he pulled out enough stunts to earn a Guinness World Record, for most stunts by a living actor.

The pair of Jackie Chan and Knoxville, will give you mixed feelings, there were times they didn’t fit in as a comic duo, then there were times both will have you engrossed on the happenings concerning them.

I haven’t seen much of Knoxville’s movies, except Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013) so seeing him here got my interest on how he will handle himself with the veteran actor. Knoxville held his own, but many a times you can feel the distance in professionalism between him and Jackie Chan.

The movie starts with an introduction of Chan’s partner who had a bomb strapped on him and jumped into a river to blow up and die leaving Jackie to raise his daughter.

On the other side of the world Knoxville’s character Connor Watts was getting himself into different trouble, from escaping a Russian Mob Boss to fleeing a murder scene which he was a witness to.

Chan’s god daughter Samantha was working in the casino that Watts saw the murder. She was working there undercover to get some dirt on the man who she and Chan believes is responsible for her father’s death. Samantha and Watts path crossed and after the incident of the murder, she contacted Chan to help tracked down Watts.

The fun in the movie was their journey back and the many ways Watts got on Chan’s nerves.

I enjoyed this movie and I believe you will too, if you suspend your reasoning and focus on laughing.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

7/10

Starring

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

John Goodman

John Gallagher Jr.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg

When a movie is well done, you can’t but admire the mind and production that went into making this movie a fun piece to see. The acting of the leads was phenomenon and the directing was totally awesome, deserving of an applause for delivery. The movie is directed by first time director Dan Trachtenberg.

The packaging of this second film in the Cloverfield franchise is one to make your mouth water as the movie’s suspense intensity grabs your attention and makes you concentrate, as you are left wondering:

-          Will things turn out sexually odd for Michelle who is locked in a bunker with two men

-          Is there really something out there killing people or is it a biological warfare

-          If the air is toxic what are those sounds we keep hearing outside

-          And why us Howard so shifty?

 

With all this running through your mind, when things start to look like they are adding up, something else happens that gets you on another path of wondering.

The movie is done with three main cast all locked in a bunker for the fear that the world outside is too toxic to live. The only other person in this movie is a woman whose presence only lasted about 2 minutes.

For me it is easy to make a movie when many people are involved, but this movie only had three people (in a casting of four) doing all the lines and all the suspense to make you ache for more of the Cloverfield franchise.

Do note this movie although produced by Bad Robot and is part of the Cloverfield franchise it is not a part 2 of the 2008 found footage style movie Cloverfield. The reason it was inducted as a franchise continuation is because of the theme, suspense and fear intensity that made the producers dubbed it as a “spiritual successor” of the first, but not a continuation. The whole movie content and story is totally different from its 2008 predecessor.

As said above the movie is about three people locked in a bunker for the fear that the world outside is left toxic after an attack from an unknown enemy.

The survivors Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Howard (John Goodman) and Emmett (John Gallangher Jr.) are locked in a bunker which is owned by Howard and built by Emmett. Michelle was told to have been found by Howard in an accident, a story Michelle doubted to be true.

That was not the only thing Howard told Michelle that she doubted because the longer she was with him, the more it was obvious that Howard was not being straight forward with his two other roommates.

Here is a move I can guarantee you will enjoy and appreciate that you saw.

Jason Bourne (2016)

Jason Bourne (2016)

6/10

 

Starring

Matt Damon

Tommy Lee Jones

Julia Stiles

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Jason Bourne is a badass, we got that when we went through the first trilogy in the Bourne franchise, now he decided to go back for revenge upon information getting to him that there is more to him being Bourne than he knows. When watching I recalled we had this Bourne revenge story covered that in the last movie in the trilogy.

This was a totally unnecessary sequel, and it marred the idea that Bourne had dropped off the grid totally, add that to the plot that wasn’t much of a continuation of the third movie in the trilogy, I was sitting through this movie asking myself why have they decided to wreck this franchise with such a lame plot.

The movie plot is based on Bourne trying to get closure for his father’s death, one would think he had already

The new Jason Bourne movie, is the fifth in the franchise and the fourth to star Matt Damon as the titular character Jason Bourne. Based on the character Jason Bourne created by writer Robert Ludlum in his Bourne book series.

Now if you have enjoyed the first three Bourne movies which were great movies, get ready for more of the same thing. The movie was not dull I must say, but after watching the trilogy I already knew how badass Bourne is and his ability to get out of sticky situations is already stamped in my mind. So seeing him do it numerous times in this movie was not a surprise to me.

The fights scenes were swallowed by the high speed chases and the numerous back stabbing going on in the CIA, making sure that the only way to be excited in this movie is when you are already pumped with sugar prior to sitting down at the cinema.

In this here movie we see Bourne taking part in illegal fighting rings to make money for a living.

Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), hacks into the CIA's mainframe server in order to expose more of the CIA's black ops programs. She stumbles upon Bourne's recruitment into the Treadstone program to discover that Bourne's father had a major role in the program.

She travels to Greece to inform Bourne of what she found (it is odd that Bourne who is supposed to be off the gird was easily located by her, the strange part is not that maybe he told her where he would be. If that was the case, then she would have met him at his apartment.).

Parson’s hack didn't go unnoticed by the CIA who now setup a task force to bring her in, and when they discovered that Bourne was involved, the task force was not charged to bring him in, while someone else in the task force was bent on killing him.

I hope this would be the last we see Bourne on the screen, if not I hope his return will be based on a better story than the one we were served here.