Author: Tim Lilly

I am a videographer and editor based out of the Washington, D.C. area. I write movie reviews and occasionally host a podcast with Mason Manuel of MasonMD.org. I currently work as a Live Event Operator at Verizon.

Jason Bourne (Review)

Jason Bourne (Review)

The fifth film in the Bourne film series, Jason Bourne is a direct sequel to The Bourne Ultimatum, completely skipping over The Bourne Legacy (a fact that I am quite thankful for).  It follows the story of the titular black ops agent Jason Bourne as he uncovers yet more information of his past as he tries to come to terms with who he is and the things he has done.

I’ve always enjoyed the Bourne films.  The plot of each film was always engaging, with each moment having me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.  So I was saddened to see the latest Jason Bourne film and just not care about anything that was happening.

Don’t get me wrong.  The filmmaking is impeccable.  Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon have never been better in their fourth collaboration with each other.  Paul Greengrass has always been a unique director in Hollywood because of how documentary-like his films are.  It did always make watching the action sequences a challenge because of how shaky the cameras were.  Just a wee bit of motion sickness to go along with your action packed movie.  No biggie.

The other stand-out performance in the movie is Alicia Vikander, who plays the head of the CIA Cyber Ops division.  As the movie kept going, I took a shine to her and her indomitable will to advance her career no matter what.  Indeed, her character was the only one that I actually found interesting and wanted to see what happened next in her arc.

Having said that, not even Paul Greengrass’ directing and editing style, Matt Damon’s action role and Alicia Vikander’s badassness can hide the fact this movie is completely pointless.  I don’t mean pointless as in “just another dumb action movie” pointless.  I mean “there was no reason for this movie to be made” pointless.

As I watched the movie, I just didn’t feel as invested in the movie as I had in previous films.  Everything about it just felt like a paint by numbers piece.  Government conspiracy? Check.  A reason for Jason Bourne to return to the States? Check.  An action-packed sequence with Matt Damon fighting another operative? Check.  Jason Bourne getting away from his pursuers in a crowd of people?  Check.

None of the new revelations in the film seemed to add anything.  As I watched each new piece of information being revealed about Jason Bourne’s life, I found myself thinking back to how I reacted to the revelation of how the White Walkers were created in Game of Thrones.  I realized that I had the exact same reaction: I didn’t need to know any of that.  None of that changed how I feel about the character or the wider story told in the series.  It’s just another reason to get the movie going.  The film even tries to add in some Post-9/11 themes of “safety vs. privacy” just to make it interesting.  Suffice it to say, it was not subtle about it and it came and went without even a backward glance.

That’s what it boils down to in the end.  The film is trying desperately to justify another film but in the end, the reasons just aren’t worth it, and the film suffers because of it.  In the end, I was watching this Jason Bourne movie and I was absolutely bored.  Even Tommy Lee Jones seemed bored with the film, though that could just be his acting style.

I feel that the Jason Bourne series is done.  His journey was complete at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum.  I look back on The Bourne Legacy and think to myself “at least that movie was doing something different, even if it didn’t follow through with it.”  If you’re looking for a Matt Damon action movie, then you could do a lot worse.  If you’re looking for a substantial, meaningful and worthy addition to the Bourne series, then you should just rewatch the original trilogy and forget this one exists.

Star Trek: Beyond (Film Review)

Star Trek: Beyond (Film Review)

Star Trek: Beyond, directed by Justin Lin (Fast Five), is the third movie in the rebooted Star Trek movie series.  In it, the crew of the Enterprise (with Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Bones, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, John Cho as Sulu, Simon Pegg as Scottie, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov (R.I.P)) is shot down on a remote planet and must survive together in order to combat a new alien threat.

Surprisingly, that’s not all the movie’s about.  Kirk has become disillusioned after three years in deep space and wonders if he should continue being the captain of the Enterprise.  Spock has received news that Ambassador Spock as died (R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy) and wonders at his own future at Star Fleet.  The common theme is that the crew is beginning to wonder about their own future.  Not only does this help round out the characters (by actually letting them be characters with their own wants and dreams), but I couldn’t help but feel that this feeling might be directed at the franchise as a whole.

I’ve always felt the Star Trek Reboot series (or maybe its the Alternate Star Trek series?) has always suffered from identity issues.  Star Trek Into Darkness has always felt like a Star Wars movie and not a Star Trek movie.  I can understand that when adapting a long-running TV show to a movie, things can get lost in the process.  Star Trek is definitely more cerebral, with a more moralizing approach to the story and characters.  This works fine for a TV show when you have the time to do that, but for a movie, time is limited.  That said, I feel like Star Trek: Beyond is the first movie in the franchise that actually feels like a Star Trek movie.

The focus is entirely on the crew of the enterprise, making this the first movie in the series that features an ensemble cast.  Whereas in previous movies where the main focus has been on Kirk and Spock, this time every character has a chance to shine and is integral to the story.  You get to see how different members of the crew interact with each other when in previous iterations, they’ve never really shared much screen time.  It’s a refreshing take and one that works for the best.

All of this wouldn’t even be possible without the direction of Justin Lin, who I had originally had doubts about.  With a track record that mainly seemed to comprise mainly of the Fast and the Furious franchise (I’ve only seen the first one so I’m not going to make any comment on if they’re any good or not), it didn’t seem like he would be able to tackle franchise that is more…subtle than a movie about cars.  Fortunately, I was wrong and was pleased to see that Justin Lin didn’t just copy J.J. Abrams.  The imagery is simply astounding and definitely one of highlights of the movie.

All of this leads back to what I said before about questioning the future.  It always seemed to me that Star Trek has had an identity crisis.  Star Trek Into Darkness was basically just a rehash of Wrath of Kahn with 9/11 undertones.  And now, Star Trek: Beyond asks where do we go from here?  What else is there?  Showing that they have fully stepped away from the previous generations of films and created a story that can stand on its own as one of the best basically says, we are now moving forward and leaving the past behind them.  This is the main reason why I feel like this film is the first one that feels like how a Star Trek movie should be.  Maybe I was looking too deeply into it but I can’t deny what I saw and felt while watching it.  And what I saw was a great ride from start to finish.

Ghostbusters (Film Review)

Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Chris Hemsworth, is a reboot of the classic franchise of the same name.  It features four women who through a series of events, open a business catching ghosts.  And that’s pretty much it.

For a film that inspired so much controversy and hate (the trailer was one of the most disliked videos on youtube), there was nothing in the film itself that I felt was absolutely wrong.  Nothing in this film seemed to justify the hate surrounding it.  Sure, the film is by no means perfect, but it was relatively harmless when compared to other complete travesties.

For all the hate surrounding the fact that the movie stars four women, I was actually watching the movie not for the ghost-busting, but for these women.  I liked watching their antics and found myself laughing.  Which is what a comedy is supposed to do.  I was also surprised that there was no moment in the film where the women are forced to fall apart through the actions of one of the group or an outside force.  Everytime they’re knocked down, they just keep going, which I found refreshing.

The special effects are by far the least attractive part of the film.  Nothing can beat the practical effects of the original.  The overall designs of the ghost were interesting but as I watched, I knew it was nothing more than computer magic.

But despite that, the four leading ladies carry the movie, including Kate McKinnon, who I felt was the surprise star of the film.  She’s crazy and fearless and everything that I can enjoy in a character.

What this movie is is harmless.  Nothing about this film deserves the hatred aimed at it.  Sure, it’s not the greatest movie in the world.  The plot is pretty predictable and safe.  The movie is simply fun and I would recommend it to anyone who has an evening to kill.

WarCraft (Film Review)

WarCraft (Film Review)

Directed by Duncan Jones and based on the bestselling video game series from Blizzard Entertainment, WarCraft is the action fantasy movie that tells the story of the beginning of the war between the Humans of Azeroth and the Orcish Horde.  It stars Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper and Ben Schnetzer as members of the humans and Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, and Daniel Wu as members of the Orcs with Paula Patton playing the half-human, half-orc outcast.

This is…an interesting movie to say the least.  I have long been a fan of Blizzard Entertainment, though I have to say StarCraft’s sci-fi setting appealed to me more.  I didn’t even play WarCraft III until I got to college.  So, suffice it to say, I had absolutely no idea of the story I was getting into when I went to see WarCraft, since the movie is based around the events of the first WarCraft game that was released back in 1994.  Or at least, the time period of the events take place in the first WarCraft game, while the actual events have been expanded upon in the multitudes of books and World of WarCraft expansions that have since been released.

I have to say, to this film’s credit, it was by far the most unique movie I’ve seen in a while.  It could have been easy to just be a dumb action movie, but more time is actually spent on the characters involved and their motivations.  Well, at least on the Orc side.  The humans are just kind of…around.  I’m not sure what it is, but the Orcs’ story was just more interesting than the Humans.  You have Travis Fimmel playing Anduin Lothar, a commander of Azeroth’s armies, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what he’s doing.  Is he drunk 24/7?  He might be trying to be a witty and snarky character but it’s hard to understand him with him doing his Ragnar Lothbrok thing.

That said, there were humans that I ended up rooting for.  Ben Schnetzer plays a mage in training by the name of Khadgar who at first, I thought I would hate (with his wide eyes and pretty face), but as the show went one, he slowly became something of an interesting character.  Annoying but somewhat lovable.

It just seems like more time was spent working on the characterization and story of the Orcs than there was with the humans.  Everything about the Orcs I just enjoyed, from the characters to the story.  Toby Kebbell really shines as Durotan, an orc who is unsure of the warlock who now leads the horde.  At his core, he wants nothing more than to protect his family, even if it means betraying his kind.

The most interesting inclusion to the story is Paula Patton as Garona, a half-orc, half-human woman who grew up as a slave among the orcs.  Sadly, she is underused in my opinion and seems only to be there to provide a baffling love interest for Lothat because reasons.

This is a movie that is less focused on the visuals and the pretty special effects and more focused on the characters, and because of this, the world-building suffers a little.  We’re given pretty shots of locations that seem more catered to the hardcore WarCraft fans but we’re never given any sort of explanation about what these places are and why they’re important.  For example, I know from the games that Dalaran is a city-state run by the Kirin-Tor mages, but nowhere in the movie is that really mentioned.  Nor is it mentioned that Stormwind is the capital city of the human empire.  I’m just saying an explanation of the world we’re supposed to be watching for the next 2 hours would be nice.

For all its faults, this movie does have heart.  I found myself invested in the movie even though everything about would make it seem like a bad movie.  As for myself, I have seen truly awful movies and WarCraft is not one of those.  It is a movie with flaws but it tries.  Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes if fails.  In the end, it is something different and I can never fault it for that.  Which is why it is probably one of my favorite movies based on a video game, if not my favorite.