Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
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I saw the Bourne Supremacy this weekend. (By the way, a little PSA: when you show up to a film on its opening night five-ten minutes before showtime, the best seats in the house are not, in fact, unoccupied. Please quit asking. Thank you.) The handheld camera & the editing was a little bit much at times, but I liked it nonetheless. I just rolled with the almost impressionistic scenes. (Bob couldn't stand the camerawork.) I would advise people planning to see it to sit way back.
This is the kind of movie that really revs my engine, so YMMV.
I'm with Bon Bon. Most of the time, I LIKED the hand-held stuff. Instead of sitting back and admiring the slick storytelling and effects, as one usually does with thrillers, I found I got genuinely caught up and anxious. Maybe 20% less of it and I would have been even happier, though.
Joan Allen kicked ass and looked beautiful.
The hand held work and the editing only took me out of the movie in the Moscow car chase. I found I could forgive the rest because it worked so well in the close quarters fight with the other treadstone assassin. Joan Allen is a godess. Hell, even Damon improved.
That close-up fight was amazing. It's cool to see, in that kind of movie,
a physical fight between two equals. I mean, the whole point of the thing is that Bourne is the most kickass spy ever or whatever, so really only someone else in the same program could even compete. Although I did keep waiting for them to bust through the windows.
I just liked the found-object nature of all of the fight scenes. Like, here is a hair dryer, a raw chicken, and some marbles. Go!
Bourne is like the MacGyver of fighting. Also,
he was kicking Celeborn's ass!
I will admit part of the fun of the movie was just watching all those pretty people do exciting things. It could have made 60% less sense and I probably still would have enjoyed it.
I like what they're saying about Batman Begins -- because yes! Batman does not have superpowers. Catwoman is NOT part cat etc.
I love the MacGuyver aspect as well-- a nice tight way of showing how well-trained he is. In the first movie, where someone might lift a fire extinguisher, he took the emergency map of the building off the wall of the embassy. I'd never seen that before, and it was neat.
I also liked the way
Franka Potente floated away.
Since the movie was so grittily grounded the rest of the time, it stood out as something unreal.
Also, you were always following Bourne-- you could never see ahead to what he would do. It was tense.
Damn. Now I really want to see it. I mean, I kind of wanted to anyway, cause I liked the first one well enough, but you guys are making it sound really awesome.
Saw Bourne Supremacy. Want a 50-year ban on all use of hand-held cameras in non-documentary movies.
A friend of mine went to see it and hated it for much the same reasons. Have not seen it yet, myself. I haven't even seen the first one, yet.
Oh, speaking of grittily filmed spy movies, what are people's thoughts on
Spy Game
? I thought it was pretty cool. Things blew up, there was some spy action, it was nice.