The movie “Jason Bourne” is one of the very few movies I can remember seeing where I thought it was going to be great and it wasn’t. This movie is not really even that good and at best it’s a stretch to call this movie even average. The entire film is mostly about one thing. Following Jason Bourne from city to city, building to building, alley to alley to cars, planes and then another new city where the CIA is able to find out his whereabouts using their sophisticated computers, face recognition software and cameras which seem to be everywhere in the world.

The movie opens up during some kind of a riot in a foreign country and Bourne is practicing his fighting skills competing in organized street fights. He then reunites with another CIA agency Nicki Parsons, played once again by Julia Stiles. Then for reasons not really explained they are both chased by other CIA agents trying to kill them and the quality of the night action is murky​ which is hard to follow because of the strange camera angles, darkness​ and too fast movement​ of the chasing of these two people in and out of dark alleys and streets. One can only wonder whether the producers meant to have the film look so bad in this part of the movie on purpose or it was just a very poorly shot action scene. The movie from this point on is just the camera following Bourne, played again by Matt Damon as he walks very quickly​ into and out of dark buildings and streets. The highly sophisticated fight scenes which were so great in all of the previous 3 films with Damon are missing in this version and what remains are shorter and more brutal fights without the high-level​ Karate skill that we all saw in the previous movies.

Alicia Vikander plays a new CIA agent for the first time and is one of the few bright spots in this movie where the lead character had almost no lines and had almost no real understandable or relatable story. Vikander has been in many movies lately, having recently won a Best Supporting Actress win for the “Danish Girl”, which is also reviewed in this blog. She is an up an coming movie star who will have a long and great acting career ahead of her.

This film ends in the city of Las Vegas with a giant series of car crashes on a Las Vegas highway. Even this huge scene had its problems once again because of the darkness​ and the erratically​ moving camera. In the end, Bourne fans will gain some additional information about Bourne’s past including his father and the possibility that maybe he will go back to the CIA in the future, clearly pointing to another movie in this series.

This movie is not that good because of all the reasons I mentioned and for that reason I cannot recommend it.

The movie Captain Fantastic asks the question of whether or not it’s possible to home-school and raise an entire family in the wilderness. At the end of this film, the answer to this question is both yes and no.  Like almost everything in life, no matter what you decide to do, there is an upside and very often an equal downside.  The children in this movie who range in age from 6 to about 18 are all extremely intelligent mainly because their parents brilliantly taught them just about everything. The older boy is so well educated he is able to get into just about all of the best Ivy League schools in the country, but the truth is that if all you know is just in books then you are missing something and you will have a very hard time fitting into the real world.

The idea to move into the woods with their family is because of the father played by Viggo Mortensen thought that he could help his wife with her bipolar mental disorder by getting her out of her law practice and into the wilderness. This seemed to work for a time but at the beginning of this film he finds out that she has committed suicide by slitting her wrists in the mental hospital she is in. Her husband and remaining six children are of course devastated but continue their Spartan life of constant education and exercise which even includes dangerous mountain climbing up the face of a mountain. This is one part of the wilderness life, along with learning how to fight with knives that could be considered child abuse.

When Mortensen’s wife dies he finds out from her father than he is not allowed to attend her funeral but like a true hippie and protester of everything that is considered normal and safe in the world, he decided to take his entire family to her funeral anyway, which causes great conflict between him and his wife’s mother and father. While at the funeral Mortensen’s tells the entire procession that his wife did not want to be buried, but instead she wanted to be cremated and flushed down a toilet! This revelation creates the ending part of the movie where the family intends to kidnap his dead wife’s body and grant her final wishes. After the funeral, his wife’s father played very well by Frank Langella tries to take the children from him, citing child abuse which is another conflict that creates the final act of this movie.

This film was filmed in the Pacific Northwest and some of the scenery that was shot is very impressive. The killing of a deer at the opening of this movie and some male frontal nudity from Mortensen are two rather disturbing scenes to sit through but overall, this movie is pretty average in terms of over the top scenes or dialogue. I do recommend this movie.

When Mr. Hollands Opus came out in 1995 I thought it was going to be a run of the mill average movie. It was also a very long time since Richard Dreyfuss had a big hit, the last time probably was the “Goodbye Girl” in 1977 where he won the Academy Award for best actor. Dreyfuss is another example of a very talented actor who was once at the top of the world and the lightning never struck again for him, proving what most of already know, that the acting profession is one of the most fickle and difficult ones to get in and stay in for the long term even after you achieve great success.

Mr. Hollands Opus is about a music teacher in an average high school whose real ambition is to be a great music composer. At the beginning of the movie Holland takes the teaching job temporarily, hoping that his real life and career as a music composer will begin someday as he never stopped trying to compose a great symphony through the entire movie. This movie does a great job of reminding us all of life’s reality of having to make a living and raising a family can very often takes away our dreams and largely because of this reality Mr. Holland stays at this high school for 30 years until budget cuts take away his beloved job that eventually proved to be his true calling in life.

After a period of time Holland slowly starts to accept his new job never fully forgetting about his real dream of being a great music composer. He gets married and has a son, who turns out to be deaf which is ironic side story and caused major conflict because Mr Holland’s entire life was about sound and music. As the years go by students come and go and so does the 60’s, the hippie culture and the Vietnam War. Later in the film, Mr. Holland runs into a great singer who he meets during a school music production played by Jean Louisa Kelly. This young woman has ambitions of her own to run off to be on Broadway and slowly a relationship and almost an affair between the two of them begin, which even threatens Holland’s marriage. The musical numbers performed and especially the singing of Kelly during the school musical are outstanding and some of the best moments of the entire movie. At the end of the film, due to budget cuts the entire music department of this high school is eliminated and a surprise ceremony is organized to honor Mr. Holland. As a member of a high school band myself I found this closing scene (see vide below) as one of the best acted and emotional scenes in any movie I have ever seen.

Other outstanding actors in this film included Olympia Dukakis and William H. Macy. Richard Dreyfuss received an Academy Award nomination for this movie and in my opinion, he should have won. Mr. Holland’s Opus is an outstanding and flawless movie and a 100% must see.

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