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Given his initials, it’s probably not a stretch to think that Robert Ludlum was inviting comparisons between his character Jason Bourne and Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Not being a huge reader of Ludlum’s novels, I’m not able to comment on the literary character, but as played by Matt Damon, Jason Bourne exists as almost a complete antithesis to the cinematic character of Bond.
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During its theatrical release, David Fincher’s Zodiac was at least partially marketed as some kind of slasher film from the director of Se7en. This probably accounts for its low numbers at the box office, since the slasher movie crowd is definitely not the target audience for this movie, which has more in common with All the President’s Men than it does with Fincher’s 1995 serial killer movie.
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I was sorely tempted to let my imaginary twin brother, Larry, write this review, but he was partaking of one of his many philanthropic pursuits, leading a deer hunting trip for a group of kids from the Braille Institute, and hasn’t been seen since.
Adaptation has a great deal in common with the other Charlie Kaufman films, mainly in how it plays with reality like your cat played with that gopher it caught in the back yard. While it’s “officially” based on the non-fiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), the movie is actually about Charlie Kaufman’s unsuccessful effort to write a usable script from the book, as well as about the author’s relationship with the subject of the story, a self-styled botanist named John Laroche (Chris Cooper). The other storyline revolves around Charlie’s fictitious twin Donald and his attempt to become a screenwriter like his brother.
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Red Eye had the misfortune of being the film in last year’s “Hitchcockian thriller set aboard a jetliner” sweepstakes that didn’t star Jodie Foster. I haven’t seen Flightplan yet, so I can’t say which one was actually better, but that film will have to work hard to be as effective and efficient a thriller as Red Eye.
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Who’d have believed that Matt Damon, of all people, could provide a credible substitute for James Bond? However, with the hallowed Bond franchise in the midst of lean creative times, Damon is tautly believable as a CIA assassin with no memory of who he is and no idea why people are trying to kill him. Unlike Pierce Brosnan’s recent outings as the world famous super-spy, the writers do not let Damon down.