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This weekend there are seven new films out for you to choose from: action quinquel Jason Bourne, George Galloway’s documentary The Killing$ of Tony Blair, fishy fun in Finding Dory, timely British drama Traders, Stanley Kubrick re-release Barry Lyndon, Jet Li returns in League of Gods, and Danish drama The Commune.
Jason Bourne – yes, Matt Damon‘s portrayal of America’s worst-kept secret is back again for a fourth time in five films.
I loved the first movie, The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman, but then felt that Paul Greengrass made such a bog-standard pedestrian hash of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy, with Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, was even worse. This time, they can’t even come up with a title, and there’s certainly no original Robert Ludlum novel to work off, just his characters, but can this triumph where the inbetween movies have failed?
Greengrass wrote his script with Christopher Rouse, and the film also stars Ex Machina‘s Alicia Vikander, plus Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Bill Camp and Julia Stiles returns to the franchise as Nicky.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Read our review!
The Killing$ of Tony Blair
A documentary from ex-Labour and Respect MP George Galloway, this highlights the former UK Prime Minister’s alleged destruction of the Labour party, the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who died during the Iraq War and Blair’s well-remunerated business interests since he left office in 2007 – in Galloway’s view, Blair’s three “killings”.
This certainly looks well worth a watch, especially if you think Tony Blair let everyone down (which must be everyone!)
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Finding Dory is, as you might expect, the follow-up to 2003’s Finding Nemo, where Ellen DeGeneres returns as…. erm… er… oh, Dory, the friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish. And if it’s possible to barf underwater, then the billing adds that everyone will learn a few things about the true meaning of family along the way.
A fuss has been made because it apparently is the first Disney film to feature a lesbian couple. Well, hopefully, all the anti-gay protestors will go to the bottom of the ocean to take their hate-filled ranting, and stay there for about five hours. That should do it!
The film also includes Albert Brooks as Marlin, Diane Keaton as Dory’s mom Jenny, Eugene Levy as Dory’s dad Charlie and Ty Burrell as Bailey.
There’s also The Wire‘s Idris Elba and Dominic West, plus Ed O’Neill and Kaitlin Olson, and I recently saw ‘Nemo’ for the first time and quite enjoyed it, but at 100 minutes, it did rather go on a bit. This one is 97 minutes. I think about 80-85 would be enough.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Traders
What if it made perfect sense for ordinary people to kill each other for money? Better than slow grinding financial ruin and misery, and all done according to a strict code by consenting adults. This is Trading.
Written and directed by Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy, and starring Killian Scott, John Bradley and Peter O’Meara, I was gripped within 20 seconds of the trailer, so I definitely wnat to check this out, but I expect it’ll be on the eventual Blu-ray as the multiplexes are full of ‘Bourne‘ and ‘Dory‘.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Barry Lyndon
A re-release for Stanley Kubrick‘s 1975 movie, this centres around an Irish rogue who wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband’s aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Starring Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson and Patrick Magee, this is one of those Kubrick films I’ve still not got round to seeing, so something I will have to get round to seeing.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
League of Gods is based on the 16th-century Chinese novel Feng Shen Yan Yi (The Investiture of the Gods), which tells of how King Zhou of Shang becomes a tyrant due to the wiles of Daji, a vixen spirit who is disguised as one of his concubines.
Starring Jet Li, Xiaoming Huang and the stunning Bingbing Fan, apart from the latter’s prescence, this was such a load of old tosh.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Commune
A story about the clash between personal desires vs. solidarity and tolerance in a Danish commune in the ’70s.
Starring Ulrich Thomsen, Fares Fares and The Legacy‘s Trine Dyrholm, since the latter’s not-quite-inherited old house in that drama ended up like a commune, I feel I’ve seen enough of this already!
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.