Tag: Spy

January is probably the worst time to be a film critic. Sure, the award ceremonies are fun, but almost without exception, the movies are just terrible. I’m looking at you “Devil’s Due.”

Fortunately, though, Hollywood just released, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” last month and it turned out better than expected.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars, the film follows the title character.

Jack Ryan, played by Chris Pine, is a former marine who now works as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. While analyzing financial reports with Russia, Ryan notices an irregularity and the CIA, namely his superior Thomas, played by Kevin Costner, sends him to Moscow to investigate.

Continue reading “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit review”

Director:
Dean Parisot
Cast:
Bruce Willis
John Malkovich
Mary-Louise Parker
Helen Mirren
Anthony Hopkins
Byung-hun Lee
Rated: PG-13

Willis is really starting to play the same character in his movies lately.

“Red 2” picks up an unannounced time after the first film. Retired CIA agent Frank (Willis) is trying to live a fairly normal life with his girlfriend Sarah (Parker) after being involved in a massive plot. The action seems to come back into their lives though as Frank’s partner Marvin (Malkovich) informs the two that they have all been targeted by government agencies for a mission they were involved in during the Cold War that involved a weapon of mass destruction.

From this point the three have to go on the run again and try to clear their names. During their mission they are joined by MI6 Agent Victoria (Mirren) and eventually the scientist who created the weapon, Bailey (Hopkins). The team has to watch out on their mission as they are chased by assasin Han (Lee).

Continue reading “Red 2 review”

The twenty third Bond film, “Skyfall,” Begins with 007 being seemingly KIA in a mission to receive codes containing the whereabouts and identities of the agents of MI6. Bond manages to survive though and lives in seclusion for a while. That is until MI6 comes under attack by the mysterious organization who stole the codes.

James then returns to London to take up the mission, However Bond hasn’t been in the game for a while, is getting older and might not be as great as he used to be, none the less he still goes on the mission. What this leads to is an exploration into Bond’s past, his upbringing and a villain who has ties to MI6.

Continue reading “007: Skyfall review”

Director:
Tony Gilroy
Cast:
Jeremy Renner
Scott Glenn
Edward Norton
Rachel Weisz
Rated: PG-13

So will the next one just have Matt Damon and Jeremy Renner taking names for two hours?

The fourth “Bourne” movie in the series doesn’t actually follow the character Jason Bourne who was played by Matt Damon. This film instead follows a character named Aaron Cross (Renner), one of the other agents who was in the same program that Bourne was involved with. When it is found that the whole program is a liability to the Government, supervisor Eric Byer (Norton) decides to eliminate all the current agents and restart the program.

For the most part, the elimination goes well, except for one agent. Cross manages to evade the Government. During his time hiding and being on the run, Cross meets up with a lab worker named Marta Shearing (Weisz), who after being attacked for knowing too much, joins with Cross to help him get away.

Continue reading “The Bourne Legacy review”