Movie Review: **** The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

 Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is up to his old tricks, and he is tracking down his history.  Treadstone did not go away, but it is now operating under a new name, Blackbriar.  The operation is a program to train and direct assassins.  The CIA directors who are running the program, and insist on going after are Noah Vosens (David Strathairn) and Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn).  Kramer is the immediate boss of Pam Landy (Joan Allen) who is trying to advocate for Bourne.  Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) also tries to help, and gets caught with Bourne in the field.  There is a reporter (Paddy Considine) with information on Treadstone but he is murdered before Bourne can get the information.  Bourne actually breaks into the CIA office and gets records about the program from from Vosens' office.  He gets this to Pam Landy who quickly gets it out before they can kill her.   Bourne finally meets the behavioral psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney) who has made the assassins.  He has no regrets.  The program comes down, and Bourne continues on the road.  Again plenty of action.  Bourne has to fend off several assassins who come for him.  Thee are also lots of chase scenes.  

Bourne and Parsons

James Bond Movie: ****^ Skyfall (2012)

 James Bond (Daniel Craig) is back.  But the first scene shows him shot and presumed dead.  They have his funeral and everything.  Someone is out to kill M (Judi Dench) and Bond comes out of retirement to protect her.  In the earlier scene Bond was trying to recover information about secret agents which had gotten away as Silva (Javier Bardem) had hacked their system.  So Bond must figure out how to protect M.  He is assisted by Eve (Naomi Harris).  She is the same agent who shot him in the first scene trying to keep from losing the information identifying all NATO agents.  

Silva is determined to kill M.  He is a past agent who ate the cyanide tablet placed in his teeth, but it didn't kill him.  It just disfigured his mouth.  He wears false teeth that hide this.  He is very bitter towards M.

Even after he is captured, he is able to escape by further infecting the MIS computers, so Bond runs to the home of his birth where he hopes to protect M.  In the home is a former companion, Kincade (Albert Finney).  He joins Bond in protecting M.  They come after Bond with lots of men and a helicopter.  They hold of the initial wave but the second wave begins to overwhelm them.  M and Kincade escape through tunnels under the home.  Bond blows up the home to even the odds.  After the explosion only Silva and one other man are alive.  Even the helicopter was too close and is destroyed.  In the initial wave, M was wounded.  

Bond tries to rejoin them after the explosion.  In doing so he kills the last man other than Silva.  Silva gets to M first, but Bond does him in with a knife throw to the back.  However M dies from loss of blood.  The wound was more serious than thought.  

In this version we get a new Moneypenny--Eve Moneypenny.  We also get a new Q (Ben Whishaw) who is more a computer man, but gets outsmarted when Silva hacks the system.  We also get a new Q for the next episode, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) who has been M's number 2.

The Bond movies seem to be getting better.  Their is more intrigue to them.  

Movie Review: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

***^Murder on the Orient Express (1974)  This is Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) at their best.  There is murder upon the train, this after the victim had asked Poirot to be his body guard, which he refused.  In this movie everyone is a suspect; and only after piecing everything together does the true nature of the movie come out.  I previously reviewed the version that came out this past year.  In this version, in addition to Finney there are Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins and Michael York among others.  A great cast, a tricky plot and overall a good movie.

Christmas Movie Musical Review: **Scrooge 1970

  This is a musical version featuring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness.  When I realized it was a musical, I had my doubts, and those doubts were confirmed.  How could Scrooge be a singer?  Although I enjoyed hi "I hate people."  I did not like the songs at the end, "I love Christmas" which turned into a big production numbers, just to have one it seemed.  Scrooge played Santa to the Crachetts, which didn't work for me as it was too drastic a change.  The anonymous Scrooge is more to my liking.  Alec Guinness lived up to his being a master of disguise, but his character seemed like a robot rather than a ghost.