News for July 10-12, 2000

12 July, 2000

The Bourne Identity

Director Doug Liman (Go) and writer Tony Gilroy (Proof of Life) are adapting Robert Ludlum's novel The Bourne Identity for the big screen. Matt Damon is close to signing on to play the lead character, secret agent Jason Bourne. Stax got a hold of the script and presents his thoughts for us.

While I didn't like this draft as much as I had hoped, I actually enjoyed Tony Gilroy's writing style. I also recently gave high marks to his hostage drama Proof of Life. Gilroy crafts real page-turners that are written in a staccato style often laced with what Mr. Spock would call "colorful metaphors." Unfortunately, the strongest part of Bourne was its premise. I "pitched" this story to a few relatives and friends and they all listened with rapt attention (doing this with other people's movies is a good exercise for writers who wish to hone their pitching skills). "It's about a guy who's found at sea. He's been shot and stabbed and is suffering from amnesia. He's got microfilm in his hip that leads him to a safety deposit box with money and a gun inside it. Now he's on the run from whoever it was that left him this way." Isn't that a story that makes you to want to know what happens next? Of course it is. The problem with this script is that it sets all of this cool stuff up within the first fifteen pages and then from there on you're just watching it all play out in a linear fashion. There are no surprising conclusions and no real suspense ever generated.

To read the entire review, head to Stax's home at FilmForce.

Josie and the Pussycats

More casting news

11 July, 2000

Matt LeBlanc has agreed to star in the $15 million comedy All the Queen's Men. Set during World War II, the movie follows the misadventures of a unit of British Special Forces led for some reason by an American. The team is sent on a mission to infiltrate a female-run factory in Berlin that manufactures the Enigma decoding devices.

LeBlanc has definitely found his nitch on the TV show Friends but has struggled in attempts to cross over to movies. His last two films Lost in Space and Ed were both critical and box office flops. Maybe he just has poor taste in scripts.

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10 July, 2000

I don't usually comment on older movies but this was hard to pass on. The BBC is putting together a documentary on the movie. Director Ridley Scott was interviewed for it. During the interview he revealed something that has long been debated by fans of the film. Is Deckard a replicant? In the original theatrical release there was no reason to think that he was. However the later released director's cut of the film changed all that. A few scenes added back to the film made fans suspicious that Harrison Ford's character Deckard, charged with the task of tracking down rogue replicants, was one himself. Now Scott has solved the riddle with the simple comment, "He's a replicant".

The documentary will be shown on BBC Channel 4 on July 15. It will immediately follow a showing of the director's cut and will include previously unseen footage. "What we'd done was kind of a dark novel, it was rather novelistic," said Scott. "I didn't really realise that that eventually became the true longevity of the whole film - you revisit it constantly like re-reading one of your favourite books. You always find you get sucked in again. I still think it's one of the best films I ever made."

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Highlander: Endgame

Release date set