Bovie Movie

The third entry in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible film series involves super Impossible Mission Forces (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being forced back into the field just when he was planning on marrying his girlfriend, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). The agency asks Hunt to save an operative (Keri Russell) he trained after weapons dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) kidnaps her. With the help of his field team — played by Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Maggie Q — Hunt achieves his goal, but becomes involved in a web of double-crosses that leave him wondering if he can trust his superiors (Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne). Eventually Davian threatens Julia’s life in order to get away with his evil plan. Simon Pegg appears as an IMF tech expert.

An unhinged parody of James Bond theatrics, Johnny English finds Mr. Bean himself suiting up as the eponymous super spy for a series of wild and silly adventures. A lowly pencil pusher working for the MI7 agency, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is suddenly promoted to super spy after Agent One is assassinated and every other agent is blown up at his funeral. When billionaire entrepreneur Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich) sponsors the exhibition of the Crown Jewels and the valuable gems disappear on the opening night, and on the watch of English, the newly designated agent must jump into action to uncover the thief and procure the missing valuables. Tracking the thieves’ underground escape route with sidekick Bough (Ben Miller), English locks in on Sauvage despite repeated assurances by boss Pegasus (Tim Pigott-Smith) that the respected entrepreneur has nothing to do with the crime. Could the mysterious Lorna (Natalie Imbruglia), who has an odd habit of turning up at the wrong place at the wrong time, hold the key to helping Johnny? A massive hit overseas, Johnny English held its own at the box office in early April 2003, and was slated for wide release in the U.S. If the spoofing in Johnny English strikes especially close to home, that may be because the film was scripted by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who teamed to pen such Bond adventures as Die Another Day and The World is Not Enough.

The second chapter in the “Bourne Trilogy,” based on Robert Ludlum’s best-selling espionage novels, reaches the screen in this sequel to the 2002 thriller The Bourne Identity. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has abandoned his life as a CIA assassin and has been traveling beneath the agency’s radar, eventually reconnecting with Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente), the woman he loves. But Bourne is haunted by vivid dreams and troubling memories of his days as a killer, and he’s not certain how much really happened and how much is a product of his imagination. When Bourne is led out of hiding by circumstances beyond his control, he must reconcile his past and present as he struggles to keep Marie out of harm’s way and foil an international incident with dangerous consequences. The Bourne Supremacy also features Joan Allen as one of Bourne’s superiors, while Julia Stiles and Brian Cox reprise their roles as intelligence agents from the first film.

Top-notch action sequences and exciting stunt work highlight this fast-moving thriller. John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a top agent in the U.S. Marshalls’ Witness Protection Program; it’s his job to “erase” the pasts of Federal witnesses under his watch and deal with anyone who tries to hurt them. Kruger’s latest assignment is to protect Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), who while working for a major weapons manufacturing firm discovered evidence that the company was selling new, high-tech weapons to intentional terrorists groups with the cooperation of a faction of enemy agents within the United States government. However, when Kruger discovers that the Witness Protection Program has a rat in the house — and that rat is his boss, U.S. Marshall Robert Deguerin (James Caan) — Kruger has to guard his own life while trying to protect Lee’s. The supporting cast is highlighted by James Coburn, Robert Pastorelli, and James Cromwell.

An ex-intelligence officer tricked by rogue CIA operatives into smuggling a deadly virus out of the U.S. unleashes a firestorm of fury on the agents who kidnap his daughter once the mission has been fulfilled in an action-packed tale of international intrigue starring martial arts icon Steven Seagal. Jack Foster (Seagal) is an ex-CIA operative traveling to Europe with his young daughter for what they thought would be a relaxing getaway. When his daughter is kidnapped upon arrival in Europe and Jack realizes that he has become little more than a small pawn in a much larger game, he vows to bring his young girl back home safe and rain vengeance upon those who thought they could use Jack to fulfill their nefarious plot to hijack the planet.

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) races to solve the mystery of his past while being hunted by members of the very organization he was hired into as director Paul Greengrass brings author Robert Ludlum’s popular character back to the big screen for his third feature outing. David Strathairn, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, and Paddy Considine co-star.

Secret Agent 007 must stop a megalomaniacal technology mogul from destroying Silicon Valley in this unexceptional entry in the James Bond series. Computer baron Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is planning to trigger a major California earthquake in order to wipe out his competitors. Bond is assigned to stop him, but first he must do battle with Zorin’s statuesque partner in crime, May Day (Grace Jones). The expected high-wire confrontations ensue, as Bond battles the villains at international landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and takes the occasional break to romance an attractive geologist. Unfortunately, nothing fresh is brought to the familiar formula, and even the well-staged action sequences prove less than exciting. Indeed, this otherwise by-the-numbers production is most notable for the fact that it marked the final appearance of Roger Moore as the dashing Bond.

Oil drives greed in Oscar-winning Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan’s labyrinthine sophomore directorial effort that traces the corruption of the global oil industry from the backrooms of Washington, D.C., to the petroleum-rich fields of the Middle East. Based in part on the writings of former CIA case officer Robert Baer, Syriana combines multiple storylines to explore the complexities that befall a proposed merger between two U.S. oil giants. Reform-minded Gulf country prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) is in favor of making his nation more self-sufficient rather than U.S.-reliant, and his money-minded Western connections couldn’t be less pleased. Before settling into a cushy desk job for the remainder of his career, CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney) is sent on one last assignment — to assassinate Prince Nasir and reinstate U.S. ties in the oil-rich region. Though his loyalty dictates that Barnes carry out his current mission despite lingering doubts of a previous blunder, his mission goes horribly awry when his field contact goes turncoat and Barnes becomes a CIA scapegoat. Meanwhile, up-and-coming Washington attorney Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) attempts to walk a fine line in overseeing a tenuous merger between two oil giants that’s plagued with shady business dealings. Hotshot energy analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) is in talks to form a lucrative partnership with Prince Nasir, though the death of his son during a party at the prince’s estate makes him question his loyalty to business over family. Back in Washington, D.C., Bennet’s boss Dean Whiting attempts to undermine Prince Nasir’s attempts to make his country less reliant on the U.S. dollar by planting the seeds of dissonance between the progressive prince and his money-minded younger brother Prince Meshal (Akbar Kurtha).

Undercover Brother began life as an animated series on the Internet. The satirical cartoon was created by novelist and screenwriter John Ridley (Three Kings) for the website urbanentertainment.com. Ridley wrote the screenplay with Michael McCullers, co-writer of the Austin Powers sequels, and it was directed by Malcolm D. Lee (Spike Lee’s cousin, and the writer/director of The Best Man). The film stars Eddie Griffin (of TV’s Malcolm and Eddie) as Undercover Brother, he of the gold Cadillac convertible and huge Afro, who uses gadgets and disguises to steal from the rich and give to the poor. His activities are discovered by the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., a spy organization devoted to subverting The Man (Robert Trumbull) and his henchman, Mr. Feather (Chris Kattan), who use their power over the media to demean black people and destroy racial unity. The spy organization is run by The Chief (Chi McBride), who is constantly screaming at his subordinates. They include Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis), a beautiful martial artist, Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle), who sees white supremacist plots everywhere, and Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams, who provided the voice of Undercover Brother in the cartoon), who supplies the operatives with gadgets and information. When a popular black political figure, General Boutwell (Billy Dee Williams), calls a press conference, presumably to announce his presidential candidacy, and instead announces that he’s opening a chain of fried chicken restaurants, the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. rightly suspects foul play, and recruits Undercover Brother to look into it. He goes undercover as an uptight buppie to work for The Man, but his cover is soon blown, and the seductive White She Devil (Denise Richards) is sent in to use her feminine wiles to destroy Undercover Brother.

Shattered Glass director Billy Ray directs Chris Cooper and Ryan Philippe in this fact-based drama concerning the FBI traitor who carried out what many historians refer to as the most notable national security breach in U.S. history. A key member of the FBI’s elite Soviet Analytical Unit, Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) would, for 15 years beginning in 1985, sell thousands of pages of classified documents to the Soviets. After making roughly 600,000 dollars on his clandestine endeavor and compromising everything from the identities of KGB spies working for the American government to nuclear war contingency plans, Hanssen was eventually transferred to a newly created position at the FBI’s Washington headquarters and assigned the task of guarding his country’s most sensitive secrets. It was while working in this capacity that a young agent named Eric O’Neill (Phillipe) was assigned the task of keeping tabs on Hanssen by suspicious higher-ups. Later, after being arrested while delivering a cache of secret documents to a “dead drop” spot in a Virginia park, the notorious traitor was arrested and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.