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CNN Saturday Morning News

This Weekend's Movie Preview

Aired June 15, 2002 - 08:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BOURNE IDENTITY")

MATT DAMON, ACTOR: I'm not making this up. These are real.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

DAMON: Who has a safety deposit box full of money and six passports and a gun? Who has a bank account number in their hip? I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm catching the sight lines and looking for an exit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; I see the exit sign, too. I'm not worried. I mean, you were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing stuff when they're scared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Pretty big weekend at the box office. That was a clip from a new Matt Damon movie, "Bourne Identity." Three major releases just hit the silver screen -- "Bourne Identity," "Windtalkers" and "Scooby Doo." And joining me now to talk about the new flicks is CNN movie critic Paul Clinton. Paul, I have a feeling you do a good Scooby Doo.

PAUL CLINTON, CNN MOVIE CRITIC: Yes, I do, but we'll hold that for a little later. Scooby Doo!

PHILLIPS: I knew it was coming. I had a gut feeling. All right. Hey, "Bourne Identity." Let's talk about this. I'm excited about seeing this.

CLINTON: "The Bourne Identity" is sort of a movie out of its time. It feels like a retro '70s movie, because it really deals with post-Nixon paranoia about the CIA and our government, and really plugs into all of that. But if you take it out of that context, it's a darn good movie.

Robert Ludlum, the late Robert Ludlum, wrote this in 1980, and it involves a CIA black ops specialist who has lost his memory, and he's been rescued at sea. And all he has is two bullet holes in his back and a capsule in his hip giving him a Swiss bank account. And from there, he goes on to try to find out who he is and why all these people are after him. It's obvious he's not a salesman from Boise, Idaho, but he doesn't know who he is. And we find out very quickly, his name is Jason Bourne, or one of his names, and he went on an illegal mission to save -- kill an African dictator, which is highly illegal. It was all set up by the rogue part of the CIA, and this dubious senator played by Brian Cox. And once he fails on that mission, he's expendable.

So, he's on the run. And he hooks up with Franka Potente, who was best known for "Run Lola Run," and he offers her money to drive him to Paris. And along the way, he tells her his situation, and now she knows too much and he still knows too little. And the CIA rogue unit is after him, and so is the people that -- the dictator that he failed to kill. So now they're on the run.

And it's quite good. I mean, it does have that '70s feel, but it clicks right along. And Matt has poured on the charm, and there's lots of "Matrix"-type moves. And it cooks. It's a fairly good film.

PHILLIPS: Yes, he is quite charming. All right. "Windtalkers" -- great action, but also what a great story. Finally something coming out and talking about how the Native Americans made such an impact during World War II. Let's talk about the Navajo code.

CLINTON: Well, the Navajo code -- it was an unwritten language, and it was an ancient language. And during World War II, every code the Marines threw at the Japanese, they broke immediately. Apparently if you sneezed on the radio, some Japanese guy at the other end would say, "gazunteit." They had everything done. So they came up with the idea of Native-American Navajos, who have a very complex language that's handed down and not written.

And the Navajo code speakers were a real factor in World War II. They were about 400 of them. They were put in the Pacific theater for the war. And the premise is that each Navajo was assigned a Marine to protect them. And if necessary, kill them if they were going to get captured.

Now, that's not true. It was never any part of reality. The Marines were there to carry the radio. So, it does distort history a little bit, which kind of aggravates me, but it's a spectacular John Woo film in terms of the action. But in terms of the script, by Tony Valari (ph) and William Blake Henry (ph), it's very, very cliche- riddled. Everything you'd expect from every World War II movie you've ever seen. You'd almost expect John Wayne to come waddling over the horizon, you know, "let's saddle up."

It's like one guy thinks he's going to die, so he gives his ring to someone and saying, you know, please give it to my wife -- of course, he dies in the next scene. It's every single cliche.

PHILLIPS: All right, don't give it all away now.

CLINTON: Well, that's just one little thing. But "Windtalkers" runs out of air. You know, just the script is not good. The performances are great. Wonderful moments. But all in all, does not hold together.

PHILLIPS: All right, Paul, we're about out of air time. Twenty seconds. "Scooby Doo."

CLINTON: "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" Aimed totally at 7 years and under. They made no concession whatsoever to appeal to an adult audience. It's sort of like "Josie and the Pussycats." There are some fun little moments, but definitely geared toward the 7-year-olds with no real concessions to try to make it appealing to an adult audience, like they did with "Shrek."

But the GSE (ph) animation with Scooby is great; the guy playing Shaggy is wonderful, but purely, purely kids' fare.

PHILLIPS: One of our favorite cartoons growing up. Paul Clinton, thank you.

CLINTON: Thank you.

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