The Bourne Legacy

This week, we brought Norm along with us to watch The Bourne Legacy. I won the preview game, although we were both wrong about what the first trailer would be. I guessed Dredd (coming soon) and Evan guessed TheExpendables II, but it turned out to be Alex Cross. I might see it, but I want to know more about it first. It seems kind of disturbing. We also had Trouble with the Curve (it's like the anti-Moneyball, where Clint Eastwood plays a baseball scout whose instincts are better than what a computer could tell you), This is 40, Skyfall, and Les Misérables (if it's a French play, why are the songs in English?)

The movie opens with the standard Jason Bourne tune, but it's probably only recognizable to people who pay attention to music in movies. Anyway, aside from that, several plots get kicked off. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) hikes from one place in Alaska to another. We get that interspersed with a project crashing down around the ears of the CIA, and Eric Byer (Edward Norton) having to fix it. Well, technically, he only goes to meetings where they decide how to fix it. And if it's not those two scenes, the camera's probably somewhere in Marta Shearing's (Rachel Weisz) workplace, a high-security medical lab.

Eventually, the three plotlines intertwine. Marta's workplace genetically engineered improvements to the human system, tested on people like Aaron. Jason Bourne getting loose scared the people in charge, who dropped it on Eric's lap, who decides to shut it down, which meant killing most of everyone involved. This would make Eric the nominal bad guy, but I was actually somewhat sympathetic. Not all the killing, mind you, but the having to clean up other people's problems. Maybe it's also that Edward Norton is an incredible actor. But mostly it's a flashback where he describes his and Aaron's jobs. wherein they cross the line and forfeit their morals, so that everyone else can keep theirs. Monsters, yes. But vitally necessary.

Speaking of acting, it takes a while for the action to start. Normally, this is a fairly large problem for me, but in this case we got to play one of my new favourite games: Watch Jeremy Renner Act. I like this game; I could play a lot more, truth be told. It helps that everyone else gets into the game as well. After the Mummy movies, I forgot that Rachel Weisz is a fantastic actor as well, and watching the two of them together was way awesome.

Then the action kicks in, and it is 18 different kinds of incredible. Man, the director sure knows what he's doing. There aren't too many action scenes, but the climax lasts for pretty much the last third of the movie, broken only by a few minutes of recovery. Then it goes back into high gear. That is how you do an action film.

A couple notes. Don't trust the trailer. A lot of lines from the trailer don't refer to who or what is actually implied. Conversations in the trailer might not take place between the people shown. That type of thing. Still, it means they can sneak a couple of surprises in, so that was cool.

The end seems kind of abrupt. I was expecting it to go for a while, but then Extreme Days cut in, and I was like "Wait, they're ending it now? No ..." And then they did. It seems abrupt because there's not a whole lot of the closure I was looking for, but I guess that leaves it wide open for a sequel. Mind you, that's probably what the filmmakers were going for, because I am all in on any sequel they make.

It's a theatre movie for me. The lack of action is made up for by the set up and acting. After that, when the movie isn't staging an action scene, it's filled with tension. I may not have sat at the edge of my seat, but I could have, easily. Well, until the action blew me away.

One last note about the critics. A lot of them say that Jason Bourne, while not involved in this movie (Matt Damon's picture shows up, but that's about it), has his impact felt throughout. And that's not really true. He's more of the spark that sets the whole thing off, but they could have chosen any other thing, and the plot would have been pretty much the same. So don't believe the critics. Mind you, they tabbed this movie as around 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you know they're wrong.