THE BOURNE LEGACY (Tony Gilroy 2012)

[Chris Knipp]

Tony Gilroy: THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012)


RACHEL WEISZ AND JEREMY RENNER IN THE BOURNE LEGACY

Bourne without Bourne

It should come as no huge surprise that the Bourne action movie series without Bourne himeslf -- as is the case in The Bourne Legacy, film number four -- just isn't the same. Describing The Bourne Legacy has to be largely a matter of separating what's missing from what's there.

Matt Damon, who played the titular Bourne, has left the series, as has the director of the last two of the three, Paul Greenglass, who directed perhaps the liveliest and smartest two action films of the last decade. Replacing Damon is Jeremy Renner. Renner is a wonderful action star, tough, gnarly, energetic, his ability to embody a man with nerves of steel forcefully demonstrated in the movie that brought him to the world's attention, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, where he defuses bombs in Iraq. But Renner has almost zero charisma. Likewise Edward Norton and David Strathairn, who seems more suitable for heading a PTA meeting than managing affairs of state, diffuse the fire that flamed brightly in the earlier Bourne movies. And Stacy Keach and Scott Glenn, as two plainclothes military officials, only remind us of the lack of Joan Allen and Eric Cox. As the obsessive head of some security apparatus outside the CIA, Norton can sound ruthless and bark out commands, but with that weak chin and slight lisp he just isn't as scary or as stylish as Allen and Cox were.

The female interest, a government secret program scientist played by Rachel Weisz -- and Aaron Cross, the mysterious Treadstone-style super agent Renner represents -- seem to get cozy with each other pretty fast. She is an excellent, if conventional actress, but not as exotic and unpredictable-seeming as Matt Damon's girlfriend-on-the-run, Franka Potente.

While Jason Bourne searches for his identity and figures out the secrets behind his dangerous skill set, Aaron Cross turns out to be part of a new generation of more lab-created super agents. Burne was a multilingual, action-hero, super-trained killing machine and the assumption always seemed to be that he began as a talented individual with the physical and mental equipment to acquire the extraordinary training he was given. Cross and his mostly unseen confreres appear to be the next best thing to a set of mutants. And they're all on drugs. They have to take "blues" and "greens" to stabilize some sort of virus that has been a delivery system for their exceptional abilities. According to Tony Gilroy, who had a hand in the adaptations from the three earlier Bourne movies from Robert Ludlum novels and directed as well as coauthored the screenplay this time, this chemical stuff is based on things coming into being in science right now, perhaps even a worry at the Olympic Games. It's "chromosomal gene doping through a synthetic virus." Cross, it turns out, was of sub-normal intelligence, so if his viral delivery system goes awry he'll be in big trouble.

Cross and Dr. Marta Shearing (Weisz) go on the run seeking a way to bypass his need for meds, or "chems" as the special agents call them. So the race is not to discover his identity and find out what he was being used for (maybe he knows?) but to dose himself with something. He is not a man reaching for his lost soul but a machine in search of maintenance. It's a comedown.

Col. Byer (Norton) & Co. have something going on, like wiping out one program to keep the secret of several similar ones from coming out, or something like that. The overriding plot that ran from movie to movie is mostly left behind (though we do see a video of Joan Allen, and there's a report that Jason Bourne is "alive and in New York." Though Gilroy is a clever and resourceful writer, he works with a handicap here. Without Bourne himself on screen (we only see a little photo of a young-looking Damon) and without the intrigue that ran so interestingly from Bourne Identity to Supremacy to Ultimatum, Gilroy is sort of starting from scratch, and Legacy reads not as a driving many-layered story so much as just a series of set pieces, one in Alaska where Cross must face off wolves and predatory drones, another surrounding Dr. Shearing's roomy old house somewhere near DC with a string of killings and a fire; and finally an undercover plane trip and a frantic search and chase on the road to and in Manila. The final chase and run sequence is strong. But it's not much different from many others of the genre apart from being conducted among the crowds, waterways, horrible traffic, and folklorically painted vehicles of the Philippines. Shooting in this location must have been a considerable challenge for the filmmakers, but that labor is not passed on to the viewer in terms of unusual thrills. The Bourne Legacy is lively and well made, but conventional and soulless.

As a character, Cross may be a mystery but not a very intriguing one, and he seems to know who he was before he was converted into a 21st-century Bourne-like creature. He can face off against a snarling beast and Parkur his way through rocky Arctic mountains and helter skelter Filipino buildings, and he is a good ID counterfeiter, but he seems to lack the inventiveness and aggression and moral self-questioning of Jason Bourne, not to mention the polyglot international sophistication. It's a great letdown early on when Cross meets up with an opposite number (Oscar Isaac) at an Alaskan outpost and instead of immediately killing him he shares dinner. When he spends the rest of the movie hunting for the right meds it adds insult to injury.

Opening days for The Bourne Legacy are Aug. 10, 2012 in the US, Aug. 13 in the UK, and Sept. 19 in France.

[CHRIS KNIPP]

[tabuno]

I agree with Chris about the supporting characters in this movie, not being very supportive of helping this movie and resulting in a less than crisp, sharp dramatic thriller. I do disagree that one of the main problems with this movie is the absence of the man searching for his identity, like Jason Bourne. What Jeremy Renner's character is going through and the threat to his retaining his new found (what really wasn't apparent) amazing abilities can be has dramatically riveting as Cliff Robertson's dilemma in Charly (1968) and his Best Actor Oscar performance or the medical drama with Robert De Niro in Awakenings (1990). The real weakness here is how the director and Jeremy Renner played Aaron Cross who didn't really seem to be that special mentally or physically nor was his persona sufficiently obtuse or detached to be a special operations force member needs to be. He seemed too emotional to be capable to detach himself to efficiently become a deadly force. Jeremy's emotional persona is such that Chris may have picked up this part of Aaron Cross's persona with how easily Rachel Weisz and Jeremy Renner formed a close relationship.

What was really disappointing was that script and its dialogue that contained some great lines that if had been directly effectively would have really created an amazing amount emotive fireworks rarely seen in an espionage genre. And I found Chris's seemingly strong "final, chase scene" overly long and almost ridiculous when the Asian assassin made a grave error in selecting a car to chase a motorcycle through the crowded streets of Manila - quite impossible and very manipulative beyond suspension of belief. What Chris doesn't comment on but others have had problems with is the sequel anticipating ending of this movie, which really just ends cold without any of the neatly honed endings of the first three Bourne movies.

[Chris Knipp]

I may be getting old or may just have seen too many movies, but some recent ones I can barely remember and so it is only with an effort, as it were, that I say, "Oh yes, the new Bourne movie, without Bourne...." It may be as tabuno states that there is great dialogue that could have been made very exciting (but was not). However what it comes down to and the reason why this Bourne movie is not half as memorable as the three true ones is that neither Aaron Cross nor Jeremy Renner who plays him is anywhere near as interesting, smart, sexy, and mysterious as Jason Bourne and Matt Damon playing him. And Matt Damon playing Aaron Cross or Jeremy Renner playing Jason Bourne would not be very interesting either.

[oscar jubis]

Dialogue? Does dialogue really matter in this genre? All I remember about the one I saw (or did I see two?) is the roller-coaster ride. Were the previous ones so good to begin with?

[Chris Knipp]

Dialogue is utilitarian but, as is obvious, essential to any good action film.

Some of the lines are surprises, like this memorable one:

Jason Bourne: Get some rest, Pam. You look tired.

Others (also from
Supremacy:

Ward Abbott: You're in a big puddle of shit, Pamela, and you don't have the shoes for it.

Delivered by Alex Cox, that 's a great line.

Tom Cronin: He's making his first mistake.
Nicky: It's not a mistake. They don't make mistakes. They don't do random. There's always an objective. Always a target.
Pamela Landy: The objectives and targets always came from us. Who's giving them to him now?
Nicky: Scary version? He is.

Pamela Landy: I was hoping you had some time for me.
Ward Abbott: Time for what?
Pamela Landy: I'm free right now, actually.
Ward Abbott: That sounds ominous. Let me check my schedule.
[checks his watch]

[holds a gun to both himself and Landy]
Ward Abbott: I'm a patriot. I served my country.
Pamela Landy: And Danny Zorn? What was he?
Ward Abbott: Unlucky. Collateral damage.
Pamela Landy: So, what do we do now?
Ward Abbott: I'm not sorry.

Each of these exchanes, and many more, are models of concision, immeidealy evoke the scenes and the contexts, define the characters, and move things rapidly forward. Tony Gilroy is a great and witty writer of lines.

They are good action films, and according to the critics, grew better and better better, till the new one, which is less good, but still acceptable. Or perhaps the critics merely came to recognize what the fans already knew: that actioners don't get more exciting or smarter than this.

Metacritic:

Bourne Identity 68

Burne Supremacy 73

Bourne Ultimatum 85

Bourne Legacy 61

[tabuno]

Chris's response to my comments are spot on. Not too many people can be me to shut up and have me use one sentence to comment on anything these days.

[oscar jubis]

Yeah, thanks Chris.