The Bourne Legacy
Aug. 15th, 2012 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hilsSo today was finally Renner Day and I dragged myself out of bed after 4 hours sleep so go and see The Bourne Legacy.
I know a lot of my friends haven't seen it yet so I'll put my thoughts under a cut
Okay, I'll fully admit that whilst I have seen the first two Bourne movies I never saw the third so I was going in slightly blind. But, even as part of a franchise, a good movie should be able to stand on its own without confusing the audience, so I figured I'd be okay.
I should say that I did enjoy it, and I'll probably go and see it again, but that's largely down to Jeremy Renner. He does a great job of portraying an action hero who also has a vulnerability to him and he captures both sides of that perfectly.
In fact I have to say all of the cast put in great performances. My issue was largely to do with the writing.
The exposition is kind of clunky, and a lot of time is spent on the background politics of the various organizations rather than the character backgrounds. It's hard to feel for the characters when we know so little about them. A couple of small flashbacks is all we get on how the three main characters know each other. We get a little more about Aaron and how he came to be in the programme but again there are still huge gaps which I can only assume they left deliberately in the hopes of securing a sequel.
And that's the stuff I wanted to see more of. We're given a snippet of how Aaron and Ed Norton's character were working together on what appeared to be Aaron's first mission, or certainly the first one that went badly. Were they friends? Did they work together again after that? It's never explained.
Similarly Aaron explains that the only reason he got into the Army and then onto the programme was the because his recruiter lied about his IQ which was 12 points below the minimum and he needs to keep taking his meds because he doesn't want to go back to that. SO MUCH could have been done with that concept but it's just a couple of lines, they give him a permanent fix and that's it.
Likewise I really wanted a confrontation between Aaron and Norton's character but instead they unveil yet another secret government programme in the last 30 minutes and the movie devolves into what reminded me very much of The Terminator with an almost unstoppable villain whom we know nothing about.
Again, I can only assume they're saving the Norton confrontation for a possible sequel and that's a shame.
So, overall, not bad. I wasn't going in expecting Shakespeare and the action scenes were cool. Just a shame that there was a lot of wasted potential.
I know a lot of my friends haven't seen it yet so I'll put my thoughts under a cut
Okay, I'll fully admit that whilst I have seen the first two Bourne movies I never saw the third so I was going in slightly blind. But, even as part of a franchise, a good movie should be able to stand on its own without confusing the audience, so I figured I'd be okay.
I should say that I did enjoy it, and I'll probably go and see it again, but that's largely down to Jeremy Renner. He does a great job of portraying an action hero who also has a vulnerability to him and he captures both sides of that perfectly.
In fact I have to say all of the cast put in great performances. My issue was largely to do with the writing.
The exposition is kind of clunky, and a lot of time is spent on the background politics of the various organizations rather than the character backgrounds. It's hard to feel for the characters when we know so little about them. A couple of small flashbacks is all we get on how the three main characters know each other. We get a little more about Aaron and how he came to be in the programme but again there are still huge gaps which I can only assume they left deliberately in the hopes of securing a sequel.
And that's the stuff I wanted to see more of. We're given a snippet of how Aaron and Ed Norton's character were working together on what appeared to be Aaron's first mission, or certainly the first one that went badly. Were they friends? Did they work together again after that? It's never explained.
Similarly Aaron explains that the only reason he got into the Army and then onto the programme was the because his recruiter lied about his IQ which was 12 points below the minimum and he needs to keep taking his meds because he doesn't want to go back to that. SO MUCH could have been done with that concept but it's just a couple of lines, they give him a permanent fix and that's it.
Likewise I really wanted a confrontation between Aaron and Norton's character but instead they unveil yet another secret government programme in the last 30 minutes and the movie devolves into what reminded me very much of The Terminator with an almost unstoppable villain whom we know nothing about.
Again, I can only assume they're saving the Norton confrontation for a possible sequel and that's a shame.
So, overall, not bad. I wasn't going in expecting Shakespeare and the action scenes were cool. Just a shame that there was a lot of wasted potential.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 10:06 pm (UTC)But yeah, pretty much completely agree with all of this.
I stand by my feelings that it was basically an action script they'd found somewhere that they threw the words 'Bourne', 'Blackbriar' and 'Treadstone' into in order to tack it onto a successful franchise. If we hadn't briefly seen Aaron and Rick together, I'd have disputed whether the actors involved ever even met.
Also the ending was horrible, it just stopped without any real closure. I get leaving a few loose threads but this just felt like a scarf that had been eaten by cats.
It was watchable, always enjoy Renner, but it could have been so much more.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 11:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's a real shame. Such a waste of an amazing cast.
Going to go and watch it again with the Newcastiel girls just so we can all oggle Renner some more.
He needs a good film again, stat.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 12:04 am (UTC)Do do do dodooo.
Do do do dodooo.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 10:18 am (UTC)P.S. Hope you're ok, haven't had chance to talk to you lately! :(