Coyote Cinema: Bourne Legacy

[cyrano]

Up front, solid movie but the weakest of the Bournes. I didn't feel Renner had the charisma of Damon here, and we didn't get as much of the *flash* the earlier movies were good for--the tight, whipsmart combat choreography, and the almost MacGyveresque improvisations that said "this guy is preternaturally smart and quick thinking". There was less action, but there was still the tense moving of chess pieces as the rogue agent worked to stay ahead of the Agency. I loved the way the third movie was woven into this one, and I loved the way Bourne was a phantom throughout without making an appearance. I loved how Rachael Weisz was believably a civilian who still was not reduced to screaming and being saved--a hallmark of these movies. I wish I'd had the chance to rewatch the other movies first, like we did with 'Ultimatum', because I think it would have enriched the experience. The last forty-five minutes or so are a chase scene that's probably about twice as long as it needs to be, but it did put a new twist on the rooftop escape that's in every movie.
Good performances from quite a few of the cast. Suffers from high expectations of a Bourne film. 3.5 wags.

Comments

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

[... continued from above.]

Now imagine that instead of sending in Beta, they had woven in the obligatory chase scene somewhere else in the movie, somewhere that it didn't feel tacked on. Then imagine this end to the movie:

* Scene where Cross starts getting sick in the Philippines after viralling out*
Marta comes up to Cross, who is leaning against a pole.
Marta: Are you okay? *half-hearted nod from Cross* Can you walk?
*Cross starts forward shakily, Marta starts to steady him*
Marta: I've found us a room. We'll be safe there.
[I believe that's a slight re-ordering of the existing scene, in that I think she says she found the room first, then asked if he could walk. I want the scene to end with "We'll be safe there", though.]

*Cut to scene with Norton's advisor telling him about Beta and the Jax program*

*Cut to scene with Beta meeting the handler in the Philippines, where she says that everything's in the car*

*Roll credits*

You've got a setup for the next movie, you've handled my problems with the ending, and Beta can spend the next movie being the badass super-spy he was presumably trained to be. Cross and Marta think they are safe, but they're vulnerable and they've got something big coming after them that they don't know about. You could sell pre-paid tickets to the sequel in the hallway outside the theater showing this movie, and I'd fucking buy one right there. Because you've pushed Beta to the next movie, you've got room to show him as highly trained AND a loose cannon, if that's what you want (and a movie in which Ed Norton's character unleashes a super-spy to chase a super-spy and ends up having to deal with TWO rogue super-spies instead would ALSO be a fabulous movie.... or just a movie about two super-spies trying to outsmart the other... or, since Norton didn't know about Jax being up and running until he was told, presumably Jax has a different Head Honcho, and it can focus to some degree on a tense power struggle between Norton and Jax Head Honcho.)

I'm not saying it was a bad movie. I'm saying the last forty-five minutes could have been better. I was disappointed in the lack of clear resolution from Cross and Marta, and I was disappointed in how they spent so much of the early movie setting up that they were shutting down Treadstone in order to protect their other projects from the taint, and then when they brought in someone from another project, one touted as a step up from Treadstone... that operative went down too quickly and too easily.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh dear gods yes the last 45 minutes could have been better.
(And I thought Norton knew about the Beta, it was Keach who was all butthurt that there were super secret programmes that he wasn't in on.)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Norton did, he was the one who snapped Keach's nose off informing him