The Bourne Legacy
I went to see The Bourne Legacy this morning. I loved the other Bourne movies, partly because they are very good and survive multiple viewings, but mostly because my dad and I like watching it together and geeking out about it. Sadly, he didn't want to go to the cinema to see the new installment because he doesn't like to go out (I'll get the dvd when it comes out and we'll watch it together then, yay!)
Anyway, all in all, it was an enjoyable movie but not as awesome as the Damon movies. It had all the elements that make Bourne - suspense, very well-executed action scenes, the music and the car chase, but it missed the awesome. There was less Macguyver-improv-weaponising, and no Bourne one-liner of awesome, which was disappointing.
Jeremy Renner was very good in this and it was a good call by the writer-director to make him very un-Jason Bourne. His character, Aaron Cross, is very human compared to Jason Bourne's rehabilitating-machine-trying-to-be-human-again persona. He flirts (a little unsuccessfully) with Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weiss) and tries to make friends with another assett. It's a wonder he's an assett at all, as they are meant to be uncompassionate and machine-like devoid of morals and immune to the guilt of killing. This inconsistency is addressed though, as Cross's motivation for staying with the program, regardless of how mismatched his personality is for its purpose (underground faceless assassins who will unquestioningly kill anyone who stands in the way of the US, including civilians), is to have access to its physical- and (especially) intelligence-enhancing drugs. Prior to joining the program, Cross had a an IQ 12 points below minimal army recruitment criteria.
All this makes Aaron Cross more sympathetic and Jeremy Renner adds a lot of charisma to the role. It is still a little jarring, however, to see a nice guy like Aaron expertly and rather coldly dispatch 3 sercurity guards who were just doing their jobs and definitely unaware of who they were dealing with (I'm pretty sure one is definitely dead because people rarely survive having their neck snapped). Jason could at least blame it on amnesia and running on instinct, plus he mostly maimed them. Aaron ... not so much.
Rachel Weiss was also very good and believeable in a mostly reactionary role. I was girl-crushing on her while watching the movie, so I don't have anything bad to say. That scene at the beginning when her co-worker goes mad and kills everyone in the lab was just chilling and I never, ever want to experience that. The Tony Gilroy (writer-director) did a very good job conveying the terror of a workplace shooting on film.
Finally, just wanted to say how much of a geek I am for these movies. The movie is 2h 15min long. At about the 2 hour mark, I was starting to lament about the lack of a car chase and how it's not really a Bourne movie without a kick-arse car chase (in the same way Fullmetal Alchemist isn't really Fullmetal Alchemist until L'arc~en~ciel do a theme song, but that's a review for another day). Cue Aaron and Marta running in front of a motorcycle parking lot. I squee'd! I practically waved my hands in celebration and glee. And then at the very end, when "Extreme Ways" signalled the credits, I sang along. Whatever, I regret nothing and all that jazz.