Ryan McNeil
Sometimes, you have fun in spite of yourself. You find yourself with people you don’t normally hang out with, in a bar that totally isn’t your scene, talking over music you wouldn’t listen to in a million years…and thinking to yourself that you just don’t want the night to end. That odd sensation happens at the movies too – and for me it came as a result of THE BOURNE LEGACY.
THE BOURNE LEGACY shows us events happening concurrent with the THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. As everything in that film is unfolding, a totally separate American intelligence program codenamed “Outcome” is in crisis mode. The uncovering of programs like Treadstone and Blackbriar are bound to draw heat on the similar tactics being employed in Outcome. The head of the division, Eric Byer (Edward Norton) calls for the entire project to be torched, with an eye on rebuilding it when the storm blows over. In this case, “torching it” also means killing the operatives they have out in the field.
Of all the operatives targeted, one survives: Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner). Though Cross has survived a long stretch of Alaskan wilderness conditioning, he finds himself dangerously low on the meds the operatives are prescribed to heighten their mental and physical abilities. Knowing he was targeted for termination, he sneaks his way back to the lower 48 for medicine – and answers.
Unfortunately, his best source of medicine has its own set of problems. His training had him routinely being checked out at a lab in Maryland, usually by a doctor named Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz). One day, Shearing’s lab is the scene of a tech opening fire on his co-workers, causing severe trauma, and casting a shadow over a key component of Outcome’s operations.
As Outcome continues to try to close up shop, Cross and Shearing’s paths slam headlong into each other. Together they strike out on their own to try to survive termination and seek answers.
So the same way I mentioned one can have fun despite one’s self, THE BOURNE LEGACY is a film that entertained me even though it probably shouldn’t have. Allow me to explain.
Structurally, this film is wildly flawed. It requires its audience to have a pretty damned good recollection of the inner politics of the previous three Bourne films. Note to filmmakers: most of the moviewatching public who watched and enjoyed that trilogy remember details like bodies in stairwells, death by magazine, and parkour. I doubt any of them could differentiate Treadstone from Blackbriar, or single out who ran what in which film. What’s worse, is that it spends almost a full act on boardroom doublespeak about how those programs are screwed and how the remaining program is also in jeopardy. What should have maybe been a warm-up stretch becomes a full lap of the track.
What’s worse, while all of this is going on, Jeremy Renner is wandering around the Alaskan wilderness, popping pills, and chilling out with Oscar Isaac. Why? Hard to say. The film has already assumed we know the trilogy intimately, so watching an op train in such a dull manner is a waste of time. But let’s say this film is contradicting itself, and assumes we haven’t seen the other movies – why then would our introduction to a supersoldier be watching him climb mountains and take vitamins?
And while all of this is happening, somewhere in Maryland a lab rat goes postal and shoots up half his fellow chemists. Why? If the film knows, it sure ain’t telling.
So, when you take all of that, and stretch it out over an hour, you put the audience into a deeply restless position. You have challenged them to a game of pick-up, but decided to spot them six points and play a man down. Your game should be over before it has even begun.
What just barely saves THE BOURNE LEGACY is the moment Aaron Cross bursts into Marta Shearing’s country home. Seeing that scene play out takes us back to what we loved so much about the first three films – watching intense hand-to-hand, seeing found objects become weapons, and smiling as a perfect specimen fights his way out of certain peril. From that moment forward, the film gets the party started. The kids and the old folks have all gone on their way – it’s time to turn the music up and really tie one on.
Hosting this particular party is Jeremy Renner, who from the aforementioned moment onwards shows that he is an inspired choice to pick up the mantle from Matt Damon. He has the physical presence required to command our attention as an audience, and sell the part of a perfect military specimen. He also quickly establishes a wonderful chemistry with Rachel Weisz, which ups our investment in him that much more. Like Damon before him, he simmers in the film’s quieter moments, and crackles in its action scenes. He is so good in fact, that it’s easy to see that one short note could have improved the film: “More Renner”.
THE BOURNE LEGACY is a glorious mess; one that features a confounding opening, an unexplained and abandoned crisis, a sizzling lead actor, and a wonderfully fun climax that I haven’t even touched on. It should all add up to a rough night out, and a brutal morning after.
Me? I was looking around the room and saying “Same time next week?”
ouch. i found some good things about it, while it wasn’t as great as the previous three films.
“Wasn’t as great” is putting it mildly – this one was a mess!
I planned on giving this a chance as soon as I heard Tony Gilroy’s involvment and no mention of “reboot” ha. Going by your review I shouldn’t expect much though, except for seeing Renner and Weisz in action. I just hope it stops here, they didn’t leave anything open for a sequel did they?
They left all sorts open for a sequel, but more in a sloppy way than a deliberate way.
If you must see it, wait for blu-ray.
Omar, they left everything open for a sequel…
Ryan, I’m pretty much in agreement with you – I enjoyed the film overall, but aside from seeing Renner and Weisz together, there wasn’t anything new (a few interesting plot details, but not too much more). Decent action and too much exposition, but not enough dialog between the two leads.
However, I don’t really agree about the mess (a few possible spoilers to follow) – yeah, they flit around a lot at the start, but I never felt lost. If I didn’t understand a section either 1) I knew that it would shortly be explained or 2) it didn’t matter. At some point 2 kicks in when you just realize, OK Ed wants to kill them both.
One thing to clear up though, the movie does in fact know why the guy shoots up the lab. It’s part of the plan to wipe out Outcome and start from scratch. They don’t just kill the experiments, they need to kill the scientists. The guy doing the shooting was directed to do it (either because he’s a plant or because they had him under mind control which is what Weisz surmises). They make it clear at one point when the police show up that ALL the key scientists are in that room (since no one else has clearance to get in), so that’s when the guy chooses to lock them in and go on the shooting spree.
OK, I’m the guy who can fill in what others consider “plot holes”, and even *I* missed that.
Was that actually underlined, or is that just your theory?
It wasn’t really underlined, but since they are trying to kill Weisz’s character at her house, it’s obvious that they missed her the first time around which makes it clear that the shootings in the lab were planned as part of the wiping out of Outcome. As to whether the guy was just a member of their team, paid to do it or mind-controlled, that’s not explained.
I’m not sure that makes it clear.
#bobiswrong
(That felt good!)
Well, what do you think is more likely: 1) Dude randomly goes insane at lab and kills every scientist related to the Outcome project (except Weisz) around the same time that the government is shutting down the project and wiping out all traces of it OR 2) dude is ordered/forced to kill every scientist related to the Outcome project?
I don’t think you have to spell it out. Number 2 fits in very easily with what the government has already done in wiping out their Outcome field agents. I’m just applying Occam’s Razor here…
#ryanisconfused
You’re right, that DID feel good! B-)
I overheard the people behind me say that they were expecting the film to be a stand-alone reboot and did not expect (or remember) the countless references to the previous.
Despite the slow start, I overall enjoyed the film. It does sort of annoy me though that the film has probably the most blatant sequel set-up of the entire series.
I like that they attempted to hinge it into the politics of the first three, but didn’t get that part quite right. Strathairn, Allen, Glen, and Finney all come in and out of this film in a blink. Had the film managed to really incorporate even one of them to play off Norton, it might have had something.
As for the sequel set-up, it’s at least on a par with the first one.
Easily one of my least favorite movies of the year. I’d be willing to go so far as to argue that it’s objectively bad. That’s how much I dislike it.
The best thing that can be said about Renner is that he fills Damon’s shoes with ease, even though Cross and Bourne are very different in terms of style and ideology and approach. And that just works against Cross’ character. He’s terribly written; he doesn’t have the same complexity as Bourne, and worse than that he’s essentially a junkie running after his next fix. Combine that with his personal mission being somewhat selfish, and you have a totally non-compelling and unsympathetic hero.
You already mentioned the structural flaw in the first half with Ultimatum unfolding in time with Legacy; the effect there is that you end up wishing that you were watching the former, which is a far more interesting and exciting film. Legacy‘s first hour feels like two hours. It’s a slog.
The biggest crime here is that Legacy is clearly written in the knowledge that there’s going to be another film. It doesn’t stand on its own. Instead of there being a meaningful confrontation between Cross and Byer, the latter just sends an operative from the next generation of super agent programs (sidebar: if Byer has all of those programs shut down, why is this one still active other than for convenience’s sake?) and he and Cross have a generic, badly shot chase before the film ends on a boat with a pop song. It’s the laziest and most awful symptom of franchising.
I was part of a podcast recently, where someone pointed out that the film missed it’s shot:
How much more interesting a film would we have seen if Cross REALLY started glitching out without those drugs?
On that same show, I compared this film to IRON MAN 2 – a film that sacrifices individual narrative to serve as a vertex for a franchise. The amusing thing of course, is that the Bourne franchise might be completely iced after this film under performed.
Oh well. At least this week I had fun, which is more than I can say for last week with TOTAL RECALL.
“a wonderfully fun climax” – i watched it and expected more dur to this end-quote. Personally, I felt the ending seemed to abrupt. They’re “lost”. So what?
A mess indeed – but, if they can pull Gilroy and replace him with someone else, than I MAY be interested again.But it truly is the WORST in the series.
Oh, so your comment button does work! I’ll cancel the call I put into England’s best IT dept.
When I mention the “wonderfully fun climax”, I’m talking about the motorcycle chase through Manilla – not the epilogue on the Philippino boat.
I agree with you that a change in director could help the series…but that opportunity might not come.
I think you hit on something when you pointed out that audiences remember specific visceral moments from the previous movies, not the intricacies of the plot. Legacy spent too much time tying us in to those intrigues and the rest of the plot dragged as a result.
If they’d detached from the previous installments, we might not have had him stalling in the wilderness while Norton caught us up on current events; I thought the same thing when we got to the house scene: “NOW the movie’s getting going!!” Shouldn’t have taken so long to get there.
Also they clearly deleted some scenes from his induction, which were in the trailer (“Will you give yourself to this program?”). I think it might have given us more insight into what kind of person Cross was before the meds; i.e. if we know that he’s essentially incapable of functioning independently in society (from a “state home” in Reno?), that’s not just a “fear of getting dumber” or an “addiction,” as many viewers are criticizing. Regressing to that state is a legitimate, terrifying notion as real as being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. IMHO 🙂
Hi Tippi – Welcome to the Matinee!
You got it. The covert dealings of Treadstone/Blackbriar was something I remembered pretty well, so I’m not too sure why the film felt the need to hold my hand through it and explain the effect of what was happening on a program like Outcome. Pity, since the other films were content to drop us into the deep end where mission command was concerned.
I’m with you – as middling as I am on the film’s overall effect, the plotline of Cross trying to deal with the chemical shock to his system is *not* something I see as a flaw. He said it himself, a person crashing off those sorts of meds isn’t a pretty sight. Those moments where he was having flashbacks and the moments where he was blanking out really grabbed me! Pity there weren’t more of them.
Come back often and keep reading, yes?