LoveFilm? I’ve had Nightmare On Elm Street and Zach And Miri Make A Porno sitting on the table for ages now. Looks like I’m in for a film night. Now where did I put that takeaway leaflet…?
Amazon? I actually haven’t done a lot of reading lately, mainly due to my iPhone deciding it hated me (I listen to books now). But I have a shiny new Samsung, and it will be christened with the last Narnia book soon.
****
Let’s just discuss legacies for a second. This
whole Bourne thing has a massive
legacy. Matt Damon is Bourne,
apparently, nobody else could fill those shoes. They might be right, but I don’t
know because I’ve only seen two thirds of the first one, that’s it. And
frankly, I don’t care. But why am I telling you all this crap? I’m telling you
because you need to know that I went to The
Bourne Legacy with very little expectation; therefore, my review won’t be
littered with complaints about how Legacy
doesn’t live up to the last three movies. Sorry.
But before I get into it, let’s do that age-old
summary of the movie. If I’m correct, Legacy
and Ultimatum happen at more or less
the same time. When the media find out about these super –soldiers the
Americans have been creating, the CIA decide to kill the remaining agents. One
of those agents is Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), who won’t give up without a
fight. With doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), Cross travels across the
world to save his life. It turns into a cat-and-mouse game, Cross and Shearing getting
chased by Eric Byer (Edward Norton) who wants to kill both of them so he can
remove all evidence of the super-soldier project.
Is this film as good as the first three films?
I have no fucking clue. I will say this though; the first three would have to
be cinematic masterpieces for this to be seen as inferior, because Legacy is a really enjoyable movie. It’s
constantly moving, stopping only briefly at points for a quick breather before jumping
in again. You’re always at the edge of your seat. The action is frenetic but
believable; everything is rooted in reality and I never felt like something was
too ridiculous. We are taught to believe that Cross is essentially superhuman,
so any seemingly extraordinary feats make sense.
And let’s talk about Cross for a second. Played
by Jeremy Renner, obviously, who is bloody fantastic. An excellent performance.
Since Hurt Locker, he’s not really done many good roles, frankly. Side parts in
Mission Impossible and Avengers Assemble are a highlight, which
isn’t saying much. Here, though, he burdens the movie and does a fucking good
job of it. The character is very different from what I remember of Jason
Bourne; there is an underlying sarcasm and cynicism in everything he does,
which is a refreshing quirk. Without a doubt, Cross (thanks to Renner) is more
than credible as the Bourne substitute.
Oh yeah, the other guys. Rachel Weisz?
Fantastic. Edward Norton? Fantastic. Both of them are awesome, anyway, I’ve
more or less loved them in everything they’ve done, and they’re good here.
Weisz’ transformation from hysterical to defiant is well-expressed and Norton
is, well, Norton. That high-pitched nasal voice is still quite funny, but you
can’t fault the performance. There are others too, who come in and out of the
film, but the three leads steal the show.
My only issue with the movie is that it’s
bloody predictable. Just re-read my summary above again, and you can easily
work out how the movie will end. I won’t give you a blatant spoiler, but it
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out if Cross and Marta survive in the
end. I just wish there was some sort of twist in the film, but it never comes.
The film plays out exactly as you would expect it to, and that’s a downer.
Nothing is truly unpredictable nowadays though, I guess. The beauty is in the
execution. And the execution here is great.
The best way to judge a movie like this is to
ask yourself whether you’d want to see the inevitable next one. And I do. Jason
Bourne has his legacy, and Aaron Cross could be cementing one of his own now
too.
****
Another
one bites the dust. This was really easy to write, which probably means it was
an awful review. Ah well, nothing wrong with pieces of shit every now and
again. It’s Drive by Incubus blasting
on the iPod machine as I sign off, but you know the drill.
Find me
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on Facebook – Jafar Iqbal
And, well,
yeah. You can go away now. Oh, and tell yer friends!
