10 minute read
Film
from Aug. 16, 2012
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Under a bad sign
The Bourne Legacy
What started as a promising summer movie season has degenerated into a string of remakes, lame reboots and stretched-out franchises delivering minimal entertainment. When Universal decided to forge ahead with the Bourne franchise after Matt Damon, a.k.a. Jason Bourne, decided to call it quits, they were looking for a glorious changing of the guard— something akin to when Daniel Craig took over for Pierce Brosnan as 007. What they get with The Bourne Legacy is something closer to the vibe when Roberto Benigni replaced Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther franchise. OK, that’s a little harsh. I’ll scale it back a little bit. Jeremy Renner taking over for Damon in this franchise feels like the underwhelming switcheroo that occurred when Andrew Garfield took over for Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man. Renner, like Garfield, is a good actor. But he doesn’t command a movie like Damon can, no matter how good The Hurt Locker was. In taking over for Damon, Renner is going to draw comparisons, and he isn’t nearly as good as Damon as the Bourne centerpiece. Renner is better as a supporting player like Hawkeye in The Avengers or whoever the hell he played in the latest Mission: Impossible movie. The story trotted out for this one involves a parallel plot to the last Damon installment, The Bourne Ultimatum, when Damon was running around kicking ass in New York. Renner plays Aaron Cross, another scientific experiment with amplified strength and intelligence thanks to magic drugs.
When the film opens, we see Cross alone in the wilderness climbing wintry mountains and shooting drones out of the sky due to his super strength and super eyesight. He’s a man on some sort of mission, running low on the miracle drugs that make him a super strong smartypants. This concerns him. Back in the world of computer screens, suits and sticks up the asses, a group of military/government types led by Retired Colonel Eric Byer by (Edward Norton, looking for another franchiseBob Grimm after totally blowing it with The Hulk), are lookbgrimm@ ing to wipe out the program that birthed the likes newsreview.com of Cross and Bourne. While Bourne wreaks havoc in Manhattan, and Cross evades wolves in the mountains, the government is trying to cover 2 up the whole mess by killing the other superhumans and the doctors who created them. The plot actually feels a bit desperate, taking what was a good initial premise and stretching it thin in order to keep the cash cow rolling. The glimpses we get of Damon’s photo during news reports make us wish for the true presence of Damon. It’s not generally a good idea to remind viewers of superior movies while watching yours. Writer-director Tony Gilroy, who wrote the three previous Bourne screenplays, actually does put together a couple of decent action sequences. The early scenes with Cross fighting drones are fairly suspenseful, as is a shootout in a renovated house. For every good action sequence, there’s a stinker, like the final chase scene involving motorcycles and another superhuman guy trying to chase down Cross. The whole sequence feels slapped together, a poorly edited mess that’s actually hilarious in how bad it is. Rachel Weisz costars as a whiny doctor who helped to make the superhuman agents and manages to escape the powers that be with Cross. She’s involved in that final motorcycle chase, which features her hanging off the motorbike in one instance that looks totally staged and fake. Damon, formerly reluctant to the idea of doing another Bourne film, has recently said he would reconsider if there were a good script. Producer Frank Marshall has been crowing about the idea of Renner and Damon in a future installment. That sounds like a good idea to me. Give Damon his franchise back and let Renner do one of the things he does best: supporting action mega-stars in the franchises they have already established. Either that, or write a better movie than The Bourne Legacy for Renner. Ω
Bad Will Hunting.
1
POOR
2
FAIR
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GOOD
4
VERY GOOD
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EXCELLENT
5Beasts of the Southern Wild This movie is unlike anything you’ve seen before. It’s the story of Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 6-year old girl living with her father (Dwight Henry) in a place called the Bathtub, a makeshift Southern community built near a levee and susceptible to storms. As directed by Benh Zeitlin, we see the film through Hushpuppy’s eyes, with the movie alternating between reality and fantasy. The results are enchanting, sometimes scary, and ultimately breathtaking. Wallis is nothing short of incredible in the central role, a child actress with astonishing power. Henry, as her father, Wink, delivers what’s surely one of the year’s best performances. The whole thing plays like a fairytale updated for modern times, but the modern times depicted feature very few modern amenities (no iPhones in this movie). It will draw many an emotion out of you. It’s one of the year’s best films.
4Brave After the severe misstep that was Cars 2, Pixar gets back to goodness with this, the tale of Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald). Merida is a princess who doesn’t want to conform to tradition, shooting arrows better than any of the boys in or around her kingdom, and not really too keen about marrying any of them under arranged circumstances. When a spell is cast on family members, she must search for a way to restore normalcy, while convincing her mom (Emma Thompson) that she has the right to choose her own destiny. Merida is a fun character, and Macdonald is the perfect voice for her. As for the look of this movie, it is beautiful for its entire running time. While I’ve liked many Pixar films more than this one, that is not a dig on this movie. It might not be one of the best the studio has offered, but it is still a highly entertaining piece of work.
3The Campaign While this falls into the category of weaker Will Ferrell comedies, it’s still funnier than most of the stuff thrown out there with the intent of making us laugh. Ferrell stars as a congressman running for reelection who is surprised by the candidacy of an unknown candidate looking to unseat him (Zach Galifianakis). Ferrell is basically doing a riff on his Ron Burgundy character, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He has a few shining moments, including a profane phone message left for the wrong person and a classic baby punching incident. Galifianakis is funny, but his character’s two dogs, heavy breathing pugs, are funnier. This one is frontloaded, with most of the funny stuff happening in the first half. While it misses out on the opportunity to really skewer the American election process, it does have some good giggles involving refrigerator sex and petting zoos, so it’s got that going for it.
4The Dark Knight Rises Director Christopher Nolan wraps up his Batman trilogy with a rousing, though occasionally clunky, conclusion. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has retired Batman, and is living a reclusive life in his mansion when Gotham is besieged by the masked revolutionary Bane (Tom Hardy). Batman is eventually forced out of retirement, and meets his physical match in Bane while also facing off against a crafty cat burglar (Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, never referred to as Catwoman in the film but obviously playing that part). Hardy makes Bane a great physical adversary, but his performance is marred by a terrible voice dub that makes him sound cartoonish and out of place. Hathaway has a lot of good fun in her role, as does Gary Oldman returning as Jim Gordon. The movie has a lot of good action, and Bale has never been better as Batman. It’s not as good as the previous chapters in the trilogy, but it’s still very good and a fitting conclusion to a great story. 1Ice Age: Continental Drift The animated wooly mammoth (Ray Romano), saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) and sloth (John Leguizamo) take yet another journey to the land of the suck in this fourth, and undoubtedly not last, installment of the popular kiddie adventures. When the continents crack, the mammoth winds up on a floating piece of ice far away from the wife and kid, so he spends the movie trying to get back. Along the way, he does battle with a stupid pirate monkey (Peter Dinklage) that sings the dumbest song you will hear this or any year. Because this is in 3-D, the film offers a lot of action sequences, sacrificing plot for a whole lot of “whoosh.” In a summer that offers the likes of Brave, parents are better off just taking their kids to that movie twice than subjecting their prepubescent eyes to this thing. I actually got tired watching this due to all of the frantic 3-D movement. I fear these Ice Agemovies are going to keep on coming.
4Neil Young Journeys Director Jonathan Demme likes to make movies with Neil Young, and that’s turning out to be a very good thing. In this, their third collaboration, Young returns to the city of his birth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to perform a solo show at Massey Hall. And when I say solo, I mean solo. Young does it all with the acoustic guitar, powerful electric guitar, harmonica and that wonderful organ. He serves up classics like “Ohio” and “After the Gold Rush” and new ones, like the beautiful “Leia,” with no accompaniment. Demme cuts in footage of Young driving around the city, following his brother Bob’s Cadillac and seeing the sights. As for the way Demme shoots a concert, nobody does it better. He has a camera aimed right under the brim of Young’s hat, so you get Neil’s awesome scowling face punching your eyes. I hope these guys keep making these movies, because they are damn good.
4Ted Family Guycreator Seth MacFarlane makes his feature film directorial debut with one of the year’s funniest movies. MacFarlane lends his voice to the title character, an obnoxious teddy bear given the gift of speech and life after a wish by his child owner, John. The two never part, even when John, played as an adult by Mark Wahlberg, is in his 30s. They become pot-smoking buddies, and John’s girlfriend (Mila Kunis) starts to get annoyed. For those of you simply looking for good, raunchy, super R-rated comedy, Tedhas got the goods. But MacFarlane also takes the human elements of the story seriously, and they wind up being quite charming. It’s a major directorial feat when a first timer creates an animated teddy bear character that’s more well-rounded than most actual human characters in movies today.
2Total Recall Just when I was starting to really like Colin Farrell, he’s become the poster child for pointless remakes of great films. Granted, his turn as a sexy-nasty vampire in the Fright Night remake was fun to watch, but that movie didn’t live up to the original. Now we get this junk, with Farrell occupying the role of Douglas Quaid/Hauser, made famous by a little guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. This remake jettisons the humor, crazy gore, and Mars locations, resulting in one majorly dull sci-fi chase film. Kate Beckinsale is the best thing in the movie, stepping into the role made famous by Sharon Stone and wearing underwear like a true champ. There are a few nods to the Paul Verhoeven original—a three breasted hooker and a twist on the infamous airport security scene—and they feel unjustified. Wiseman’s film has little nods to the far better original scattered throughout. These nods create a craving to leave the theater and watch the original on Blu-ray.
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