Escape to the Movies: Bourne Legacy

[Triaed]

"America, we're so awesome that the only enemy who can challenge us now is... us" Brilliant!
Hollywood had to get there some time. After saving the world multiple times from ALL threats (including extra-terrestrial beings) that is the ultimate and last challenge.

 

[malestrithe]

Whedon directing a new Avengers I'm all for.

Whedon writing the new movie... not so much. He is a one note writer who never had a chance to be good because his ring of sycophantic followers won't let him be.

Yes, please tell me once again how I'm so wrong. It has not sunk in the last 300 times I've been told. Maybe the 301st time will be what convinces me. ugh!

 

[Falseprophet]

as for Bourne movies i only really liked the first one...mostly for the "real life" like car chase tbh...that and "freshness" of that hand to hand fighting style at the time.

Yeah--the chaotic shaky-cam was okay for the first Bourne film because it represented Bourne's internal confusion and how he was such an enhanced-badass, you couldn't even tell what was happening until the bad guy was on the ground. Then, in typical Hollywood style, every action movie copied it even though there was no story reason for it. Ugh.

I also blame the Bourne movies for making the plot of every American spy movie since to be "superspy is pursued by his own agency for REASONS". I guess Haywire mixed it up a bit by making the agency a private company, but that just switched it to the other big bogeyman of recent action-thrillers, the evil PMC. Groan.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

There's an interesting point made about the potential jingoistic mindset of these films.
It's an interesting point but to be honest I always assumed it was more a result of major blockbuster films needing to compete on an international scale and therefore making it much more difficult to have our action heroes blowing up a bunch of Chinese/Russian/Cuban or German soldiers.

Although I will admit a certain degree of irritation at these films for continuing the Hollywood trend of preying on America's seemingly bottomless pit of techno-fear.

(Here's a fun game. Try having an honest conversation about robotics and artificial intelligence and time how long it takes for some half wit to bring up the Terminator.)

 

[Sejborg]

"America, we're so awesome that the only enemy who can challenge us now is... us" Brilliant!

Yeah. Just like Frankenstein was so awesome that the only enemy that could challenge him was his own monster.

The first Bourne trilogi has the same theme. Creating a monster (Bourne) and having it turn on you. Why is that a problem Bob?

(I'm European/Danish by the way)

 

[Alexander Bonney]

I understand what Bob's saying about the Bourne movies trying to be over the top in their action scenes, but realistic when it comes to the espionage and the dialogue, I just don't see what's necessarily... Wrong with that. At all. I thought moderation was a good thing? They weren't trying to be full blown camp by any stretch of the imagination, so why even compare them to that just because they wanted the action scenes to portray the extreme capabilities of the agents, which is the entire point of the movie? I'm really not seeing the issue here.

 

[TheSchaef]

How about "Bourne Gaiden"?

More surprised that your readers didn't suggest that one yet, than that it might not have occurred to you personally.

 

[tehweave]

The Campaign?

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifanakis as rival politicians. How could you not review that?

Anyway. Yeah, the Bourne films never did much for me either.

 

[Sovereignty]

I liked the review overall. Even though I'm not sure if you'd suggest going to see it or not. (Is the movie ending so abruptly detract from the quality? Is it good popcorn fodder?)


But one thing I was really disappointed with. In the end your little tangent about how it's a GI Joe fighting a corrupt US government system... You say that it's wrong because... It's arrogant? Really? It's not wrong because as bad as it is to stereotype other cultures/countries/etc in bad guy-dom, it's just as bad to do it to America? I feel like double standards are just the norm with you Bob. That's never good.

 

[Sandernista]

When I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought for sure it was a Hawkeye movie, I was so disappointed!

 

[Tollo]

Bourne Legacy

The latest Bourne movie is surprisingly Bourne-less.

Watch Video

Seeing as this film series are based on the series of books after the original trilogy that spanned from the early 1980's to late 1990's, the series writer Robert Ludlum died in 2001. Eric Van Lustbader took on writing the following novels in 2004 and in true fashion none of the films follow the same plot as the books.

In all matter of fact the 2004 novel The Bourne Legacy actually has Jason Bourne in it, the only reason they stopped making films with Matt Damon was because he quit in 2009, so they replaced him with Jeremy Renner. The book had nothing to do with the creation of super soldiers it was about hunting down his former handler or something similar, what's really funny is an extra 7 novels with Jason Bourne in them all being released over the last decade with the most recent being released this year.

The films are only loosely adapted from the books so don't turn them down if you don't like the films. there are 10 books in total by the way as of 2012, Eric Van Lustbader sure has been busy

 

[StriderShinryu]

Now that you mention it... yeah. I can recall anything of substance from the previous Bourne films. Like even the clips Bob used didn't ring any bells...

I'd like my movie purchases to stick with me longer than the time it takes to watch them...

Me too. In actuality, I literally can't even remember if I saw the third movie or didn't. Literally nothing from the series at all stuck with me except a slight tinge of disappointment given how hyped up they are/were. I don't recall them being bad at all, it's just sort of a vacuum.

That said, I like Renner so I may see this at some point but I'm definitely not rushing out to the threatre to see it.

 

[Moeez]

Any chance for a Killer Joe review?

Yes please! Matthew McConaughey does a brilliant surprise of a performance, the ending made me feel really queasy. Won't look at chicken the same way again!

 

[BeeGeenie]

I never thought the action scenes in Bourne were too over the top.... Because I could never tell what the bloody $^&* was going on!

I thought the first one was pretty good. but they got dumber and more shaky-cam with each installment. This new one wasn't even a blip on my radar 'til I saw this review.

Don't think I'll be missing much.

 

[Sis]

The movie series does indeed pale in comparison with the books. (the original trilogy that is). It won't take much to be better than Legacy, but it sounds like perhaps that will not be the case. For at least the book had Joshua.

 

[Group Grope]

I hate the born franchise
It wasn't until bob put his finger on it that I realized I hate it for all of the above not just that one thing... you know the one...

STEADY CAMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[LordFish]

A bit SPOILERY! (or was it, I'm ganna see it this weekend) But yeh, I started just listening to it because there was a LOT of stuff happening in the footage you provided.

And I see where you're coming from saying it's luke-warm for you, it kinda is for me too, but isn't it's saving grace that its kinda totally different from the rest of the action files out there? That's the main reason I've kept up with the franchise.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

4:30 - "America..."

Seriously? NOW You get that notion? And where were You during last decade of American filmmaking? (and game making for that matter?)

I got sick and tired of this trope ages ago.

I honestly thought it's because filmakers were wising up about filming distasteful rivalries between countries. Sure we could have a film making the Russians or the Chinese the bad guys, and rinse and repeat. But a domestic enemy is much more safe and unlikely to turn heads as having different ethnic enemies.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

"America, we're so awesome that the only enemy who can challenge us now is... us" Brilliant!
Hollywood had to get there some time. After saving the world multiple times from ALL threats (including extra-terrestrial beings) that is the ultimate and last challenge.

Likewise, why is that what we're supposed to assume when they choose a domestic threat? Who is supposed to be an enemy? Terrorist? China? Russia, again?

No, that was projection on Bob's part. And as a person who supposedly likes movies and has done at least over fifty reviews on movies, I'm honestly surprised he actually has that thought process.

The whole point of the Bourne stories, and now apparently Aaron Cross's story, is the student turning on the master. In this case, the master happened to be the US shadow government. People are trying way to hard to fit "America, FUCK YEAH!" into every little innocent thing nowadays.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I think I have yet to sit through an entire Bourne movie. Oh wait, I think I saw Supremacy, but that's the only one.