BEFORE: So, funny story, I think I finally got my DVR problem fixed. If you recall, my brand-new DVR for TV shows was on the fritz (though the older one I use for movies remained just fine) as it kept recording children's shows I hadn't programmed, and each morning it would delete the shows recorded from the previous night that I wanted to save. I missed the Golden Globes and had to dub everything else to VHS the night it aired. I finally got a tech to come to the house (after threatening to cancel my service if I got stood up again) and he noticed right away that the new DVR was a "whole house" DVR, and asked me if I had the multi-room service plan. I don't and I thought, "Great, here's another thing Crime Warner Cable's going to try and sell me," but the DVR was apparently trying to connect with my other DVR, and when it couldn't find it, it settled for someone else's. So that explained why it seemed like I'd been getting extra shows - it was from someone else's DVR, possibly down the block or across the street. And they were seeing MY programmed shows, and probably deleting them each morning, and wondering where THEIR kids' shows went. The tech put a filter on my DVR to stop the interference, and thus took it off of "multi-room" or in this case, "multi-house" mode.
Jeremy Renner carries over from "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" (aka Mission Impossible: The Colon's Finally in the Right Place") and that'll do it for him, he's handing off to Edward Norton. I'll discuss the hold-up in programming the Norton chain tomorrow.
THE PLOT: An expansion of the universe from Robert Ludlum's novels, centered on a new hero whose stakes have been triggered by the events of the previous three films.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Bourne Ultimatum" (Movie #692)
AFTER: You know what would be cool? If someone could write a screenplay that assembled all these cool "loner" spy characters into a super-team, in the style of Marvel's "Avengers" film. You could have James Bond come to America and recruit Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt (or Jack Reacher, whichever), Jack Ryan, Bryan Mills from "Taken", and so on. It would never be possible, of course, because the rights fees alone would take up half the budget, then you'd have 4 or 5 actors each looking for a $20 or 30 million payday. But it's fun to dream.
What we get in "The Bourne Legacy" is the story of Aaron Cross (not his real name?) which pales by comparison to that imagined super-spy story, or to the first three Bourne films, for that matter. I found this extremely confusing overall, as I was never sure as they were cutting between the two stories whether they were cutting to flashbacks or not. One story was Cross out in the mountains on some kind of training exercise, and the other was a bunch of people having meetings in a room about various CIA projects - a gross violation of the "Show, don't tell" rule.
Even worse, the people in those meetings use a lot of project code names, like Treadstone and Black Briar, and how the heck am I supposed to remember those names from the other films, and what they were supposed to accomplish? You know what, pretend that as a viewer, I don't happen to have a copy of those file folders that you do, and maybe explain a thing or two to me. If you're going to have a lot of scenes with people talking in a room, maybe they should be saying some things that count as exposition. Just sayin'.
Everything is kept pretty mysterious, even the stuff with the green pills and the blue pills. Oh, they explain at length why you should stop taking the blue pills and keep taking the green ones (or is it the other way around?) but they never say what's IN THE PILLS. Again, not enough info and I start to lose interest, and then before you know it, my eyes want to close and it's nap time. When I have to go to Wikipedia to find out what the plot was on the movie I just watched, it's not a good sign.
Also starring Rachel Weisz (last seen in "Oz the Great and Powerful"), Edward Norton (last seen in "The Dictator"), Scott Glenn (last seen in "The River"), Stacy Keach (last heard in "Planes"), Donna Murphy (last heard in "Tangled"), Corey Stoll (last seen in "Non-Stop"), Michael Chernus, Zeljko Ivanek (last seen in "The Words"), Dennis Boutsikaris (last seen in "W."), Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Marvel, with cameos from David Strathairn (last seen in "The Notorious Bettie Page"), Albert Finney (last seen in "Skyfall"), Joan Allen, Frank Deal (also last seen in "Non-Stop")
RATING: 3 out of 10 Hellfire missiles
No comments:
Post a Comment