Hard To Get On Board With Bourne Without Bourne

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

THE BOURNE LEGACY (Dir. Tony Gilroy, 2012)

In retrospect, maybe it was a mistake for me to re-watch all of the Bourne movies recently in preparation for the new one.

To have those three fine fast-paced films so fresh in my brain, hurt more than helped for me to buy into a fourth film featuring neither star Matt Damon, nor director Paul Greengrass.

Especially when the connective tissue is that THE BOURNE LEGACY takes place during the events of the previous film, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007), with return appearances by David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, and Joan Allen, all wrapped up in the vast conspiracy that’s a lot more confusing this time around.

“Jason Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg,” says series newcomer Edward Norton, as the corrupt CIA bigwig in charge of, well, everything, to enforce the continuity, but it rings hollow as it was a line said in the last movie.

It’s the justification that co-writer and director Tony Gilroy, who was the screen-writer of the other Bournes, and his brother Dan, give us to expand the series’ narrative, that the network of entangled secret government programs has various agents in the field, and here’s another one who is in confused conflict with his superiors. And his adventures are just as exciting so let's put up the Bourne banner for him too!

Jeremy Renner, racking up his third franchise after MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and THE AVENGERS, is that other agent, who has been genetically enhanced by a regimen of little green and blue pills prescribed by a top-security scientist played by Rachel Weisz, who also doesn’t know the full scope of what’s going on.

Count me with her - despite the fact that this is by far the talkiest Bourne, a lot of the exposition about the clusterf*** of evil operations just goes in one ear and out the other, as it’s obvious the film is more about its fight scenes and ginormous motorcycle chase climax through the streets of Manila, Philippines than its perplexing plot mechanics.

The stoic Renner, who is just as indestructible as his predecessor, has some impressive moves - one unbroken shot of him running/climbing up the side of a house, jumping through a window and shooting somebody might be the physical highlight of the movie.

Trouble is the film is too drawn out - it takes a while to get going as it cuts back and forth between Renner training in the arctic, and the well-groomed evil old men in the corridors of power trying to get a handle on what Bourne brought down on them. Then when some momentum is built, the film stalls then starts again, then stalls…

Renner and Weisz on the run does amount to a few thrills, the slick stylish look of the film (provided by master cinematographer Robert Elswit) is attractive, and the fiercely focused performance by Norton as the stop-at-nothing antagonist certainly has its merits, but Bourne without Bourne just doesn’t cut it.

This errant adaptation of the first of Eric Van Lustbader's continuation of the late Robert Ludlum's Bourne novels doesn't have enough action to satisfy action fans, and the project never quite gels plot-wise.

THE BOURNE LEGACY isn’t a boring or bad movie, it’s just not inspired enough to get it up to par with the rest of the series.

Although Damon and Greengrass wanted to make another Bourne, maybe they should be glad they got out when they did. The Gilroy brothers - a third brother, John Gilroy, edited the film - seem to be tapped out on this material.

After watching all four films in the last week, I know I am.

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Streep and Jones rekindle romance in HOPE SPRINGS

Opening today in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

HOPE SPRINGS (David Frankel, 2012)

A frumpy Meryl Streep and a grumpy Tommy Lee Jones, as a long-timed married couple whose marriage has lost its spark, are both excellent in this film that really shouldn’t be mistaken for a oldster rom com.

At first, it can seem simple-minded, both drama and comedy-wise, to see Streep failing to get any action from her coldly set-in-his-ways husband Jones, who sleeps in a separate room, completely oblivious to his wife’s advances.

However, more and more, as it follows Streep through the motions of her passion-less existence, Vanessa Taylor’s screenplay has a good brain on its shoulders about these being real relatable people, and not caricatures armed with one-liners.

So to save their marriage, Streep signs her and Jones up for a week of couples’ therapy with a famous sex therapist (Steve Carrell) in the town of the title in Maine. Jones is resistant to leave their home in Omaha, but catches up with Streep at the last minute on the plane. “I hope you’re happy now” he says, and, like in a few other instances in the film, I swear Streep gives the camera a knowing look.

Because, you know, it’s Steve Carrell, I kept thinking he was going to steer the movie into different comic territory, but he plays the role completely straight. Carrell’s soft-spoken character is vague with no back story, yet figures in nicely with the very spare cast.

Elizabeth Shue has what amounts to a cameo as a bartender that chats up Streep when the couple spends a day apart, in a scene that tells us ‘hey, everybody has the same problems.’ For Streep’s benefit Shue asks for a show of her patrons’ hands: “Who in here is not having sex?” Of course, everybody’s hands go up.

Yes, bits like that make this come off like a big screen sitcom at times, and the film does get goofy with too much oral sex humor (there’s a movie theater scene that should’ve been deleted), but the writing is truthful about aging relationships, and there’s a undeniable warmth throughout.

Enough to make one ignore the safe choices on the soundtrack (Annie Lennox, Van Morrison, Lenny Kravitz, Al Green, etc.), and the Nancy Meyers-ish trappings, and take in a couple of ace actors in a small simple story about a couple of 60-year olds rekindling their romance.

If that doesn’t appeal to you, there’s plenty of CGI-ed spectacle with cartoon characters out there this summer that probably will.

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The TOTAL RECALL remake really ain’t right

TOTAL RECALL (Dir. Len Wiseman, 2012)

With its dark rainy dystopian cityscape full of video-billboards, flying cars, cyberpunk people with neon umbrellas, and Asian architecture, one could be forgiven for thinking in the first five minutes that this is a remake of a different Philip K. Dick adaptation: BLADE RUNNER.

But then what little plot there is kicks in and we are stuck inside this big over-caffeinated mess of a movie that’s a much looser take on the 1966 short story (“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”) than the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenneger/Paul Verhoeven version.

In this one, which takes place in 2084 (the same year the ’90 one was), Colin Farrell plays Doug Quaid, a robot factory assembly line worker married to Kate Beckinsale, who decides to give a memory-implanting service, the Rekall company, a whirl.

Things get all screwy and the secret agent vacation he’s purchasing reveals that he actually is a secret agent named Hauser, a bad ass who didn’t even know he was (see: Jason Bourne) that can kick the asses of legions of robo-cops.

So from there it’s essentially a bunch of high octane fight and chase sequences tied together by the thin thread of what used to be a cool sci-fi scenario.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston livens things up a bit, but his role as the evil Prime Minister who is after Farrell is as generically written as every other element here. Of course, Cranston has a convoluted political plan to, uh, let’s just say to rule the planet and become the all-being master of time, space and dimension. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Jessica Biel, who obviously has the same hair dresser as Beckinsale, who is just here to add more sexy acrobatics to this only action-minded atrocity.

A major sequence that features a chase through a ginormous elevator system made of accelerating cubicles gets close to being exciting, but the clutter of fast-acting CGI and overabundance of washed out looking backgrounds kept me from being in the moment with the characters.

To be fair, Farrell does a good job with what he’s given. He’s a guy that gets more interestingly nuanced as he gets older - I really hope to see him in something more interesting soon.

The humorless nature of this movie is disheartening because the 1990 original had a satisfying satirical spark to it, and it had the smarts to keep the sleaziness at bay until the second half on Mars.

This one doesn’t go to Mars, but this starts off sleazy - for example the infamous three-breasted prostitute (yeah, no way they could leave her out) is brought out much earlier. Why wait, right?

One of the biggest laughs in the whole movie was in the first few seconds when the name of one of the production companies appeared: Original Film. Yeah, as if!

Never thought I’d laud a over 2 decades old somewhat schlocky Schwarzegger movie so much, but before this new Wiseman-helmed waste - the Verhoeven version wasn’t close to being a classic.

After seeing this though, it sure as hell looks like one.

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