demoncleaner
Posts: 2155
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Belfast
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Firstly, I would say Ian Nathan can't really complain about a word like “metastasised” to any readers who have digested his own style over the years. We all know that's precisely the type of term that would have moistened his crotch if only he'd beat Gilroy to the punch.
Anyway...I'm metastasising my point...
If you consider The Bourne Ultimatum you'll see a fairly uninspired, though quintessentially Bourne film that inhabits the recognisable mould of the franchise, but is effectively a film running down the clock until Jason Bourne recovers his memory; it's only this that gives dispensation for the arc to end. I'm a fan of the series and value Ultimatum as much as the others, but it indicates an opportune time for Damon and Greengrass to close the book because there is no apparent means to contrive another outlet for the character. Fair enough.
But...
When you consider there is as much of Tony Gilroy's DNA in the franchise as there is Matt and Paul's it seems to me that the virtue of The Bourne Legacy is to reset the boundaries and dare I say it, extend the playing field for the return of Damon and Greengrass if they so wish. Assured of context they were more than happy to simply fit the mould for the third film, I'm suggesting that Gilroy has worked admirably (and thanklessly) to refit both the principal celebrants of the series with scope to come back. Is this movie really pointless or, to follow a metaphor proposed in the film, has Gilroy been “ate the sin” of sequel contrivance so others can benefit later? Well, I was personally entertained by it so I'm happy to go along with this latter theory.
It's all well and good to sneer that we're “stuck with 006” but Gilroy's entire script purposefully depreciates Aaron Cross at the expense of Bourne. There's a lot of pissy mileage to be made of the “medicated super-soldier” plot but isn't this present to show a falliblilty in Cross that Bourne doesn't have? A dependence Bourne doesn't share? It's also brave for any script to openly cite its hero as having a lower IQ that befits qualification for the job. Cross is far from “super”. You can take that statement and consider what it proposes as interesting to the series. Or you can take it and deride this character as being inferior to Bourne I suppose it depends if you were honestly expecting Aaron Cross to equal our established hero. I wasn't expecting that. He isn't equal. But guess what? No one tried to make him that so I guess we're all square.
In terms of likeability I would say that Jason Bourne was questing for such abstractions as “himself” and the “truth”. Aaron Cross is pursuing a cure for a motor neuron collapse. It's a more practical goal but lacks the poetry and so Renner's character is less likeable. And it's true. He is less likeable, and Legacy does noticeably lack the empathy elicited from Bourne's reset blamelessness. It also lacks the justice principle in so far as Cross does not meet his maker (with audience satisfaction in tow) as Bourne does in each of his films. These are the things that are lacking in Legacy, and these are the things that makes it the “least good” Bourne film. But in my book, the least good Bourne film is still bloody entertaining and it's deeply disingenuous for anyone to yawn and cite de ja vu at the prospect of globe-trotting, or of furrowed brows peering into computer screens since this is the mould that the makers and the viewers who kept coming back beg adherence to. It's also deeply disingenuous for anyone to cite medical enhancements as something cod about this outing in comparison to Bourne's propitious brain damage and I would suggest that Freudian memory triggers can appear just as cod to the lay person as the latest peversions in medicine. It's particularly disingenuous of Ian Nathan's revisionism of the series to have us believe that Paul Greengrass' document heavy approach is laudable over the 3 films. It was the imperfect approach to action movie directing that happily skewed the first film into a more accessible indie vein. The credibility of Greengrass was very welcome but was this regimen also counter to the thing that made Bourne stand out in the first place? Along with Identity and "shaky cam" criticism of the two subsequent outings the precedent surely set for Tony Gilroy is that the series can withstand imperfect action direction, it lacks thrills on the level of what the previous films have offered but it surely piques the viewer with tension aplenty early on. It undeniably inhabits that distinctly Bourne mould we were talking about earlier and only a churl would suggest it either does damage or undoes a previously respected franchise. It does neither and at best, at best it surely creates potential for a regrowth in Bourne-proper.
And what's wrong with a 006 movie anyway?
4/5
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RE: Was this written by a teenager? - 
) 
Well, I enjoyed it. - 
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