The Bourne Legacy

The Bourne Legacy - Dir. Tony Gilroy (2012)

Continuing a franchise without its lead actor isn't always a wise choice, most of the time the decision yields nothing more than a forgettable piece of direct-to-video cinema. But, Universal is treating its Bourne series like gold since the original trilogy raked in close to a billion dollars in box office revenue. The studio kicked in a big budget and signed up an A-list cast to compensate for the loss of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass.

Despite its troubled production, The Bourne Identity was a hit and updated the spy genre into a gritty, real world setting. The film's success certainly played a role in rebooting the Bond franchise since Die Another Day (which also came out in 2002) was derided for its overuse of CGI and silly contrivances like invisible cars. Neither Damon nor Greengrass were that keen on returning for a fourth picture so the directorial reins were given to Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the script with his brother, Dan. Rather than rebooting the series or ignoring the events of the previous films, The Bourne Legacy is a side-quel that takes place simultaneous to The Bourne Ultimatum.

In case you missed it, Jason Bourne is running roughshod in Manhattan and threatening to expose Treadstone, a CIA black ops program involving illegal activities and assassinations. Retired Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton) is the shadowy government official in charge of all the various cloak and dagger operations, including Treadstone's sister program, Operation Outcome. In order to protect themselves, Byer orders the elimination of Outcome's assets and anyone else who may have damaging knowledge. This leads us to one of their best and brightest, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), who narrowly escapes a UAV while training in the Alaskan wilderness. Unlike the psychological manipulation of Treadstone, Outcome utilizes genetic engineering to gift its foot soldiers with enhanced abilities, both physical and mental. Think of a modern day Captain America with the side effect of requiring regular doses of pills (chems) to keep the enhancements permanent.

After losing his supply of chems, Cross seeks the aid of Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), who has also escaped an attempt on her life. One of her co-workers (Zeljko Ivanek) is given the Manchurian Candidate treatment and coldly guns down his colleagues with Dr. Shearing the only survivor. The globetrotting adventure cuts between the boardrooms and control centers of the CIA to the streets of Manila as Cross and Dr. Shearing search for the drugs our hero desperately needs.

Tony Gilroy has done a seamless job weaving The Bourne Legacy into the mythos that was previously created. Gilroy's directorial style is a meshing of Limon's and Greengrass's. Thankfully, Gilroy's shaky cam isn't as nauseating. The workplace shooting is one of the most effective sequences in the film. It would be chilling enough without the context of current events. The other action scenes are pulled off in gripping manner. The opener will recall The Grey as Cross evades a hungry wolf and a missile strike. Another tense set piece sees Cross rescuing Dr. Shearing in her remote home from a CIA kill squad. The most exciting and frenetic action is reserved for the third act as the protagonists run along the rooftops and crowded streets of the Philippines.

Gilroy falters in the actual story. Those who haven't seen the earlier Bourne films will be lost as much of the first act almost recaps the major plot points of Ultimatum in an effort to establish the timeline for Legacy. We get brief cameos from familiar faces like Scott Glenn, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, and Corey Johnson while introducing new characters such as Norton's Col. Byer and Stacy Keach as the latest in a long line of gravelly voiced authoritarians. There is also a lot of exposition and techno-babble about the intricacies of Outcome. The script is at its weakest when attempting to sketch out the lead characters.

Jeremy Renner is more than capable of succeeding Matt Damon. He brings the same quiet intensity to the role of Aaron Cross as he did to his conflicted bomb diffuser in The Hurt Locker. Unfortunately, his motivations aren't as interesting as Jason Bourne's. Bourne was all about discovering his true identity and finding redemption when he learns he wasn't that nice of a guy, sort of a serious take on the Total Recall concept. Bourne is also concerned with bringing his puppet masters to justice. Here, Cross knows exactly who he is and is primarily occupied with self-preservation. He is motivated by finding more meds. In a take on Flowers for Algernon, we learn that Cross dreads what will happen should he lose his mental faculties. Before joining Outcome, his IQ was so low that his army recruiter had to fudge the numbers to meet minimum requirements. This is an intriguing twist that is never fully developed. The same can be said for Dr. Shearing. Rachel Weisz gives a strong performance, but the character is merely the damsel in distress. She's there to be rescued by the hero, then tagalong for the ride until they fall in love. The most fascinating element about Shearing is her participation in the grey area of human experimentation. She seems willfully ignorant about the sinister implications of her work. Again, this is glanced over. The relationship between Cross and Shearing actually isn't as interesting as the brief relationship between Cross and an unnamed Outcome agent played by Oscar Issac. The agent runs a safe house on the training grounds where Cross finds respite. Isaac is reticent about opening up to the talkative Cross and both men are constantly sizing up the other in subtle fashion.

The Bourne Legacy eventually fizzles to an anticlimactic conclusion that obviously leaves room for a Cross-led sequel while leaving the door open for Damon's return. Legacy just doesn't do enough to expand the mythology of the Bourne franchise and the results are an entirely conventional action pic.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch - Dir. Zack Snyder (2011)

It's ironic that Zack Snyder calls his production company, Cruel and Unusual Films, because his latest picture is a cruel and unusual experience. Sucker Punch is a tedious and exhausting exercise in sensory overload. Snyder has been marketed as a "visionary director" for helming a surprisingly good remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead as well as the meticulously faithful comic book adaptations, 300 and Watchmen. Visionary? I actually agree. It takes a man of unique vision to make such a dull movie, despite the fact that it revolves around beautiful young girls armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, swords, and mechsuits.

Snyder unleashes his first film based on an original idea, fleshed out by himself and co-writer Steve Shibuya. However, all Sucker Punch proves is that Snyder doesn't have an original idea floating around in his head. Just bits and pieces of all those issues of Heavy Metal he grew up on with whatever hip video games, anime, and comics the kids are all talking about these days.

Sucker Punch opens with a wordless prologue set in the 1960's and featuring Emily Browning as a blonde, pig-tailed girl known only as Baby Doll. The actress provides something akin to narration with a melodiously melancholy version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by The Eurythmics. Baby Doll's mother has passed away, leaving her and a younger sister in the charge of their wicked stepfather (Gerard Plunkett), who is angered at being cut out of the will. Baby Doll accidentally shoots her sibling while trying to stop stepdad from molesting her. As a result, he has Baby Doll committed to a mental institute. It's a feel-good movie for the whole family.

The ticking clock counts down when the stepfather bribes a crooked orderly, Blue (Oscar Isaac), to forge a signature from Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino) in order to have Baby Doll lobotomized. She must find a way to escape from this gothic horror show and does so in more ways than one. Baby Doll imagines the insane asylum is now a high-class nightclub/bordello where she and her fellow inmates are forced to work as dancers and hookers. Blue is re-imagined as the owner/pimp with Gorski as their demanding dance instructor. As Baby Doll is forced to strut her stuff, her mind travels deeper into a second fantasy world where we go from Black Swan to Kill Bill with our heroine dressed in a black schoolgirl outfit and looking like the pinky violence version of Sailor Moon. There, she is tasked by the Wise Man (Scott Glenn in the David Carradine role) to gather a collection of objects which will facilitate her escape.

Soon, she is joined by Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). Trading in burlesque outfits for dominatrix combat gear, they become an elite fighting force battling Nazi steampunk zombies on an apocalyptic WWII battleground, Orcs and fire-breathing dragons in a dark Lord of the Rings inspired castle, and gleaming robots on a speeding futuristic bullet train.

The action sequences are undeniably the main attraction of Sucker Punch and it's obvious they were Snyder's primary concern. The marketing has revolved entirely around ass-kicking girls. The over-the-top fantasy realms Snyder has dreamed up are stunning, confectionary visuals for the undemanding movie-goer seeking sweet, sweet eye candy. These scenes revel in their ludicrousness. In the first fantasy, Baby Doll delivers a death blow to a giant samurai armed with a Gatling gun then walks away in slow motion as everything explodes behind her and all set to Bjork's "Army of Me." The very idea seems fun at first until you realize that there are no stakes or emotional engagement. Snyder makes no attempt to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. We know we are in the protagonist's imagination as such we know the girls are in no danger because none of it is real. Once the novelty wears off, the spectacular set pieces become more and more dull to the point where the final sequence descends into a chaotic mess as Snyder crams as much as possible into every shot. Snyder tops it off by drowning everything with fem-rock covers of tunes by varied artists like the Stooges, the Beatles, and the Pixies ("Where is My Mind" to really drive the point home). Some of the songs are quite good such as a cover of "White Rabbit" by Emiliana Torrini (another Icelandic artist), but an obnoxious gangsta rap mash-up of Queen's "We Will Rock You," succinctly signifies exactly what went wrong with this jam session of half-baked concepts.

Simply because the film features women wielding weapons larger than their petite frames, it is somehow meant as a rallying cry for girl power. On the contrary, Sucker Punch is merely an indulgent adolescent fanboy wet dream masquerading as female empowerment. It doesn't help that the leads have even less defined personalities than the Spice Girls. The outfits are certainly fetishized with Baby Doll and company going from bustiers, silk stockings, and high heels to bustiers, silk stockings, high heels, and machine guns. There's nothing wrong with that and it isn't dissimilar to the sweaty bare-chested Spartans of 300. No, the main problem is that nearly all the butt kicking the heroines supposedly do only occurs in a second level fantasy, a solitary refuge from a fatalistic world where abuse and sexual assault are constant threats. Even in this dreamland it is the Wise Man who offers the girls sage advice and points them in the direction towards the path to liberation. It's a surprise Snyder didn't go the more obvious route and place Carla Gugino's character into the role of the mentor. Alas, the strong matriarch is reduced to either an ineffectual authority figure or a weeping mess brought to her knees by male brutality.

Has Warner Brothers' golden boy, Zack Snyder, lost some of his luster? It bares bad omens for his upcoming Superman reboot. With a production budget of over $80 million (not factoring in marketing costs), it had to be a more than a disappointment that Sucker Punch (even with overpriced IMAX screenings) was sucker punched by the family friendly, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2. The negative critical response probably helped in spreading bad word of mouth about the film. It will likely be a long time before Snyder is given free reign as he clearly bit off more than he could chew. Sucker Punch tries to be far too many things as if Snyder polled Comic-Con attendees about their favorite things and smashed them all together. It's Moulin Rouge meets Inception. It's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with the Pussycat Dolls. It's Girls with Guns, Interrupted. It's just a terrible mess, a thinly veiled video game haphazardly brought to movie screens.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

W.

W. - Dir. Oliver Stone (2008)

The always controversial Oliver Stone courts more of the same with the first biopic focusing on a sitting president. In a similar fashion to Nixon, Stone takes a not-so-beloved figure and breaks him down into a sympathetic light. W. isn’t the hatchet job most believed it would be. Stone’s Dubya certainly isn’t an eloquent man, but he’s far from the greedy warmonger many liberals paint him out to be. He’s a man desperate to get out of the shadow of a far more successful, far more renowned father. A man born of privilege who still enjoys burgers, beer, and Cheetos. A simple man overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle the position of power he finds himself in. The whole film hinges on Josh Brolin whose superb performance could have easily slipped onto the level of a bad SNL sketch. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role, especially Stone’s first choice, Christian Bale, who actually spent months studying “Bushy” to hone his take.

Stone paints a far less favorable picture of Bush’s inner circle. The actors may not capture the look of their real-life counterparts, they capture their essence. Condoleezza Rice is a sycophant parroting everything the President says. Rumsfeld is full of self-assurance and arrogance even past the point when its proven Iraq has no WMDs. Even worse is Dick Cheney. In the film’s most over-the-top moment, the Vice-President steps up to the plate in the war room, extorting the importance of oil and the building of an American empire. ”There is no exit strategy. We stay. Nobody will fuck with us.” It’s a sequence more fitting for a James Bond villain, yet may not stray too far from the truth. It is Cheney and Karl Rove who pull the strings of the gullible and easily swayed Dubya. Only Colin Powell is shown in any sort of positive light as the circle’s sole voice of conscience.

Is it a perfect film? Definitely not. The weakest moments of the picture come from Stone’s usual flourishes into the metaphysical. The main narrative is framed around a fantasy of Bush in an empty Arlington Park which never gels with the rest of the film. Obviously, much of the film should be taken with a grain of salt. It’ll be interesting to see what audience W. finds. Liberals may be disappointed by the lack of Bush bashing while conservatives won’t bother with what they think will be more of the same from bleeding heart Hollywood types.

Rating: ***