Salon.com > The Bourne Legacy http://www.salon.com Thu, 23 May 2013 13:30:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 “The Bourne Legacy”: Can Jeremy Renner steal Matt Damon’s mojo? http://www.salon.com/2012/08/09/the_bourne_legacy_can_jeremy_renner_steal_matt_damons_mojo/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/09/the_bourne_legacy_can_jeremy_renner_steal_matt_damons_mojo/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12976181 It’s easy to be cynical about Hollywood’s insatiable desire for sequels and remakes based on audience “pre-awareness,” and indeed I am cynical about it in this space, week after week. In the case of “The Bourne Legacy,” though, something interesting has transpired, something that reminds us that in projects of this scale, you can never be quite sure who’s essential and who’s not. Star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass walked away from this satisfyingly dense and paranoid amnesiac-assassin franchise after the terrific “Bourne Ultimatum” in 2007, and the whole thing appeared to be toast.

But Universal Pictures was understandably loath to bid farewell to the most lucrative non-Bond enterprise in globetrotting spy cinema, and convinced screenwriter Tony Gilroy, a key factor in the initial trilogy, to slide into the director’s chair. You have to give both the studio and the filmmaker credit for ingenuity here, because Gilroy solves the central problem of “The Bourne Legacy” – introducing a new hero and launching a new narrative – with remarkable dexterity. While I don’t think this movie can compete with the second and third Bourne films for pure thrills and plot convolutions, Jeremy Renner makes an immensely likable action star, and the world of international spycraft Gilroy depicts has a high-tech, cold-blooded authenticity that feels fully up to date in the age of real-life CIA drone assassinations.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/08/09/the_bourne_legacy_can_jeremy_renner_steal_matt_damons_mojo/feed/ 7