The Bourne Legacy

I know, it's not the best movie in the franchise, but I like it. Any other fans here??

I don't know where to talk about it, without the IMDB message boards. Anyway, I like a bunch of things about it. I usually like Jeremy Renner in whatever he's in. I thought 28 Weeks Later was.. almost excellent. I had a few problems with it, but Jeremy R did his job. He was also really freaky in Dahmer.

I liked the way they portrayed Manila, in the second half of the movie. I felt like I got a fair sense of what some neighborhoods might be like, in a 21st century third world megalopolis. Of course, the chase scene was completely insane, but in a good way. I enjoyed it. And, I liked how they set it up so we think they are headed out into the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, a very very very very very major geopolitical hotspot in today's world. I don't know if they'll ever make a sequel set in that area, but they set it up well enough that they COULD. Hey, maybe they could meet the Man With The Golden Gun, or some survivors from his evil base... wasn't he supposed to live somewhere around there?!?

Ed Norton was interesting to watch in this movie. He was like the exact opposite of the part he played in the 2008 The Incredible Hulk. In the Hulk movie, he played David Banner, of course, a fairly regular guy who got caught up in a secret super-soldier program... it was more complicated than that, of course, but you could say that was what had happened to him. In that movie, he was stalked by William Hurt, the military high muckety muck... he was a general, I think. BUT, in Bourne Legacy, Ed Norton basically plays the William Hurt character, a ruthless government bureaucrat with access to information and programs that most people couldn't even imagine. And, his job is to track down and kill his own former super soldier... it's a total flip flop of the role he played in Hulk. I think that's kind of neat.

I also liked how they threw out lots of ideas for possible prequels. Of course, this movie builds upon the basic Jason Bourne story. I realize that. BUT, they also stuck in several scenes showing the background of various characters, which could be made into movies of their own. Aaron Cross (the Jeremy Renner character) haed some kind of earlier relationship with a woman named June Munroe. That's a story, and possibly a movie, right there. Also, the guy at the cabin in Alaska had some kind of backstory. He had a love story that brought him low somehow. And, Marta Shearing, the Rachel Weisz character, had a backstory of a relationship with a guy named Peter Boyle. She was central to all the science behind the super soldier programs, she could have been part of some kind of interesting story before the action of this movie. Also, she talked about the basis for the science in several connected super soldier programs, back in the 80's. That could be a prequel.

I just had the feeling they were throwing out lots of ideas, and probably monitoring online discussion boards to see if people got enthused about any possible prequels. People might have been writing fanfiction too, I guess, so if that existed, I imagine someone involved with the franchise was probably studying it for ideas.

So, I'm gonna shut the hell up now. Does anyone have any thoughts on any of this?