Tag: Rachel Weisz

The Bourne Legacy

With wonderful grandma looking after baby Niamh, we snuck out to catch one of the last few films we’ll see before my card expires. It’s one Gillian had had her eye on since the early trailers:

The Bourne Legacy

“Jason Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Remnants of the Treadstone project are being killed off… but one particularly hardy specimen survives and is a little pissed off

See if it you like: Intelligent, well-paced thrillers with a nice dose of action

Completely not based on the novel of the same name – making it a mystery why the decided to use that title - The Bourne Legacy takes a step sideways from the first three films, continuing in the world of Bourne but without the actual character. Instead we’re introduced to Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), another agent and part of the Treadstone initiative to create faster, stronger soldiers.

The switch does freshen the franchise up somewhat and the film is very much unlike the three previous instalments. However, it does help to have seen them for background’s sake if nothing else. In essence, the plot is nothing new. The CIA, or whoever, is trying to kill off a series of experimental agents and one of them gets away. The rest of the film involves them trying to hunt him down… along with the obligatory tag-along female, in this case Rachel Weisz‘s Dr Marta Shearing.

Whereas in the first films, the plot just plodded along with the occasional revelation figured out something he’d forgotten, in this instance we have a very fragmented method of storytelling, with incidents of Cross’s memory popping up as they’re relevant. It does throw the viewer a little at first, as the jumps back and forth aren’t titled and you have to realise that we’re flashing back and the projectionist hasn’t just skipped a reel.

Audiences come to a Bourne film for the action, though, and it takes a long time for this to build. The scenes are less spectacular than in the Damon films, but also harsher and more brutal. In fact, the film has a bit of a European feel to it despite most of the more action-packed sequences taking place in Manilla.

Talking of which, the motorcycle chase is a very exciting sequence though loses itself to a few bits of rushed editing which can make things hard to follow at times. Confusing angles and cuts that are too quick for you to figure out what you’re looking at. I seem to recall having the same problem with one of the more recent Bond films. Maybe it’s just me.

Overall, not a bad film and it’s nice to see the change in direction. It would have been very easy to have “another Bourne film”. Instead we have another film within the Bourne stable, which is subtly different. Variety is good.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Agora – the accidental film

Why accidental? Well, I picked up two tickets this afternoon. One for Centurion, and one for a film later on. I got the tickets mixed up and walked into the second theatre first. Whoever checked my ticket on the way in obviously just saw the screen number and missed the film name and time! In fairness, so did I…

Anyway, by the time the title of the film came up I realised I wasn’t in to see Centurion. In fairness, they’re both swords and sandals films so I have a valid excuse. And by that point, the “correct” film would have started so I decided to sit Agora out.

I am very, very glad I did.

Agora

“Since when were there so many Christians?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell – a few decades in the life of Alexandria, as the pagan gods die off and the Christian one takes over.

I’m no Egypto-Roman scholar, but Agora seems more like a Discovery Channel docu-drama than a regular movie. The detail, acting quality, sets, scenery, plot… all are simply superb.

Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a philosopher and scholar – and historically the “first woman of mathematics”. At the start of the film, the Roman gods are still playing a major part in the lives of the inhabitants of Alexandria. Christianity, now no longer outlawed, is on the ascendancy. Also in the mix is a sizeable Jewish population.

As you may have guessed, this is no Clash of the Titans. The effects are predominantly geared towards some wondrous views of the city from space. Hypatia’s passion is for the mysteries of circles and planetary objects.

This is a simple story, at its heart, and takes place at a reasonable pace. There are several layers which intermingle nicely – the slow working out of the planetary objects and discussion of philosophy; the uprising and expansion of the Christian faith and the brutal treatment of both the pagans and the Jews; the treatment of slaves.

One things for sure and that’s that it doesn’t put the Christians in a good light. Again, how close this is to “real” history, I don’t know. In fairness, records from that far back are hazy to say the least. From what I’ve read up on since seeing the film, there’s a little artistic license but the core of the story is based on as much fact as we have available.

And that’s one of the best things about this movie. For me, at least, it awoke a desire to dig through the online encyclopaedias and learn a little more about what I’d just seen.

Great entertainment and education without noticing. If it wasn’t for the violence, very mild nudity and… erm… violence then this would be a fantastic film for schoolkids studying this period in history. Mind, it’s only a 15 so perhaps it could be used.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]