Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

A Review of “The Bourne Legacy”

There are a few movies that are so great that I remember where I was the first time I watched them. Those are the movies that I can quote a large portion of dialogue with when I watch them because I’ve seen them so many times. They’re just that good. You have a few pop into your mind when I say that, I’m sure.

The Bourne Identity was one of those movies. I have a fond memory of watching it with friends for the first time in a small apartment, and then again, and then again, until I finally just purchased my own copy. The following two movies in the trilogy followed a similar pattern. The plot was engaging, the films exciting, the dialogue sharp and amazing, the action sequences well choreographed (remember that car chase from the first movie?). Moreover, there was a deeper message in the story, a through-line that weaved its way across all three films and required you to see all three to truly appreciate its depth.

Call me cynical, but when three movies are of such high calibre, I’m suspect of a fourth that boasts a parallel story arc, or a completely different take on the story. This cynicism is the reaction with which I met the first trailer for the Bourne Legacy. Knowing that Ludlam’s original series has continued with some success, though, I decided I’d give it a try at some point. It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve when some family decided to watch the copy that they’d received as a gift that I finally got around to watching the film.

And I’ll foreshadow the rest of this review by saying up front that staying awake through the movie was an issue for me.

Expecting any sort of parallel to the original Bourne story arc will leave you with profound disappointment. This movie is a completely different story line that is only loosely based on the same premise, this time with yet another incarnation of the covert assassination program that produced Jason Bourne. I already took issue with the premise, because having the program killed and then secretly resurrected was believable in the first three films. Having a third spin off defies believability, even if this is supposedly one of the first versions of the program. What’s worse, this time (and I won’t tell you the name of the program’s incarnation, I’ll just say that compared to “Treadstone” or “Black Briar”, it’s very bland) the program is designed to make the operatives highly advanced, bordering on super-soldiers, by keeping them on a steady diet of medications. Aaron Cross is in need of this medication, and spends a good part of the film attempting to find it after his superiors begin killing off his fellow agents in an attempt to tie up loose ends when the Bourne debacle begins to occur.

The premise itself, then, tinkers with the original story line by assuming that Aaron Cross’ program is the first, and thus making Treadstone and Black Briar seem less believable. This is in contradiction to the title, “Legacy,” which implies something that comes after. What’s most tragic is the manner in which the director has attempted to tie this story in with the original films by cutting away to scenes from the other movies in an attempt to make you see where this film’s events take place with respect to the other three, connections which felt random and completely contrived, almost as though they were tossed in as an afterthought to pay respect to the other films. Characters from the original movies are toyed with, leaving us with a different disposition for Pamela Landy, and calling into question who was loyal to whom. Again, completely contrived attempts to tie this movie in with the rest at the expense of the character development from the other films.

The story for this film moves hopelessly slow, with long sections of poorly written dialogue punctuated by brief and violent action sequences that felt far more gratuitous and far more poorly directed than those of the other three movies. Both lead actors turn in disappointing performances, showing difficulty in finding any motivation for lengthy sequences of dialogue that inevitably fall flat.

Perhaps I’m erring in making a comparison between the Bourne Legacy and its predecessors. That’s difficult not to do, however, when the movie is a continuation of the series. It just seems a shame to attach the name of such an excellent film franchise to such a hopelessly under-performing movie. This is a film that was made purely to earn profit from the excellent craft of others by keeping a name. Even if the goal were simply to make an action or espionage film, this would have been a poor endeavor, and there’s certainly no higher message to the film, at least not that I could find.

If you’re a fan of the previous Bourne films, then I would encourage you to not watch the Bourne Legacy. You don’t want the bad taste in your mouth. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend this film for any viewers at all because, when the goal of any creative endeavor is simply to make more money at the expense of good craft, I have a hard time justifying supporting that.

Go back and (re-)watch the first three, instead.

Waking to the New Year

Last night, with a quiet dinner, family, and a glass of wine, Karen and I relaxed as children played around us and the countdown to 2013 went on. The children were in bed by 9:00, the adults were soon in front of a movie (review to come…) and someone in the house was streaming some ball-dropping-coverage from Times Square. I made it a point to at least stay up to see that, because, as I determined last year, I needed some sort of marker in order to recognize the passing of one year into the next.

Of course, by 12:15, I was sound asleep. As I’ve said before…ah, parenthood.

Last year around this time, I put up a post about my goals for 2012. I’ve made some progress on most, less on some than others. In order to keep myself in check, here are my various states of progress:

1. I am in the process of changing careers for my day job. This was partly a need for a more creative outlet, and partly the need to be in a better position to meet family obligations. I’m attending an arts school for a quick technology certification that will be finished in May, at which point I will making a living in the world of the web and all of that snazzy code-writing that happens in the background. To that end, I’ll probably be brushing up some visual aesthetics around here, and I’ll be launching a page that will direct to all of my various adventures soon, and that will ultimately be my official author site when I finish this novel.

2. Speaking of the novel. I had a spurt of progress just as winter set in, during which I completed all but the most final section. That final section lives in outline form, so that all I have to do now is actually write it, which will bring me to the completion of my rough draft. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been working on Part II for a year now, and the entire project for over two, but it’s been a learning process as I’ve never written anything this long before, and I’m discovering just how much work goes into it.

3. I haven’t read nearly as much as I like, mostly because I’m a full-time student again, and so my reading is reading for class, not so much for pleasure. My two-books monthly rhythm has digressed into one novel per semester at my current rate, but, as I said, I’ll be finished in May. Until then, my to-read list keeps piling higher with each visit to Barnes & Noble.

4. Time for family has become a priority in that it’s such a precious commodity right now. That’s kept me from doing other things, but it’s been worth it. Comparing photos of our daughter from a year ago to where she is now takes my breath and makes my mind reel in disbelief at times.

Oh, and we moved to New England. I’m finding myself sorely in need of better gear in order to deal with these winters, but it’s a nice cultural change.

So, what does 2013 hold? The career change, firstly. I’m also determined to complete this novel and at least make serious editing progress to get it into the hands of beta-readers this year. Also, there are some side projects that have presented themselves to my word-smithing brain, and I’m hoping to dive into those, as well.

I wish you, my faithful readers, the best success and the most happiness in 2013. Let’s go on some adventures together…

Super Heroic Christmas Tales

Our daughter is in that phase during which she fixates on something that she recognizes, and proceeds to identify it everywhere. Since we bought her first baby doll for her birthday gift a few months ago, she has began to point out “baby!” everywhere…and I mean everywhere…that she sees a baby. Be it real life, in photos, or as a doll, we now know the location of every image of a baby within the immediate vicinity. She was playing with a family member’s childrens’ nativity set last week, and, of course, zeroed in on the Christ child as “baby!” I then got to assist her in beginning to make the connection that Christ, too, was a “baby!” when He entered our history.

This event sort of collides with my obsession over superheroes and their mythology. And, before you unplug over the seeming disconnection between the two, I’ll say, partly to assist and partly in my defense, that, just as our daughter sees babies everywhere, I see connections to superhero stories everywhere. Christmas, viewed in the context of the Christian faith at least, is a superhero narrative in itself.

My interest in what it means to be a hero has driven a large part of my thought over the past year or so. It’s what I want to think about, and write about, and explore. In true Burkian fashion, it has become another lens through which I see life and faith and culture. When I started writing a novel to explore these themes, it became a bit of an obsession (of the good variety).

The reason that I see a superhero narrative in the Christmas story is because Christ is the prototype of a superhero, the perfect example of what our hero stories tell. A story of a great evil that we cannot hope to overcome on our own, that is certain to overwhelm us. A story of a situation that would otherwise be hopeless. A story of a Hero, who is bigger and more powerful than we are, and more powerful than the evil that threatens us, who swoops in and fights the fight that we cannot, winning a victory that we could not achieve on our own. A Hero that demonstrates the use of power for good, that exemplifies self-sacrifice, that gives us an example to look up to, something to which we can aspire.

That’s so important when we find that our own cultural identity is a villain, a monster of consumerism that rewards individual pleasure-seeking over the welfare of others. As much as we need rescued from the grip of such a creature, we need the direction of where to go after the rescue. We need to know someone is standing watch over us when the villains rear their heads again, because they will.

Christmas is part of the ultimate story of a superhero, who crashed to earth as a “baby!” and grew to stand for us in our darkest hour.

I hope that your Christmas is blessed this year.

Changing the Changes

There was a time in my life at which I embraced change with much enthusiasm. I ran toward it whenever I had the opportunity, because change is opportunity, I reasoned. It occurs to me now that this was likely driven in part by the fact that I was unsatisfied by where I was at the time, either geographically, professionally or personally. I think that I would have identified it as being “driven” or “motivated” to success then, but, at the end of the day, I was unsatisfied.

And, I think, change is almost always a good thing. I’m just beginning to realize that, as I get (cough) older (cough), I have a bit of a more difficult time in adapting to that change. The funny thing is that this difficulty is because of change. When I started this blog a long time ago, I was a single grad student with no clue what life would look like by the time I was out of school and in the “real world” again. I’m somewhat surprised by the fact that it looks like having a wife and a daughter and being back in school at this point in my life.

I’m not complaining about any of the above…like I said, change is still a good thing.

The motivation for the change is what I call into question these days, though. When we were first married, one of Karen’s favorite phrases about difficulty spots in life was, “It’s an adventure!” And indeed, it is. I lose sight of this, though. I lose sight of the adventure and how our family grows stronger together through the adventure because I become so easily dissatisfied when faced with a life predicament.

It turns out that I may, in fact, be a bit optimistic in considering myself optimistic. Let’s call me a realist, then, shall we?

Because I really don’t want to be a pessimist, but I drift dangerously close to crossing that line at times. All because I become dissatisfied. As we near the end of Advent and enter the Christmas season, I can think of few things more troubling than being dissatisfied, because that is a result of a consumer-driven Holiday mindset. I don’t want a Christmas driven by what goodies I receive, or even by what goodies I may be able to give. I want a Christmas driven by thankfulness for what I have, and I don’t necessarily just mean goodies. I mean people. I mean kindness shown, and grace shown. I mean opportunities, as trying as they may be.

I mean the positivity of change, as difficult as it can be for me to cope with its process these days.

That could even lead to a most wonderful time of the year…

Please Don’t Automate That…

While Karen oftentimes shakes her head at how quickly I adopt new features and new toys, in my defense, there are many from which I opt out. I was thinking about that this morning as I pondered how to spend the rest of an iTunes gift card that’s burning a proverbial hole in my digital wallet. Those thoughts sort of collided with recent reticence about a re-design of iTunes of which I’ve heard mixed reactions (and haven’t quite gotten around to installing myself), and I remembered that nifty little functionality built into iTunes called Genius.

I’ve never used that.

It’s not that I’m not used to recommendations generated by some sort of computer algorithm, and I suspect that neither are you, that is if you’ve ever received one of those emails from Amazon recommending stuff based upon your previous purchases. Perhaps its because these algorithms fail miserably in their attempt to mathematically predict human behavior (which I like the sound of), or perhaps its just because my tastes in reading and music are so eclectic, but these recommendations never hit the mark for me. The books and music and even the applications that I purchase are almost always the result of a recommendation from a friend, acquaintance, or, at the very least, listening to someone talk about it on a show or podcast somewhere. I don’t buy things based off of “recommended for you” sorts of automated emails because they’re almost never interesting to me.

That said, can anyone recommend some good music? Thanks.