Heaven help you if you're "Taken 2" it...

I've got two words for you: Pointless Sequel.  No, wait – I’ve got at least two more: Cash Grab.  Well, since I’m reviewing this flick, I'll add yet another two that might apply to the masses ponying up their eleven bucks to see this thing over the last two weeks – Mindless Sucker.  I won’t take full responsibility for those last two words being applied to me, as seeing this thing wasn’t my choice.  I graciously allowed a certain Liam Neeson-lusting Significant Other to choose the evening’s cinematic fare, and this was the choice that was made.  It is entirely possible that this was some sort of retribution on her part for my dragging her to see Ted this past summer, but I digress...

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Taken, but it wasn’t all that bad, and there are worse action flicks out there upon which one could piss away two hours of his or her life.  I said at the time that it smacked a bit too much of the Bourne movies to be taken seriously as an original story idea, but that probably wasn’t unintentional, given the crowd to which the movie was being promoted.  That said, once it was over, it was over - daughter rescued, bad guys dead, Hero safe and sound, roll credits - there was no story-meat whatsoever left on the bone of that carcass.  Yeah, right.  Ticket sales like that don’t go unpunished, so the sequel was inevitable. 

So how does this flick go?  Well, after completing a security-consulting job in Istanbul, the former CIA operative Bryan (the afore-referenced Liam Neeson) allows his very-old-looking teenaged daughter Kim and suddenly-separated-and-now-very-friendly ex-wife Lenore to accompany him on a spur-of-the-moment vacation there.  Why on Earth should they suspect the surviving fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, grocers, milkmen, etc., etc., etc… of all those Albanian creeps Bryan killed while rescuing Kim in the first film are gunning for revenge, and seem to have pretty well-coordinated surveillance techniques to find our Hero so quickly?  Bryan and Lenore end up… well, you knew it was coming… taken… but thanks to the world’s only iPod Nano with cellular capability hidden in Bryan’s sock, he is able to be chained to a steam pipe and still talk Kim through her Urban Commando 101 lessons and guide her to rescuing him, after which he is able to apply his “particular set of skills” in finding Lenore.  No, seriously, folks – I’m not pulling your chain here. 

Producer/co-screenwriter Luc Besson is a better writer than this.  One need only watch his La Femme Nikita and Leon: the Professional to see that.  Then again, he’s also written the Transporter flicks, so maybe this shouldn’t be all that much a surprise.  Anyway, the writing laziness displayed in the development (or lack thereof) of this movie’s baddies is almost comical. The Albanian patriarch, played by Rade Sebedzija (whom you’ve seen in countless other flicks and TV shows, whenever a Russian or Eastern European bad guy is required), seethes and spews such simplistic venom about Bryan “murdering” his angelic white-slaver sons that I imagined the lawn-darts-at-chained-animals or fly-wing-pulling that might be played at their family reunion picnics.  Bryan’s climactic fist-fight near the end of the movie sort of surprised me, too, coming as it did against an opponent that was so under-developed as a character that I didn’t even realize he was all that important once they started beating on one another. 

The illogic of some of Professional-Security-Expert Bryan’s equipment choices is just as ridiculous (grenades and Sharpies…?), and let's not even get started about how poor teenager Kim can’t pass her driving test, but when bullets start flying, she can navigate a stolen taxicab though Instanbul’s streets evading tens of police cars.  There’s even a street-violinist (or whatever instrument he was playing) who conveniently continued playing in the same spot for about thirty-six hours so that Bryan could use him as a navigation point of sorts in his search for the “taken” Lenore. 

As an aside, I understand the old adage that says “sometimes, an actor’s just gotta work” when it comes to playing less-than-desirable roles, but poor 29-year-old Maggie Grace must really, really need a paycheck when she chooses to play a 16- or 17-year-old (if she’s even supposed to be THAT old).  I’ll give her credit – she looks like she might could pass for 24 or so, but that’s about it.  Sure, recasting the role was out of the question, but she was too old to play a teenager in the original film four years ago, and as we all know, the clock runs backwards for no one, so the problem is only more noticeable in this movie.  Of course, this might very well be the reason a 28-year-old actor was cast as her boyfriend… 

Anyway, the moral of all this is that, if you’re a huge Liam Neeson fan (like some gals in my life happen to be), then you MIGHT enjoy this turkey, but I question your taste if you do.  If you happen to be connected to such a person in some life-committed sort of way, however, then sadly, you may find yourself being “Taken” to it (I couldn’t resist).

Do I have thoughts on "The Bourne Legacy"? Oh, do I...

Now, I know what Joe Average-Moviegoer has been saying since seeing the first TV spots back in March - What? Another Bourne movie?  Wait a minute – Matt Damon isn’t in it!  How the hell can it be a Bourne movie?  Sure, I understand the gut reaction to label this film as a cash-grab made to lure unsuspecting schmucks into blindly forking over their twelve bucks just because it has “Bourne” in the title, but I could argue that anybody who buys a ticket to a movie without any understanding of said movie might deserve whatever disappointment he/she may find.  If you know anything about Tony Gilroy, however, you’d know you probably didn’t have much to worry about.

I dig Tony Gilroy’s work.  I think he’s one of the best screenwriters working over the last fifteen years.  As primary screenwriter of two different fantastically-successful three-film franchises since 2001 (the Ocean’s series as well as the Bourne films), he has shown an ability to create interesting, watchable characters who speak clever, witty and intelligent dialogue, and to place them in situations that, even if far-fetched, keep the attention of contemporary audiences riveted to the screen (and given the gnat-like attention span of today’s audiences, this is no small feat).  I also firmly believe that Michael Clayton, his directorial debut, is one of the more underrated flicks of the last decade, despite its Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.  For these reasons alone, I was willing to give The Bourne Legacy a chance.

When the first attempt at making a fourth “Bourne” film, one that would have included Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, etc. and been directed by Supremacy and Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass (and also written by Gilroy), fell apart before shooting began, I, like most folks, figured that this was the end of the series.  However, if there’s a buck to be made, Hollywood will find some way to get it, so producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy asked Gilroy to write a new script and take over the director’s chair to see what he could do.  I would’ve had much, much stronger reservations about this flick if ANYBODY else had made it, since Gilroy was as much responsible for the franchise’s success as Greengrass and Damon.

All that being said, he pulled it off, folks.  Gilroy has created a “paraquel,” a story that takes place simultaneously with the events of The Bourne Ultimatum.  We learn that the Treadstone project is just one of many Defense Department operations involving scientifically-tailored intelligence agents.  As a result of Jason Bourne’s and Pamela Landy’s actions in the previous film, a Defense Department heavy named Byer (Edward Norton), decides to “shut down” all of the programs by killing off the field agents, as well as the scientists who created the methods by which the agents are maintained.  One of these agents is Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner, who escapes the attempt on his life in Alaska, makes his way back to the mainland, and contacts the scientist who monitored him, Dr. Shearing (Rachel Weisz) just as the CIA has arrived to shut her down, too.   Rescuing her, he learns that she knows how to free him of the medications he requires to maintain his peak physical and mental condition, and the quest to compete this process, being pursued all the while by Byer’s compatriots, takes us to the conclusion of the movie.

Jeremy Renner does a great job at NOT playing another Jason Bourne, which I think was a terrific decision on his and Gilroy’s part.  His Aaron Cross does not have the constant look of confusion that Bourne displayed due to his amnesia, nor is he as monotone in his demeanor as Bourne.  Cross actually smiles once or twice during this story, and Renner plays him as a curious, inquisitive type who wants to learn more about this “program” he’s joined as a means of becoming something better than he was in his life before volunteering.  Contrary to Jason Bourne, Aaron Cross remembers very well what he used to be, and wants very much to not go back there.   Rachel Weisz also brings her character above the stereotypical “damsel-in-distress” level, as despite it being obvious she is woefully unprepared for facing the consequences of her work outside of the laboratory, she does not shrink from what Aaron demands of her, and even plays an integral part in saving them from the final baddie near the film’s conclusion.

Legacy is not as frenetic, hyper-edited as the previous films were, and this seems a good thing to me.  Gilroy’s previous directorial efforts have all been a bit more cerebral than the Ocean’s pictures and the Bourne movies as a whole, requiring an audience to actually pay a bit of attention, and Legacy is no exception.  When I heard that bioengineering would be a component of the story here, I was afraid the movie would degenerate into science fiction somehow, but those fears were unfounded, and paying attention to the processes Dr. Shearing explains at different points of the movie made enough sense to me that I could easily invoke the Suspension of Belief that all moviegoers must grant movies at some point or another.  This is a Thriller, though, so there must be action scenes, and there are definitely a couple good ones here (the climactic motorcycle chase through the streets of Manila ranks right up there with anything from the other films).

It was fascinating to see a depiction of events surrounding the mayhem and carnage resulting from Jason Bourne’s actions in the previous films.  Some of the supporting characters from Bourne Ultimatum momentarily pop up here, and even provide enough fodder for another film, one which I could easily see either having a place in it for Jason Bourne’s return, or be a very interesting story without him.