Movie Review - The Bourne Legacy

***Movie #4 of BOURNE Week***
The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Starring Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach, Oscar Isaac, Albert Finney, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Donna Murphy, Corey Stoll, Zeljko Ivanek, and Joan Allen

Directed by Tony Gilroy

As we discovered in the previous Bourne films, Jason Bourne was just one of many men recruited by the CIA to violently act out missions for the agency.  The Bourne Legacy leaves Matt Damon behind (likely because they couldn't offer a big enough paycheck) and focuses on one of the other men -- Aaron Cross -- part of another black ops group Bourne and Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) were trying to uncover in earlier flicks.

The Bourne Legacy opens with many of its scenes running concurrently to the final moments in The Bourne Ultimatum.  Director Tony Gilroy (the co-screenwriter of the previous Bourne films as well as this one) picks up the reins from Paul Greengrass and nicely ties Aaron Cross's story into Jason Bourne's timeline with this concurrent opening.  Smartly, Gilroy plants Aaron Cross (played by Jeremy Renner) into a different CIA black ops program -- one that forces its recruits to take pills in order to maintain their stamina, strength, and intelligence.  This allows for a different background and starting point for Cross than Bourne and it plays well throughout the film, feeling like a somewhat different animal...which is a good thing.

The repercussions of the actions of Bourne and Landy, however, permeate throughout The Bourne Legacy, as Cross finds himself being hunted down by CIA agents as they try to cover their tracks about the government's black ops agencies.  This leads Cross to Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a biochemist who has medically tested him in the past and who Cross uses to help him evade those coming after him.

The Bourne Legacy works really well as a continuation of the overarching political conspiracy story that runs rampant throughout this cinematic series.  Where it falters, however, is in a few of the film's action moments, including a very ill-conceived final action sequence with some laughable reaction shots from Weisz that ends things on a decidedly disappointing note.  Renner is more chipper than the dour Bourne (at least as chipper as one can be when being hunted down by the CIA) and his interactions with Weisz, while more generic than Bourne's interactions with his female contacts, are pleasantly conceived.  However, Renner is actually a little too high on charisma -- a fault that I almost can't believe I'm writing.  He didn't quite sell me on the "operative on the run" aspect of his character.  Still, it was pleasant to put a different face front and center in the series even though it didn't quite match the success of its immediate predecessor.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - The Bourne Ultimatum

***Movie #3 of BOURNE Week***

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Starring Matt Damon, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Albert Finney, and Julia Stiles

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Director Paul Greengrass returns a little wiser with The Bourne Ultimatum, the best Bourne film in the series up to this point.  Seemingly put together as a bit of a final chapter for the character of Jason Bourne, Ultimatum succeeds because it brings the character full circle, becoming fully aware of both the reasons he lost his memory and why he worked for the CIA.  While Matt Damon had thus far been a bit bland, he comes alive a little bit here as he tries to uncover the mystery of the CIA program Blackbriar which has turned his world upside down for the past few years.

Full of some nice smaller performances, The Bourne Ultimatum carries the most tension throughout with Greengrass really able to maintain excitement and verve not only his action sequences, but also within the film's calmer moments.  The action scenes, in particular, are the best we've seen in the series so far with a lengthy opening one involving Bourne and a British reporter (Paddy Considine) who is beginning to uncover Blackbriar the most thrilling.  Admittedly, Greengrass's penchant for quick cuts and shaky camera movements feels more obvious in this installment than his first venture, but it worked here, creating a bit of a chaotic feeling surrounding the main character.

The Bourne Ultimatum certainly had an advantage working in its favor in that it was trying to somewhat neatly tie things up in a bow for the character of Jason Bourne, so the sense of finality helps the flick.  Even without that, though, the film's technical aspects are the best in the series so far.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Bourne Supremacy

***Movie #2 of BOURNE Week***
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Karl Urban, and Julia Stiles

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Director Paul Greengrass carries a certain amount of caché for me as he helmed one of the films that is part of my Personal Canon -- United 93.  The Bourne Supremacy, however, was only his third feature film and his first big budget Hollywood flick...and unfortunately, his nascence shows a little here.

Two years have passed since the events of The Bourne Identity and Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) are living a peaceful existence in India.  In Russia, however, the CIA are in the midst of an operation headed by Deputy Director Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) to retrieve the "Neski Files" which contain details about the theft of millions of dollars of CIA allocations.  The mission is interrupted when a Russian agent steals the files, kills all the CIA agents present, and plants Bourne's fingerprints at the scene of the crime.  The Russian agent then sets out on a mission to kill Bourne, but that goes horribly awry, sending Bourne out into the world to track down the man who tried to assassinate him.  Meanwhile, Landy and the CIA believe that former agent Bourne is the one who killed their men in Russia.  With Bourne being tracked down by both the Russians and the CIA -- with both seemingly intent to end his life -- he's found himself in a bit of trouble again all the while trying to overcome his amnesia to determine how exactly he became a spy for the CIA in the first place.

Most pleasant about The Bourne Supremacy is that it does a nice job of slowly building the backstory of the title character.  Getting little tidbits here and there places the viewer in Bourne's shoes -- just as he is unaware of his background, we are as well.  This ambiguity connects us to the character in a way that most other films of this ilk are unable.

However, The Bourne Supremacy feels a little too complex for its own good.  It's not that it's particularly confusing, it's just that it seems "big" and more worldly than it needs to be.  Having Russian spies trying to frame Bourne in an effort to keep info from the US expanded the story beyond where I felt or wanted it to be, pulling the focus too much away from Bourne himself.  Director Greengrass also lacks the eye just yet to really lens an action sequence, with many of the moments feeling less impressive than director Doug Liman's venture in the series' first film.  Fortunately for the series, by the time Greengrass went behind the camera again for the third Bourne edition, he learned a tremendous amount.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Room

Room (2015)

Starring Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers, Tom McCamus, and William H. Macy

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson

The biggest compliment I can pay Room is that I wanted director Lenny Abrahamson's film to be Boyhood-levels of epicness in terms of length.  I found myself so incredibly enveloped and taken in by the story of the flick's two main characters that I didn't want to leave their journey.  When something like that happens in a movie theater, you know you're in for a treat and Room is a fascinating film that captivated me like no other I've seen from 2015.

I had such high expectations for Room simply based on its initial reviews and a broad concept of the story that I tried as hard as I could to stay away from learning anything about it prior to seeing the film -- and somehow I achieved that goal, not even watching a trailer for the film.  So, with that said, if you'd like to have as "pure" of an experience as me, perhaps you should stop reading now.  For those who wish to continue, be prepared for some gushing.

Told in essentially two acts, Room details the story of five year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his Ma (Brie Larson).  Jack and Ma (whom we later learn is named Joy) live in a ten-by-ten room, never glimpsing the outside world except for the sky through a small skylight.  As we wonder why these two people are stuck in this tiny place, Joy's story is gradually revealed and we come to understand that she was kidnapped as a teenager and has been held captive for seven years.  Jack has never once been outside Room (as he calls it) and his Ma has made up a variety of stories to tell him about how everything outside of Room is fake and their abode is the only thing that's real.  Every Sunday evening, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) pays a visit, bringing Jack and Ma's weekly allotment of food, but Ma never lets Jack meet Old Nick, forcing Jack to go to bed behind doors in Wardrobe whenever he is due to arrive.  Needless to say, despite bringing them sustenance, Old Nick isn't a good guy and on Jack's fifth birthday, Joy begins to have the courage to contemplate an escape plan.

Imagine seeing the world for the first time -- quite frankly, we can't even begin to contemplate what the cacophony of sounds, the frenetically paced movement, and the sheer brightness of something as commonplace as sunlight would be like to us if we were seeing it for the first time.  So imagine how little five year-old Jack feels upon stepping outside Room for the first time.  Not only is he seeing the world for the first time, but he's also dealing with the fact that for five years, his mother has told him that Room is real, while outside Room is fake.  Pitch-perfectly portrayed by young Jacob Tremblay, we as adults are taken in by the nine year-old actor who is depicting the awe-inspiring, frightening, and bewildering emotions of his character with such precision and childlike innocence that it's a wonder this little guy hasn't been on the cinematic radar sooner.  The youthful zest for curiosity is ever-apparent in Jack, and Tremblay -- who is just as much a lead as his counterpart mother -- deserved to be recognized by the Oscars rather than be ridiculously overlooked.  (Admittedly, one of the reasons for this is that the film studio was marketing him as a supporting actor while he is very much the lead here which may have led to some split voting amongst Academy members unsure of which category in which to place him.)

Brie Larson popped onto my radar with the brilliant Short Term 12 -- my #2 movie of 2013 (it's streaming on Netflix so there's no excuse for not seeing it) -- and her choice of Room as her next "serious drama" was yet another reason this flick was on my Must See 2015 Movies.  Room is really a tale of two movies for the actress.  In the first half, despite obviously being deprived of the outside world, she exudes both a strong will for survival and a desperately loving demeanor to her son to whom she is his only source of communication, compassion, and contact.  By the time that second act rolls around, though, Larson is able to really run a gamut of believable and thought-provoking emotions -- some that I wasn't expecting despite all of them being perfectly legit.  Obviously, it was going to be a change of pace -- and a difficult one at that -- acclimating her son to the world outside of Room, but Joy never could have expected how difficult it would be for her to return home to her mother (Joan Allen) whom she hadn't seen since her teen years.  I found it utterly fascinating to see Larson's Joy almost revert back to her stubborn seventeen year-old self once the weightiness of the real world -- and the choices that led to her being captured and those she made while being captured -- began to reign down on her.

Larson in particular owes a huge part of her character's depth and intricate emotions to screenwriter Emma Donogue who is adapting her own novel (which I now cannot wait to get my hands on).  Donogue nails the tricky and tenuous emotional roller coaster for not only Larson and Tremblay's characters, but also for Joan Allen whose role as Joy's mother and Jake's grandmother is also a delicate balancing act.  Without ever feeling strained or cloying, Donogue's script is a riveting one, packed with heart, compassion, and gutsiness.

Director Lenny Abrahamson is not a name I am particularly familiar with and his one prior film I had seen -- Frank -- didn't quite gel.  Fortunately, everything comes together here brilliantly.  Not only does Abrahamson master the mother/son emotional relationship, but he proves that he's also a master of creating suspense thanks to the edge-of-your-seat nature of Jacob and Joy's escape from Room -- a ten minute sequence that runs the gamut of emotions from fear to joy to sadness to compassion.  Considering that the first hour of the film takes place entirely within the confines of Room, Abrahamson keeps the audience riveted and fascinated by the proceedings, and once we step outside of Room, the film doesn't lose any momentum.

A lot of times when I see a movie I really like, I hold off on writing my review as I'm not quite sure how I want to frame my thoughts.  With Room, it was the exact opposite.  I wanted to hash this one out as quickly as possible to get out "on paper" the emotional impact this flick had on me.  I can't recommend this one highly enough.  Get yourself to Room immediately -- I think I'll be heading back as well.  As I said in my first sentence of this review, this was a film I didn't want to end.  I wanted to find out more about all of the film's inhabitants as I rooted for them to find the happiness they so richly deserved.

The RyMickey Rating:  A

Movie Review - Stephen King's A Good Marriage

Stephen King's A Good Marriage (2014)

Starring Joan Allen, Anthony LaPaglia and Stephen Lang 

Directed by Peter Askin

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

No one will ever mistake Stephen King for one of America's best authors, but I certainly have enjoyed reading his works in the past.  Because of this, the use of the King's name in the title of Stephen King's A Good Marriage coupled with a starring role by Joan Allen had me thinking that there might be potential in this horror piece.  Unfortunately, the lack of even a theatrical release beyond a handful of theaters should've clued me in to the disappointment ahead.

Allen is Darcy Anderson, a loving housewife married to salesman Bob (Anthony LaPaglia).  Together, they have two grown children and a seemingly lovely life.  However, their small town in Maine has recently been under attack by an apparent serial killer intent on offing women, stealing their ID's, and then sending them to the police in a cheeky "You can't get me" fashion.  When Bob is away on a business trip, Darcy uncovers a stash of information that leads her to believe that Bob may be the murderer -- and, needless to say, their relationship finds itself on shaky ground.

Ultimately the film's downfall is that there's nary a suspenseful moment in it.  Thirty minutes in -- SPOILER ALERT (although it happens thirty minutes in so the film doesn't hide things for all that long) -- Bob admits to being the killer and from that point on all we get are scenes of Joan Allen unsure of how to react to her husband's "other life."  Perhaps aiming for more of a weird relationship "drama" than anything else, King's short novella upon which this film is based must have worked better on the page than in his own screenplay adaptation.  Here, it's a bit of a snoozefest.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-