I’m a big fan of the original Bourne trilogy, though by the third I felt they were treading pretty familiar ground. So how is The Bourne Legacy, the Bourne movie without Bourne? Two reviews follow, one short and concise, the other a muddled meandering mishmash of something beginning with M.

Here’s the first:

In attempting to launch a new chapter of the Bourne franchise, The Bourne Legacy sticks too closely to the beats of the original trilogy to feel fresh or new. Shaky-cam fights, rooftop and busy-street chases, and government data-mining scenes have been all been done before, and done better. The best part of this film is Rachel Weisz’s performance, which is fantastic, but Jeremy Renner, as the replacement for Matt Damon, elicits little sympathy or interest.

The second review below. Spoilers follow for all four Bourne movies, so don’t read unless you are planning to lose your memory and travel through the most recognizable cities in Europe to unravel the mystery of your past and then watch all the Bourne movies.

Before we talk about this movie, can we talk about the tagline of this movie?

The Bourne Legacy: “There was never just one.”

So, is this one referring to the number of super secret black ops agents, like Jason Bourne? Uh, yeah, we know, there were way more than one. In The Bourne Identity, there was Bourne, and three other “assets”, two of whom Bourne killed, and one who killed Chris Cooper and then was never seen again. In The Bourne Supremacy, there was one more, who Bourne visited, strangled, and blew up his apartment with a magazine-toaster bomb (and who also told Bourne “We’re the only two left.”) THEN, in The Bourne Ultimatum, there’s another one in Tangier who Bourne kills and yet another one who chases Bourne around and then decides not to shoot him on a rooftop in New York. So, by my count, going into The Bourne Legacy, there were seven. Instead of “There was never just one,” the tagline should really read:

“There was never just seven.
Or should it be were?
It should be were.
There were never just seven.
Or should it be: There never were just seven?
I dunno, they both sound kind of awkward now.”

That’s a very long tagline for a poster, but it’s more accurate.

Anyway! Let’s leave the first three Bourne movies behind and get to The Bourne Legacy, only we can’t, because the first thirty minutes of The Bourne Legacy are sort of a recap of the first three Bourne movies, detailing Treadstone, which was the government torture program that created Bourne, then Blackbriar, that program that took over Treadstone, and now there’s Outcome, which is a program like the other two only they use operatives who have been physically and mentally enhanced by “chems” (drugs). Now that Bourne has shed public light on Treadstone and Blackbriar, Edward Norton is worried that Outcome might also get revealed to the public so he decides to kill all of the agents involved in the project and all of the pharmacists who make the drugs, because there’s nothing less suspicious than a bunch of dead bodies all over the place to convince the public that Nothing Suspicious Is Going On.

After killing his covert super-agents, Edward Norton sends a drone to Alaska to kill Jeremy Renner, who manages to escape by having a wolf killed in his place, but it was a mean wolf, so it’s okay. Renner goes to find Rachel Weisz, who is a doctor he knows from the drug-making company where he gets his drugs and he wants more drugs, because they make him smart. Edward Norton controls the mind (with drugs) of one of the chemists in the science lab, and makes him kill everyone else, though Weisz escapes. So, the drugs make people smarter, and stronger, and also magically control people’s minds somehow, sometimes. The drugs in this movie are sort of like the black goo from Prometheus, they do whatever the writers need it to do in a given scene.

Renner saves Weisz from another attempt by Edward Norton to kill her, and they go to Manilla so she can inject Renner with a permanent dose of brain drugs that will mean he no longer has to take brain drugs. Meanwhile, Edward Norton tries to track them down like they do in the other movies: by sitting in a room with a bunch of computer monitors and saying things like “GET ME THAT FOOTAGE FROM THE AIRPORT” and “COME ON PEOPLE” and “PUT THAT ON MY SCREEN.” And everyone types things into computers really fast. Edward Norton finds out where they are, and decides to activate yet another agent from yet another goddamn super secret assassin agent program he also has, called Larx.

Seriously, enough. You have had four different secret killer assassin programs. The first one failed and got everyone killed, and the second one failed and got everyone killed and indicted, and the third one got everyone killed with poison and drone strikes. Do you really think the fourth one is going to work out? As far as I know, the only super soldier program that was ever any good was the one that created Captain America, and every single other one has been a complete disaster. If you need soldiers JUST CALL THE ARMY. THEY HAVE A BUNCH OF GOOD ONES.

SO! Time for a chase scene, right? Jeremy Renner jumps on a motorcycle that someone has left running and the Larx guy jumps in a police car that someone left unattended and then the Larx guy gets on a motorcycle too and then he gets on yet another motorcycle for some reason, and there’s a long chase through busy streets, and then the movie is over, and we’re like, wait, was THAT the climax of the movie? That felt like the Act Two action sequence, the one that would lead up to the big final action sequence, but I think that’s because Act One was the Bourne Trilogy recap and so Act Two, The Jeremy Renner Needs Drugs Story, felt like it was actually Act One, which meant Act Three, Let’s All Easily Steal 100 Motorcycles, felt like Act Two, so the movie felt like it had no Act Three.

Also, it turns out that the information Bourne gave to the public didn’t work and all the evil government people are fine and the only one in trouble is Joan Allen, the nice government person from the other movies, so there was no reason for Edward Norton to kill everyone anyway, so, um, good job, and why don’t you just get started on the inevitable fifth secret government assassin program, because I’m sure it will work out great.

Warrior, the mixed martial-arts drama, came to Netflix instant, and I watched it, and here are two reviews of it: the first short and spoiler-free, the second, a long floppy flood of finger-farts containing all of the spoilers for absolutely everything in the movie. First review:

While it veers into melodrama and hits a number of incredibly familiar sports-movie beats, strong acting performances and exciting, believable fight scenes turn Warrior into a decent sports film. I hope you noticed my clever wordplay back there. Because it’s a fighting film, and I said hit and beats.

Okay, onto the SPOILERY PLOT SUMMARY OF SPOILERS.

Got a sports film to make? Okay, let’s talk ingredients. You need an underdog, obvs, a guy down on his luck, needing money for something important, who has no chance of winning, but he’s a good guy. That’s Joel Edgerton, who kind of looks like Conan O’Brien’s tougher older brother, the one who smoked and drove a Mustang and dropped out of high school in 11th grade. Edgerton plays a physics teacher, the kind every student loves and respects, and he needs money to make his house payments. So, he decides to return to his roots of being a mixed martial artist, which he is good at because he knows how to grab a guy’s arm and hold it in a way that makes them want to stop punching him (NOTE: THIS WILL COME IN IMPORTANT LATER).

You also need a bad guy, a big hulking brute, and that need is met by basically everyone else in the entire film, because this is an MMA movie and everyone is huge and muscly. Tom Hardy is the main one, and he is big and hulking and a brute, and he’s been gone for years, and now he is back, and he is Joel Edgerton’s brother.

You need an aging, crusty trainer of some sort, like Nick Nolte, and you need an absentee father, also Nick Nolte, and someone should have a drinking problem, Nick Nolte again. The brothers hate each other because, something something childhood, something something WE’RE NOT BROTHERS something something YOU JUST DON’T GET IT, DO YOU something etc. Also, they both hate Nick Nolte, but Nick Nolte wants to make amends, something something I’VE NEVER SEEN MY GRANDCHILDREN something something and his eyes fill with tears a lot.

You need a concerned wife who doesn’t want Joel Edgerton to fight, and gets mad when he does, and she does not represent the views of anyone in the audience because, come on, we want to see giant dudes punching each other to death already. That’s Jennifer Morrison, being concerned and, you know, pretty naggy about shit, because that’s all they give women to do in sports films about men.

Finally, you need a big sporting thing, in this case, a sixteen man MMA tournament with a prize of five million dollars (seems kind of like a big purse for a tourney that will take a physics teacher, but whatever). Also, Tom Hardy was a Marine but he doesn’t talk about it, so you think maybe he was a bad Marine, but then it turns out he saved a bunch of guys from drowning so he was a good Marine, but then it turns out he was only there to save guys from drowning because he went AWOL, so he’s a bad Marine again, sort of, but then he went AWOL because he was the sole survivor of a friendly-fire shooting that killed his friend and wants to donate his winnings to his friend’s widow, so he is a good Marine, finally. He is also super scary and angry because of all those things that happened and he just beats the shit out of everyone in the tournament and seriously, he is scarier in this movie than he was as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. I don’t know what you call those muscles that connect your shoulders to your neck but his are big enough to fling his head into space, where it would headbutt the moon to death.

Meanwhile, Joel Edgerton is also doing well in the tourney. He is getting the shit punched out of him by guys who are way way bigger than he is, but he is good at grabbing a guy’s arm and holding it in a way that will make them stop punching him (REMEMBER?), and he does this and wins a lot, and the announcers of the tournament are first like THIS GUY IS GOING TO GET KILLED but are later more like THIS GUY IS PRETTY GOOD.

And then it’s the final match, between the two brothers! And Tom Hardy just beats the living crap out of Joel Edgerton for four rounds, BUT THEN!!! Joel Edgerton does the arm-grab he does on everyone, and Tom Hardy is a serious badass and will not tap out (that means quit), so Joel Edgerton breaks Tom Hardy’s arm!

The final round begins, and Tom Hardy is coming out to fight, but his arm is broken, so Joel Edgerton is just punching him in the face at will, but Tom Hardy won’t quit, and Joel Edgerton is like, jeez, I can’t just keep punching my own brother in the face when he is in pain like this, so he tells Tom Hardy to quit, and all the wonderful violence that has been happening is now horribly sad, and we want to just hug Tom Hardy even though he is a giant hulked-out scary muscle-monster, because he is hurting.

So, you’re probably sitting there thinking, well, this could go a few ways. Maybe the ref stops the fight and Joel Edgerton is declared the winner. Maybe they hug. Maybe the round ends and Joel Edgerton is declared the winner and then they hug. Maybe they hug, the round ends, and Tom Hardy is declared the winner. Maybe Tom Hardy, his arm broken, slumps down to the mat and taps out. Maybe Joel Edgerton slumps down to the mat and taps out so he can let his brother can win. Maybe it’s a tie and they both win!

No. No to all of those things I just pretended you were thinking. None of them are right, dummy! What ACTUALLY HAPPENS is Joel Edgerton KICKS HIS BROTHER IN THE FUCKING HEAD and then PROCEEDS TO STRANGLE HIM TO ALMOST DEATH.

Holy shit. It’s, like, WHAT. DID THAT JUST HAPPEN. Did he really, in the midst of seeing his brother’s suffering, not just his physical suffering but his real spiritual suffering, just haul off and foot-kick him in the head-skull as hard as he could? YES. THAT HAPPENED. And, shit, good job, movie, for doing that, because having your incredibly good guy character kick your other incredibly good guy character who is also his own brother in the face is, well, pretty awesome of you.

So, while he’s lovingly strangling his brother to death, Joel Edgerton tells Tom Hardy he loves him, and Tom Hardy taps out, and then they limp out of the ring together, two huge hulking brutal dudes hurt and limping and clinging to each other because, love. And Nick Nolte is all, yeah, those are my boys, and also Joel Edgerton’s wife had stopped nagging him and was at the fight cheering, so, essentially, every sports movie you’ve ever seen, but still, pretty effective, and somewhat moving, and everyone did a good job acting and fighting, plus the awesome surprising moment of someone kicking someone right in the face in the most loving way you can ever kick someone right in the face.

We caught up on a few movies over the weekend, and here are some quick reviews:

Lockout: What I was hoping would be a big, dumb, fun action movie turned out to be just a big, dumb action movie. There’s a prison, in space, filled with horrible villains who are in suspended animation. The president’s daughter goes up to make sure the space prisoners’ rights aren’t being violated, and a prisoner escapes and kills the only two guards who bother to protect the big button labeled “Let All The Prisoners Out Of Stasis.” Naturally, there’s only one guy who can infiltrate the space prison to rescue the president’s daughter, a wise-cracking former special commando agent (or whatever) who is waiting to go to space prison for a crime he totally committed. Oh wait, SORRY, he didn’t commit it, in a shocking twist that’s never been done before ever.

This movie was terrible and no fun and after about forty minutes we just fast-forwarded to the end. Part of the problem, I think was that it was rated PG-13. Look, if you’re going to do a movie about horribly killing a bunch of space prisoners, make it rated R. There’s a scene where Guy Pearce puts an explosive collar around a guy’s neck and it explodes, and they don’t show it. Show it. Show all of the violenceseses. Give yourself a fighting chance to make your dumb movie at least gross-out entertaining. You have people being sucked into space and you don’t even get to see them pop. Lame.

Also, why not let Guy Pearce speak with his normal accent? He’s never been great about hiding his Aussie accent anyway, and Aussie accents are great, and an Aussie accent in space would be even greater. It might seem unlikely that a top American covert commando tactical spec-ops agent assassin (or whatever the damn hell) is Australian, but then it’s unlikely to have a prison in space, so don’t sweat it. You have Peter Stormare, too, and, come on, you’re not fooling anyone by trying to make him sound American. Let him talk how he talks, all Swedish or whatever. Not enough Swedes in space. Plus, the main two bad guys were Scottish, so having all those accents flying around (in space!) would have been fantastic. Being able to not understand any of the dialogue totally would have helped this film.

Friends With Kids: Wealthy gorgeous young-ish people in Manhattan with vaguely defined jobs dress really well and live in beautiful expansive apartments and attend fancy dinners and go jogging a lot in Central Park. But they have problems, you guys! Because raising kids is hard when you have a million dollars and live in New York and rent cabins for ski trips! The stress of interviewing all the full-time nannies you can afford just gets to you. I can totes relate because I am rich and beautiful but sometimes I’m like, AGGH, I haven’t had sex with Maya Rudolph as much as I used to so my life is garbage!

This movie is notable for having an incredible cast of some of my absolute favorite actors/comedians — Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd — and essentially doing nothing with them but having them all be kinda whiny beautiful jerks. I love Adam Scott, too, but he’s a unlikable idiot for way longer than he should have been (roughly 99.9% of the film). The director and lead actress was Jennifer Westfeldt, who has been dating Jon Hamm for years, so even if she’s bummed at making a crummy by-the-numbers romantic comedy, at least she can go home and stare at Jon Hamm. No matter how bad a day you’ve had or how bad a movie you’ve made, being able to go home and stare at Jon Hamm has to help.

Wanderlust: Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston are beautiful youngish people who live in the city (Manhattan, the city that never sleeps and also the only city that exists anywhere, ever) and are ambitious career types, but then their careers go bust and they have to go live in Atlanta with comical jerk Ken Marino, but along the way they wind up stopping at a hippie commune in Georgia and one of them winds up liking it while the other doesn’t, and then the first one doesn’t like it but the other does, and then conflict, and then resolution. Great bunch of comedians and actors: Justin Theroux, Malin Akerman, Joe Lo Truglio, Jordan Peele, Alan Alda, Todd Barry, Kerri Kenney. Lots of hippie humor. Some dongs and butts, jokes about weed and toilets, and Paul Rudd being inexplicably weird while talking to himself in the mirror. It was okay. Decent rental.

I discovered Party Down last week on Netflix Instant. I’d been aware of it for a while, actually, but I wasn’t a big fan of anyone in the cast until I’d come to really enjoy Adam Scott on Parks and Recreation this season. So, I finally decided to sit down and check it out, and wound up watching all twenty episodes in the span of a few days. It’s great, which sucks, because it got cancelled a while back.

Party Down is a about a catering company in Los Angeles, staffed by slackers, cynics, and delusional actors. There’s Henry (Adam Scott), an actor who achieved a measure of fame by reciting a catch phrase (“Are we having fun yet?”) in a series of beer commercials, but found himself unable to distance himself from it and has all but given up on acting. There’s Casey (Lizzy Kaplan), an aspiring stand-up comedian going through a divorce while trying to break into mainstream comedy. Roman (Martin Starr) is a bitter, pedantic, unpublished writer of “hard” sci-fi, and his foil is the brain-dead but handsome direct-to-DVD actor Kyle (Ryan Hansen). Constance (Jane Lynch) is a good-natured yet spacey former actor, though she is replaced toward the end of season one, first by Jennifer Coolidge and then by Megan Mullally. Trying to manage and inspire them is the positive but powerless oaf Ron Donald (Ken Marino) whose dream is to gain the respect of his employees and own a restaurant franchise called Soup-R-Crackers.

Each week, Party Down caters a different event: one episode takes place at a funeral for a (not so) upstanding citizen, another is a sweet sixteen for a spoiled rich kid who discovers she doesn’t have any friends. There’s a draft party for a college football player who can’t seem to get drafted, and a birthday party for Steve Gutenberg turns into a reading of Roman’s lackluster sci-fi screenplay. At each event, the crew drinks, smokes pot, eats the food they’re supposed to be serving, and otherwise slouches through their duties with the absolute minimum of effort.

There’s plenty of crude humor (among the events they cater is a neighborhood sex party, a pornographic video awards party, and a singles event for the elderly), and loads of cynicism, but there’s some real heart buried in all the dick jokes, which, makes it a shame that Party Down was cancelled after only two seasons.  Henry’s initial despair and his eventual turnaround as he becomes involved with Casey, and Ron’s clueless earnestness — he caters his own high-school reunion, foolishly thinking he’ll impress his former classmates — can be somewhat touching at times, though the moment it appears to be approaching any real sentimentality, the show thankfully veers back into comedy.

I tried to find some good clips on YouTube, but there’s nothing on there that really demonstrates what makes the show so enjoyable (although there are a few complete episodes on there). You’ll just have to watch them all on Netflix Instant or rent them.