The Bourne Legacy: Meet The New Bourne, Same as the Old Bourne

The Bourne Legacy

Directed By: Tony Gilroy

Written By: Tony and Dan Gilroy, inspired by the character created by Robert Ludlum.

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachael Weisz, Scott Glenn, and Louis Ozawa Changchien.

Director of Photography: Robert Elswit, Editor: John Gilroy, Production Designer: Kevin Thompson, Original Music: James Newton Howard

            Hope and change were promised under the Obama administration when they took charge of the presidency from George W. Bush in 2008. And some things have changed—healthcare, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell—but others have stayed the same, especially on the foreign policy side. While President Obama has promoted democracy throughout the world, it is no secret that in terms of his military strategies he has made even bolder and unprincipled choices as commander-in-chief, as especially outlined in a New York Times article earlier this year.

            Whether or not the filmmakers in Hollywood are aware of this, there is a certain reflection of that spirit in Tony Gilroy’s big Hollywood sequel/spin-off The Bounre Legacy. The original Bounre trilogy with Matt Damon was one of the hallmarks of Post 9/11 action cinema, which took a patriotic CIA-operative and turned him into an enemy of the state without reason, and Gilory, who co-wrote all three films, seeded damning critiques of torture and black ops militarism of the Bush administration. The end of 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum seemed like the conclusion to this mess both politically and in terms of storytelling, especially with Damon and director Paul Greengrass deciding to leave the series.

Moonrise Kingdom: Paradise Found

Moonrise Kingdom

Directed By: Wes Anderson

Written By: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, and Bob Balaban

Director of Photography: Robert Yeoman, Editor: Andrew Weisblum, Production Designer: Adam Stockhausen, Original Music: Alexandre Desplat

            Moonrise Kingdom, the seventh feature from love-him-or-hate-him director Wes Anderson, feels like in many ways, a culminating work, combining the best aspects from his previous movies. That, to many of Anderson’s angry critics, seems impossible: the man has simply made the same feature film over and over again (this criticism often coming from the same people who say Martin Scorsese should stop making projects like Shutter Island and Hugo, and go back to gangster films). Yes, Moonrise is very much in that Anderson vibe, one that I’ve always found fascinating, but never outright loved. But there’s something so assured, and so confident in Anderson’s storytelling here, that Moonrise Kingdom is a blast, one I fell in love with from the first image to the fighting-tears-from-my-eyes last image. 

            The story, set out by narrator Bob Balaban (playing island expert, weatherman, and possibly God), takes place on an island off the Northeast coast called New Panzance in 1965. In a series of elaborate tracking shots, we meet the Bishops, made up of two lazy and distant parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), three young identical boys, and a rebellious teenage daughter named Suzy, played by Kara Hayward. In each shot, Anderson reveals the next section of the perfectly aligned house, leading to Suzy, staring out her window with large binoculars. On the other side of the island, we meet the Khaki Scouts, led by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton), who declares himself a math teacher first and a scoutmaster second, before deciding to reverse the claim. When Ward and the scouts sit down for their breakfast, Ward notices Sam (Jared Gilman), the most unpopular of the boys, has disappeared. Sam and Suzy are in love, and nothing can stop them.