So Justin and I have been spending some time (and a lot of money, when did it get SO expensive!?) at the movies these past few weekends. We were able to hit three separate movies that had been on our to-watch list: The Bourne Legacy, Expendables 2 and Lawless.
*Potential Spoiler Alert*
First off we wanted to see The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner ,to see if it would do the original trilogy justice. At first I was a bit confused. I like that they took another character to show us their story and they made it obvious that this was happening at the same time as the third Bourne film so you got a good sense of timing. But they went into a lot of detail on these “programs” that these agents were involved in, some with complicated names, that you had never heard about before, and I really was lost.
It would cut to scenes with Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) in the wild in Alaska and you’re kind of left wondering, “What the heck is he doing?!” I don’t want to go into too much detail so as not to spoil more than I have to.
Needless to say my overall feeling afterwards was that the action scenes were great, the plot had me a little lost, but it was enjoyable escape. Had I wished I’d waited for DVD? A little bit.
Second on the dockette was Expendables 2 with Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone, the long-awaited sequel to the action-packed Expendables that I really enjoyed. There was so much hype around this movie since it was going to have a laundry list of action stars: Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzeneggner, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren and “the” Chuck Norris! So I knew it was going to be fight-tastic and explosion-galore fun. I was not disappointed.
I think my favourite parts of the movie were the cheesy lines where the characters kind of made fun of their real-life selves (Stallone was one of the screenwriters):
Arnold: “I’ll be back”
Bruce: “You’ve been back enough, I’ll be back!”
Chuck Norris appears to help out Arnold
Arnold: “Who’s next? Rambo?”
Chuck Norris’ great “Chuck Norris” joke:
“I was bitten by poisonous snake. And after five days of agony… the snake finally died.”
The most recent watch was Lawless with Tom Hardy and Shia LaBoeuf. I really wanted to see this one since I’ve become quite the Tom Hardy fan after This Means War and The Dark Knight Rises so I wanted to see him in this 1930s prohibition-based film. I went into this movie without having seen an trailers, I’d only heard that it was really good… and really bloody.
There’s something about an Englishman doing a back-country American accent that just makes me giggle… not to mention Forrest’s (Hardy) signature grunts throughout the film to indicate his agreement, disgust or indifference. This is a story about three brothers who somehow have survived a lot and get into good business in the moonshine business. Needless to say, the Feds get involved to shut down this mountain-based operation in the form of a creepy and evil and shudder-causing man Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) who just made me hate him so much that I wanted him to be shot… a lot.
There were a few disturbing scenes and you find yourself really liking some of the characters, hating a lot of the others, and wanting to hit Jack (LaBoef) on many separate occasions (little brothers are a pain). But all in all, another good flick!
– Jess
deliberate spontaneity 