The Last Movie I Saw

One of my few regrets of this past summer is that I didn't get to go see The Bourne Legacy with Natalie, Ben and Tom on my last night in Buffalo (mainly because I hadn't packed yet).  It is exactly the kind of movie that is enhanced by seeing it with a bunch of people, so that afterwards you can ooh and aah with each other over the shared thrills of the non-stop action.  But even going to see it by myself, I had a good time.  Like the earlier entries in the series, it's action packed and bounces around the globe with great set pieces against exotic (and some not so exotic) backgrounds.  It doesn't really advance the theme of government duplicity that was the point of the previous three films; in fact the genuinely sympathetic performance by newcomer Edward Norton (as a national security bigwig) almost makes all the previous revelations about rogue CIA extremism seem both necessary and justifiable-- almost.  But the real appeal of the film to me, was the whole Rosencrantz and Guildenstern concept, wherein the events of this film, focusing on agent Aaron Cross, occur simultaneously with those of the third in the series, which focused on Jason Bourne-- mostly in different places, but with some overlapping cast.  No doubt a script by Tom Stoppard (let alone William Shakespeare) would have elevated this beyond mere action fare, but considering how dumb most such movies are these days, I'll take cleverness as a reasonable stand-in for genius.  Oh yeah, and Rachel Weisz proves once again to be the smartest and sexiest actress to occasionally dabble in the action-thriller genre.