The Road to the Avengers: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

I feel I must start with full disclosure, I liked the  Eric Bana Hulk movie. I thought they took the story and humanized the Hulk as well as giving him an interesting villain to battle which had nothing to do with the comic books. Normally, that's the kind of thing that would piss me off, but I've never been a fan of the Hulk comics so I didn't mind if they strayed away from them. I was also a fan of the 80s Hulk television show and watched it and the live action Spiderman movies every chance I got. It's okay that they were cheesy because I was just a dumb kid and didn't know any better. When I learned that they were making this movie, I learned at the same time that Ed Norton was replacing Eric Bana and that they were going to reboot the story. I was skeptical about why they would need to reboot a movie that I thought was pretty good. I don't know how the first one did at the box office, but I thought pretty well since they were immediately talking about a sequel. At first I thought it might be a money issue, but I can't imagine that Norton made less than Bana for their respective Hulk films. Throw in the other big names that started getting attached to the sequel and I knew something was up, just not what. Then the rumors started that based on the success of the X-Men, Spiderman and Iron Man movies that they were looking to put out an Avengers movie. I could see at once the wisdom of leading off with Iron Man, but the Hulk, no matter who was starring in it would not have been my choice to promote the Avenger's Line. I would have gone with Captain America and then a movie about Dr. Henry Pym in anyone of his heroic guises along with his wife in one of her guises, or was there only one as the Wasp?
This all sounds like I am leading up to saying that I hated this movie, but I didn't. On the contrary, I thought it was quite good. William Hurt was great as General "Thunderbolt" Ross. He was the blustery kind of General that expected to everyone do everything his way whether under his command or not. Liv Tyler's Betty Ross was the weak point but I thought she did an adequate job. Actually, I can' think of anyone who could have done better with the lines she was given and the way that she was portrayed in her professional capacity, where she was made to look like a sidekcik at best. Had their been more in the role, they would have needed a better actor. I don't know anything about the comic book version of the Abomination other than what he looks like and that he's a gamma-irradiated freak. I thought Tim Roth's portrayal of Emil Brodsky was appealing.
What I really paid attention to this time around, it being my second full time through the film, were the small details. There are several references to S.H.I.E.L.D. before the little Tony Stark cameo at the end. It will be interesting to see how the other 3 movies that precede the Avengers show the presence of S.H.I.E.L.D. The first Iron Man movie is literally crawling with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. I'm guessing upon rewatch of Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America I'll quite a few as well.

The Incredible Hulk on IMDb

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

It's interesting that the Bourne Legacy doesn't have Bourne in it. Sure, there's that one still shot of Bourne on a news program. And they do talk about him a lot. But this movie was very definitely made in spite of Matt Damon's absence. You know those films you see where the actor has died part way through filming and instead of abandoning the project, they hobble something together to release anyway? This is not one of those. Which is good, not only because it would be a terrible, horrible tragedy if we lost Matt Damon, but they don't try to use any footage of him, or body doubles. Instead, the filmmakers went the route that I've seen some television series take, like CSI Crime Scene Investigation, for example - when Grissom is gone for the first season but everyone still talks about him because that is what real people would do, not just pretend that he had never been there. This is one of those films, though it might be more appropriate to consider this a film set in the "Bourne Universe" than an actual Bourne film, though there are a few things that happen in the auxillary storylines that are applicable to Bourne (if Damon ever reprises the role - which he said he would love to do in an interview on NPR).
So, Bourne is part of Treadwell along with a bunch of other guys. Then there is Blackbriar which gets activated or at least brought into the spotlight to help clean up the Treadwell mess. Then there is Alcon (or Alcom) that Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is part of which is a program built off the legacy of Treadwell and Blackbriar. And then there is a new off-the-books program called ARX which builds on Alcon but the agents lack empathy and are even more morally lacking. On the flipside of the equation, we have the CIA running Treadwell and involved in Blackbriar, but not the other two. This is where Admiral Turso (Stacy Keach) and Colonel Byer (Edward Norton) come in. At one point I think there group is called National Security Research something-or-other. I guess on the face of things it doesn't matter - we have good guys who are doing their patriotic duty and we have the spymasters who manipulate them and periodically decide to kill them all off to keep from getting in trouble for the illegal things they are doing. I might need to actually get into the Ludlum books that all fo these films are based on just so that I can figure out who is who. Of course, the conspiracy part of it is appealing to me. I have heard from a number of varied sources that the Bourne books are a good read.
Cross is not Bourne. Renner is not Damon. Renner doesn't try to be Damon, and the director and writer didn't try and make Cross be a Bourne-knock-off. They're just a couple of blokes in the same line of work who get the short shrift and just want to be left alone. They'll kill if they have to, but only so they can get away. That's pretty much where the similarity ends, but that's enough to get the audience on their side. Cross knows who he is, and more importantly knows who he was before he became an agent and he doesn't want to be that guy again, nor does he want to die. The good doctor, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) is a loose end that the CIA and/or Byer's people want wrapped up, but also the person that Cross thinks can help him. She's a very smart lady who doesn't have a clue what is going on. Fortunately for her, she listens to Cross and helps him, which in turn keeps her alive.
One of the things that I like about the Bourne films (all four of them) is that the good guys get hurt and are actually slowed down because of it. I also like how much grey area there is to play in, nearly all of the immediate threats to the protagonists are just people following orders without knowing why they're doing what they're doing. Even the main heavies are doing what they do because they think it serves a greater good, namely being the defense of the U.S.
Renner is the hot action guy of the moment. Coming off a stron performance in the Avengers, he hits the mark with the Bourne Legacy even as he awaits Hansel and Gretel dropping into theatres. I like the guy. He can act and pull off some good action sequences in a believable manner. I hope to see many more films from him, of which I hope at least several he's playing Hawkeye.

The Bourne Legacy on IMDb