This one came out after The Avengers, so Renner was slightly redeemed after his seeming non-existence as Hawkeye earlier last summer. It was kind of a tall task for him too, replacing Matt Damon as the flagship bearer for the Jason Bourne series. How do you replace Jason Bourne in a franchise about Jason Bourne? The answer, evidently, was through smart writing and a solid performance to go with some tremendous action set pieces and potential for further development as the story goes forward. This was a fairly large risk, at least in terms of the movie being absolute crap, and the prevailing opinion seems to be that they came out on top, with Renner bearing a lot of responsibility for this film’s success.
It sucks to see actors who have turned in really good, interesting work start to look like they’re fading away into schlock and oblivion. With his most recent turns as Hawkeye, his failure to bring the funny on SNL, and now the disastrous Hansel & Gretel, it appeared maybe Renner could be headed down that road. Then again, he’s likely to return in the next Mission: Impossible installment, and he’s also teaming up with James Gray in a new project due out this year, plus a David O. Russell project in the works for 2014, so perhaps things will swing back upwards for the currently slumping and visibly annoyed Jeremy Renner.
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