24: Legacy

So 2018 has started out a little bit slow, by which I have spent the majority of the New Year, finishing what I started back in 2017. Luckily, January is usually a pretty slow months for new movies so it's usually a good time to catch up on things I didn't finish, and watch some movies on Netflix that just came out.

This show was of particular interest because I was up to date on it for a little bit when the show was airing. Then, very quickly, I fell behind and never got around to finishing it up until now. I have discovered since that 24: Legacy has since been cancelled and there are no plans now to revive 24, but it is not out of the question. 24 falls under the umbrella of Fox TV shows that now belongs to Disney so maybe when that transfer goes through we might see a revival of 24... but based on this show, I'm not sure I really want that.

I did a "pilot" review that covered the first 3 or 4 episodes. A lot of the background is covered in that review but I will be adding a little bit onto it and talking about the season as a whole.

As stated in the pilot review, 24: Legacy follows the story of former Army Ranger Eric Carter (played by Corey Hawkins) who was part of an elite team that teamed up with the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) to take down a terrorist in a secret operation.

Not long after, he is struggling to live a normal life with his wife Nicole (played by Anna Diop) while his handler at CTU, Rebecca Ingram (played by Miranda Otto, Eowyn from Lord of the Rings) is stepping down as director, handing it over to a new director (played by Teddy Sears), so she can support her husband Senator John Donovan (played by Jimmy Smits) run for President.

But their transition is halted when terrorists track down the other members of Carter's team, murders them, and begin to carry out a plot to carry out attacks on US soil. The race against the real time clock begins as Rebecca and Eric are pulled back into the world they thought they had left behind to foil the plot of the son of the man they assassinated in that secret mission.

I will say, when I think of 24: Legacy as a complete season, I do think there was a lot to like about it. Like I said in my pilot review, it is fun to come back to the world of 24 with the Sean Callery music playing and the clock ticking. After a couple of hours of finishing the season I can say I did like it as a whole.

However, when I try to think of individual episodes or individual moments that I thought were really cool and memorable, it's kind of hard to think of instances where I was thoroughly entertained. The episodes kind of blend together and while I can definitely think of the things I didn't like very clearly, there are only a handful of scenes, characters, and choices they made that I really loved.

Something that I need to retract from my review of the pilot after getting the whole picture is that I do think there is at least a little bit of a deviation from the typical 24 formula that I've found in almost all the previous seasons. Usually there are episodes that you can pin point are going to be important episodes. After the 4th episode it is usually the end of one of the beginning plot threads and it usually signals an attack carried out by the terrorists that almost serves as the thirty minute, not turning back, mark from any Hollywood movie. Legacy doesn't do that. You'd think that since there are only 12 episodes that it would be condensed but it is instead drawn out some more and it seems a bit more methodical than previous seasons.

This is a good thing and a bad thing.

On one hand it is good because, like I said, it draws out the smaller plot points a little bit more and lets us get to know the characters a little bit more. It also deviates from the regular 24 format... a little bit, I'll get to that.

By also keeping the President role out of the story, they lose the political aspect that could sometimes slog depending on who played the President in the past. This allows the show to focus on the action and the characters... sort of.

Overall, it helped create something that had the same feel of 24, while also attempting something a little bit different.

However, the first problem comes when you realize that while the previous seasons were ultimately formulaic, they were also tight and high tempo. 24: Legacy's pacing is a little bit off and the stakes never really feel that high for the first half of the season. While it's good they're trying to do something different, it never feels truly different enough to make itself stand out. The result is, 24: Legacy is a bit of a slog at times and the episodes, and unfortunately the characters, don't grab you the same way old school 24 did.

And that's the other issues, the characters.

Corey Hawkins and Miranda Otto were the right choice to headline this show. These two are probably the best part of the show and I did feel like the show allowed for me to get to know these two and their relationship a little bit better than some of the relationships that formed over a seasons worth of time in the past. Sure, there are characters that Jack Bauer got to know really well over multiple seasons and you got to know Jack Bauer really well, but I'm actually pretty impressed with how much I cared about these two by the end of 12 episodes.

The issue is, with only a few exceptions, everyone else is pretty boring. Eric's wife and brother (played by Ashley Thomas) are okay but they're pretty one note the entire season and aren't very complex. Andy the analyst (played by Dan Bucantinsky) has an episode where his anxiety brings out some interesting dynamics in his character but ultimately he's pretty boring too, and everyone else is either really boring or just poorly written characters. They don't even really know what to do with Jimmy Smits for the majority of the show. This is an example of the show not doing enough to distinguish themselves because you could replace these characters with other one dimensional characters from previous seasons and you've probably get better performances.

You can tell who are the veterans and who are TV actors in this show because the veterans are the ones I really enjoyed. Hawkins, Otto, and Oded Fehr has a role that I would have actually really liked for them to get 12 more episodes just to develop him as a bad guy some more.

But of course, probably the best part of the entire season was Carlos Bernard reprising his role as Tony Almeida.

They needed to have something tying the new 24 to the old and boy am I glad they chose Tony Almeida to do it. Tony was always a fan favorite and I've always enjoyed Carlos Bernard. I also really enjoyed what they did with his character in this season. He's not a huge role and he's also not a bad guy, but he also isn't really a good guy either. I don't want to spoil it, but he does have a role in this whole season that I really enjoyed and wished they would have utilized more, really he was the best part.

I think the part of this show that I did like was the shows utilization of old and new, but mainly focusing on the new and trying their best to build something new and great. And a lot of the heavy lifting in that area is done by Corey Hawkins and Miranda Otto.

Corey Hawkins is a good actor. I feel like he was in a really difficult predicament by trying to fill the void of an iconic performance from Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer.

And while we're on the bad guys, I do want to talk about how they handled the antagonists of the season.

24 got really popular right after 9/11 and for good reason. We had just been attacked, it was great to see an American going off and kicking terrorist ass while commenting on the toll that takes on Soldiers and those who are brave enough to take on that responsibility. But as I've said in previous reviews of 24 properties, that perspective has changed dramatically since 9/11. The Obama administration changed our perspectives, 17 years changed our perspectives, and terrorism itself changed our perspective on terrorism. Right after 9/11 it was easy to sensationalize those who had the audacity to attack us. We could dramatize these organized, evil organizations only bent on killing Americans, and now things have gotten a little bit more messy. I'm not here to say that terrorism isn't bad. It very much is. It just got messy.

These days there isn't your evil figure head like Bin Laden, there's this faceless terror called ISIS. It's not as easy as saying only Middle Eastern people are terrorists (while that is still portrayed in the show) you have homegrown terrorists who are weakly swayed into joining some messed up organizations. Again, not to say anything becomes justified or grey, it just becomes messy.

It was a lot easier when they could just write a the bad guys as complicated foreign terrorist organizations that make their way into the United States illegally and are held up in a compound that armed to the tooth Jack Bauer can just storm and shoot everyone without consequences. That's easy. Tracking down American citizens who are manipulated into joining a jihad, that's a lot more difficult and could have delved into some really intriguing territory.

So how does 24: Legacy decide to portray these homegrown terrorists? These sleeper cells that feel so close to home and add a level of complexity to our war on terror?

They cast Kathryn Prescott as a teenage girl in high school whos conflicts start with her ex-boyfriend suspecting she's a terrorist because she hasn't been talking to him. On top of that she's in cahoots with her teacher who is in love with her...

Listen, this isn't a personal attack on Kathryn Prescott herself. I'm sure she's a lovely individual. But what was this?

This was a horrendous direction to take the plot, and we spend half the season with this chick! First she's dealing with her ex-boyfriend, then she's dealing with her teacher, then she's dealing with her father, and I barely remember her brother who brings her into this whole plot.

And while I might be harping too much on this girls plot line, it does really illustrate where 24 is and where the rest of the world is.

Like I said, 24 came out at the right time in the political and international world. America needed Jack Bauer to hunt down terrorists and it did provide a great foundation for TV shows and movies about terrorism and the brave men and women who work tirelessly to keep our country safe.

But since 2001, we've gotten a lot of other shows that have taken what 24 started and refined it. Homeland is a great example. It took an issue like terrorism and made it a little bit more complicated and extracted the drama that is rife in these scenarios. 24: Legacy was a chance to revitalize 24 and make it applicable to todays world where its not as simple as, let's go get the bad guys.

I could see in another context, this plot line with this girl in high school being corrupted and manipulated into becoming a homegrown terrorist, how this could be compelling drama. There is an inkling that she's struggling with what she's doing and the choices she has to make.

But this is 24, everything is moving at a billion miles per hour because terrorism utilizes every minute of the day and there can be no subtlety.

Overall, 24 in general is like Call of Duty and 24: Legacy is like Call of Duty Infinite Warfare. Both are high paced, light on the story but just enough to keep you invested, and the only difference between the two of them is the coat of paint. Sure there are a couple of new things, but not enough to really distinguish it from previous iterations that were already well past the point of being tired and overused.

As a die hard fan of 24, I'm okay with this show dying off. There are things about 24: Legacy that I enjoyed and probably could have been more interesting, but I don't think there is enough in this show to really distinguish it as a huge change.

Now this is where the Call of Duty reference kind of goes off the rails because I haven't played the new one yet and I don't know if the best choice was to just go back to the roots and revamp the franchise from where it began... that being said if 24 was revamped and still able to bring Kiefer Sutherland back... I wouldn't be complaining.

24: Legacy was entertaining. As someone who enjoyed 24, I had a good time with it. It's not going to be something new for new viewers and I don't think any die hard 24 fans are going to call it the best season yet, but it's fine. Overall, pretty harmless. I really could have seen Fox going either way with the decision to cancel and I'm not surprised at all that it didn't make it past the first 12 episodes. Who knows where we go from here, but we will see.

But have you seen 24: Legacy? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. You can also send thoughts and requests to me via Twitter @MovieSymposium. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Here's Kiefer Sutherland talking about 24: Legacy before it came to the end. Enjoy!