The Bourne Legacy

Released: August 2012

Director: Tony Gilroy

Run Time: 135 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Jeremy Renner: Aaron Cross
Rachel Weisz: Dr. Marta Shearing
Edward Norton: Col. Eric Byer
Scott Glenn: Ezra Kramer
Donna Murphy: Dita Mandy

Spies and espionage are two things that go together, like peanut butter and chocolate.  We can thank James Bond for making that genre popular.  James Bond even inspired the likes of I, Spy, Dragnet, The Avengers(not the comic book), as well as the recent spoofs of the genre: Austin Powers.  Most of these movies were very lighthearted affairs, even the James Bond reboot with Daniel Craig, Casino Royale.  But there was a movie in the early 2000’s that turned the genre on its head: The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne.  It was a very successful thriller that took the spy and espionage genre by storm and made it gritty.  It featured a main character that had amnesia but physically capable of dealing with any threat.  After three movies featuring Jason Bourne, we get our first Bourne film without Jason Bourne: The Bourne Legacy.

Opening somewhere in the Canadian Rockies, the film finds our protagonist, Aaron Cross, on a very remote training ground.  After being hunted by wolves, he makes his way over the mountains to a nearby cabin that is the outpost of another “special operative.”  After retrieving his medicine that he needs to survive, the cabin and the other operative are destroyed by a missile fired by a drone.  Turns out that the drone was being operated by a mysterious government agency(even more secret than the CIA!)that basically gives its volunteers “super pills,” that gives them enhanced intelligence and physicality.  It also turns out that the events of this movie take place parallel to the events in the previous movies.  Look, I’m just going to flat-out say it: The story in this film is so paper-thin that it’s hardly worth mentioning.  Not only that, by the time the film ends, it feels like nothing has been accomplished aside from some government agents being dispatched by Cross and traveling to Manila for a magical shot of something that will make Cross’s abilities permanent.

The original Bourne film was awesome.  It was a very effective thriller featuring a character that we really knew nothing about and neither did he.  That made for a fairly compelling character and story as he tried to figure out who he was and who was trying to kill him.  In The Bourne LegacyCross knows who he is and he knows why he is the way he is and who he is apparently working for.  That automatically robs the character of a lot of mystery.  To be fair, he is trying to figure out why he needs those particular meds and why people are trying to kill him.  What we have here is a movie that is clearly trying to capitalize on the previous films by mixing in the events and some of the characters from the previous films into the opening sequence of Legacy.  It’s pretty clever and it works fairly well, but after that the story flat-lines and goes basically nowhere.  2 hours and 15 minutes later, the only things that have really happened are some fisticuffs, some gunshots, and a rather spectacular chase sequence in Manila.  People were up in arms about the fact the movie didn’t feature Jason Bourne at all.  In fact, Matt Damon chose not to return because Paul Greengrass wouldn’t return, so they had to do something a little different.  Instead of a prequel or rebooting the series, they opted to not change Jason Bourne.  Since they didn’t want to change the actor to play Jason Bourne, they ended up creating a whole new character in Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner.  They chose wisely when they picked Renner to play this character.  Renner has the acting chops and the physicality to pull it off, and he does it convincingly.  He even has chemistry with Rachel Weisz who plays Dr. Shearing.  In fact, most of the actors do a fantastic job here.  It’s just a shame that the rest of the film just fell apart.

So, what does work?  Jeremy Renner handles all his action sequences fantastically.  The hand-to-hand sequences are brutal and spectacular.  You can actually see them without getting a head-ache.  While the film does have the shaky-cam from time to time, it manages to focus on what’s happening so you can see what’s going on.  That chase in Manila?  That was awesome.  Renner and Weisz being chased by an operative from another program.  Between Treadstone, BlackBriar and Outcome, how many freakin’ super-soldier programs does this agency have?  For all that and the scientific mumbojumbo that’s thrown at you, none of it really means a thing.  It’s just…..there.  And the ending?  What ending?  By the time the film decided to really start going, the credits roll.  What the hell?!  There was no third act.  You know, each of the Lord of the Rings films had an ending of sorts while leading into the next film.  Even each of the Matrix films had an ending.  The second film had a “To Be Concluded” tag at the end, but you knew that the film ended.  This isn’t the first movie to pull this crap, either.  Most movies have a beginning, middle and end.  The Bourne Legacy just has the first two.  This is blatant sequel-baiting of the worst kind:  Deliberately writing a movie so that there will be a follow-up film.  Apparently there will be another Bourne film next year.  I really hate to come down so hard on a film that really had potential.  It really did.  Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz had great chemistry together and Edward Norton makes a pretty decent villain.  The action sequences aren’t bad at all, but everything else falls apart.  This is not a good movie.  In fact, it pissed me off.  There aren’t a whole lot of movies that can piss me off the way The Bourne Legacy did.  If you’re a fan of the other Bourne films, you’ll be disappointed with this one.  It’s nowhere near as good.  It’s just a not a good movie, period.  So, my final verdict is a disappointing 5/10.

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