THE BOURNE LEGACY - Review

While The Bourne Legacy DOES start a new chapter in the series, it does NOT ask you to completely forget about past events.  In fact, the first act of this film uses the last film as a direct catalyst.  Since Bourne went ahead and made a public mess for Treadstone, they decide to wipe the slate clean and start over. Unfortunately for our new characters, Aaron Cross, who is an agent in the program, and Dr. Marta Shearing, a scientist who treats the agents, “wipe the slate clean” means lots of murder.

Cross and Shearing are played by series newcomers Jeremy Renner (The Avengers) and Rachel Weisz (she deserves better, but, The Mummy), respectively, and both actors do a good job taking the reins for this new story arc.  I should clear up that this is indeed a Bourne sequel, not reboot or even stand-alone. It plays more as a parallel story that begins as a ripple effect of some of Bourne 3’s plot points. While there is no actual appearance of Jason Bourne, there is plenty reference to his name…well, “name” and brief appearances by the key characters from the series that look like they have bigger roles yet to play in future chapters whether or not Jason Bourne returns.

Tony Gilroy, who has written all four Bournes based on books by Robert Ludlum (haven’t read those, so that’s the last I’ll mention them) takes over as director for the first time and does a decent job. He is smart with the way he films the action.  Fans of the series will be familiar and quite satisfied with the kind of action on display, plenty of running/driving, punching/kicking with some bloodless shootings mixed in.  A big criticism with the last two films was the use of shaky-cam, but I didn't notice much of the nonsense here. Gilroy was smart enough to keep the geography of the chase scenes clear for the audience, while also making sure we know who is punching who in the face. 

The film does jump around a little too much, though, with transitions between scenes being a bit sporadic.  As a big fat “for instance”, the scene that introduces Weisz’s character seemed like a flashback the way it jumped from the previous scene, but that could just be me being a little slow.

While all the actor’s involved do good work, the film lives or dies by how well Renner can succeed Damon.  I’m happy to say that Renner pulls it off playing the hunted spy who may have all his memories, but, and not to spoil much here, is still hampered by the downsides that come with being a secret agent/lab rat in a hush-hush kill everybody involved when ANYTHING goes wrong experiment.

I will say Edward Norton feels a little wasted here. He plays the big bad but all he can really do is tell people to keep chasing the main characters.  There’s a brief flashback his character has early on that tells the audience he knows Cross personally, but that’s quickly dropped. That kind of leads to the biggest criticism I have.  It’s hard to tell just how good this parallel story arc is until we see where it’s going, and this movie only puts the bigger pieces in place to leave room for the next chapter. At best, we have a shot in the arm the series needed if it is to go on, and at worst, we have a decent filler until the series returns to following our favorite amnesiac spy.