The Bourne Legacy

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade now since the Bourne movies started and five years now since the last great film in the trilogy.  So trying to resurrect the franchise with a fourth film, was certainly an exciting prospect that I was certainly very guilty of looking forward to.  Yet, I also had my equal doubts that reeled in the anticipation in equal measure.  How can you make a Bourne film without Damon as Bourne or Ludlum to pen the novel?  Where was director Paul Greengrass?  Nevertheless, I had to see for myself, as it still had a good cast in newcomers Jeremy Renner and Rachael Weisz and screenwriter Tony Gilroy.  Spoiler alert if you haven't seen any of the Bourne movies.

Renner plays Aaron Cross, who as it turns out, is a more enhanced Treadstone operative charged up on sophisticated mind and body enhancing drugs developed and  administered by scientist.  One of those scientist is Dr. Marta Shearing, played by Weisz.  When the ongoing controversy surrounding Treadstone-Blackbriar and Jason Bourne continue to fallout, the CIA decides to terminate their operatives and everyone associated with it, including the scientists.  Cross and Shearing narrowly avoid this fate, unite, and flee.  Along the way, a determined Edward Norton and the Treadstone team put clues together, track them, and  dispatch everything from  missiles, CIA hitman, and  an even more lethal drug-induced operative to hunt them down.    

Now it has the hallmarks of a Bourne movie, but feels like a knockoff.  The pace of the movie is so slow and devoid of any character development or chemistry between Weisz and Renner, that it's an initial elation when the action scenes take over.  That is, until one realizes that hey, "that's been done before and even better in other movies!"  What the action scenes lack is better choreography and originality.  Throughout, there is no real sense of urgency.  I wish I could really care more about the two protagonist, but I don't.  This is surprising because it's basically them against everyone else. Lacking are the intermediary characters like a CIA Deputy Director Pamela Landy or Nicky Parsons in the previous films who would try to understand and often aid their plight.  Landy in this film is only shown in an almost separate flashback like way, being put on the defensive in court by the government for aiding Jason Bourne.  So Cross is left with only Dr. Shearing  to fill that void, as she is the only one who understands the drugs he has been taking.  As it turns out, one of the drugs has left Cross with permanently enhanced physical abilities.  Well, this is great for him and us, as the audience.  However, the other drug that he has to continually be fed, controls his thinking and cerebral functions. Not so good.  Turns out that the CIA-Treadstone folks took advantage of Cross when he was just an average soldier who had been severely injured in Iraq.  So drug and gene scientist,  Dr. Shearing, is the only one who can conveniently help him survive. At some points, I found this sadly laughable instead of  feeling empathetic with visions of Van Damme/Lundgren in Universal Soldier on the quest for drugs to keep them smart. In this drug culture and era (amidst the backdrop of the Olympics), I also find it funny how it took a storyline dealing with druggie government operatives to try and raise up the Bourne franchise, as if it were limp.  Lol.  I digress. Nevertheless, finding the drugs for Cross is the major focus for the duo.   The Bourne Legacy contrives rather obviously to manufacture the action sequences and storyline plots of the previous films, even going so far as to have the fleeing duo rescued by a kind Filipino whisking them away in his fishing boat (remember the first Bourne movie?) after an endless but lackluster rooftop chase and (get this) motorcycle chase through the streets of Manila.  Really?  But it's missing much of the essence of the films, as Damon portrayed so well in the Bourne character.  Where the franchise is trying to go, is anyone's guess now.  I don't fault Renner or Weisz for the flaws, but perhaps writer Tony Gilroy shouldn't have stepped into the role of director or at least have taken a few steps further away from referencing Jason Bourne every chance he could.  Those are huge shoes to fill.  All the criticism withstanding, I'm still a huge fan of Bourne movies as I am of the Bond movies.  But maybe next time, we could get Matt Damon (perhaps along with Jeremy Renner) and have Paul Greengrass resume directing. It's a decent enough action picture, but a great legacy it ain't.