The Bourne Legacy: Movie Review

The Bourne Legacy: Movie Review

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney
Director: Tony Gilroy

Matt Damon is gone from the Bourne movie, but his presence casts a shadow over this latest outing.

Jeremy Renner is now the Bourne again spy in this action thriller, which has been stripped of its original team but tries to revamp the Bourne series.

Renner stars as Aaron Cross, an agent being trained in black ops program, Operation Outcome. the training's brutal; abandoned in the wild, Cross is taking blue pills to increase his mental skills and green ones which enhance his physical skill sets.

However, when the events of the Bourne Ultimatum come to fruition with Jason Bourne exposing the details of Operation Blackbriar and Treadstone Project, the CIA decides to close all their ops down and eliminate their assets thanks to the involvement of Edward Norton's clandestine agent Eric Byer.

But Cross discovers he's been double-crossed and escapes...

At the same time, scientist Dr Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) escapes a massacre at her laboratory (which was testing the subjects of Outcome) and finds her life threatened by her involvement in the undercover operation. Luckily though, Aaron Cross is there to save her and the two end up on the run...

What to say about The Bourne Legacy?

Firstly, this parallel-a-quel really does suffer from a murky and confusing script and not exactly heaps of tautly put together action sequences which proliferated the first three films, excellently put together by Paul Greengrass. There are chunks of heavy exposition from plenty of scenes of CIA suits standing around monitors and barking orders - which don't serve to add to the tension or suspense, merely to slow it down.

Secondly, it's incredibly hard to warm to Jeremy Renner's character, regardless of how well he acts throughout the film's rather dour, slightly stuffy and overlong running time.

Don't get me wrong, Renner is nothing less than electric as he launches  a career as an action man of the movies - even if he does lack the charisma of Damon; but it's symptomatic of the film that you don't really warm to Cross in a way you did with Bourne. It could potentially be something to do with what's at stake for each - with Bourne, it was about finding out who he was (a very personal motivation) whereas with Cross, it appears to be that he just wants to get his fix of his blue pills so he doesn't slump back in his mental prowess and slide back into average Joe territory. It's an odd motivation and one which lacks the humanity which is needed to grip you in a thriller like this.


While Weisz brings a permanently pained and shocked expression to her Marta Shearing, she adds very little else except to maybe serve as a potential love interest and to run about in need of saving. Norton's nothing less than icy and cold as Byer and presents a menacing presence for future films.

There's not enough action throughout The Bourne Legacy - and while there are some impressive sequences when they do show up, they're never as immediate or gripping as what's gone on in previous films.

In some ways, Gilroy's made a parallel franchise which is solid, but unfortunately unspectacular. It may seem a little unfair to tar this film with the previous trilogy so much, but given Jason Bourne casts such a pall over the film, it seems unfortunately inevitable. The final chase sequence which concludes the film ends abruptly and the film ends equally as abruptly immediately afterwards.

The Bourne Legacy feels like an extended first act with no face off or ultimate conclusion between the good and bad guys, giving it the feeling of one (over)long tease which offers hardly any pay off. Interesting it may be and a solid thriller it is, but it's just not quite enough excitement to sustain and enthral you for 2 and a quarter hours of your life.

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