COUNTRY: USA
STARRING: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton
DIRECTED BY: Tony Gilroy
RUNTIME: 135 minutes
RATING: 14A
Both Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon joked sometime around the release of The Bourne Ultimatum that there would be a fourth movie entitled “The Bourne Redundancy”. After all, the Bourne book series did go on after Ultimatum, but it wasn’t without changes in writers and, sadly, character. And such a book named The Bourne Legacy would indeed be released, except it wasn’t released until after Ultimatum. Now I myself will admit I’ve only read the first two books in the series but not Ultimatum, and it looks like after The Bourne Redundancy… whoops, I mean Legacy, I won’t be any time soon.
That isn’t to say, however, that The Bourne Legacy is, in any way, a bad movie. Because it isn’t. It’s got quite a lot going for it. It’s just a tad disappointing, is all. This was one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, aside from The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, both of which were absolutely stellar efforts. I mean, for one, I love the Bourne movies. I remember when my dad and my uncle took me to see The Bourne Supremacy upon its release in 2004. Since then it has become my favourite film in the series and my favourite of the series thus far. The movies it was sandwiched between were great too, though I do consider Ultimatum to be my least favourite of the original three.
The Bourne Legacy takes place at about the same time as the events in Ultimatum. While Bourne is on the run, Alex Cross (Jeremy Renner) is one of a few selected people put on a super soldier program entitled “Operation Outcome”, run by the CIA. He stays chemically enhanced physically and mentally with a set of multicoloured tablets that he stores in a necklace, named “chems”. He is to take a different colour at each different stage in the day. While deployed in Alaska for a training program, he pretends that he has run out of chems and stumbles upon another like him, named Number Three, staying with him to get some more chems before returning to civilization.
Meanwhile, the CIA has been giving others in the program a pill that they convince them will mean more chemical enhancement, without having to take multiple pills. This is really their way of shutting the program down, killing them, run by Eric Byer (Edward Norton), a retired air Forster commissioner. After he sends a drone to kill Number Three, he realizes Cross is still on the run, and will do whatever he can to finally kill Cross off. Cross comes across the doctor who provided him with the chems, Dr. Shearing (Rachel Weisz), and finds out a shocking secret about the process of being chemically enhanced and the way his body takes in the drugs, which leads them to Manila for one hell of an explosive climax.
There is quite a bit to like about The Bourne Legacy. For one, Jeremy freakin’ Renner. He is instant man crush fuel and this film does not disappoint in that regard. He can act up a storm and he is great for action scenes. And boy, is he beastly in this movie. He has a fair share of great action sequences throughout and if you came specifically to see him slap up some bad guys, then you’re in for a treat. Weisz is great as she always is and manages to do an American accent well, with no noticeable slips. The action sequences and chase sequences are fun to watch too, even if the movie becomes just a tad too reliant on action.
But there’s too much to hate for the movie too. For one, the story seems to not make much sense. The idea of super soldiers is interesting but they don’t do much to explain it, like when they bring in this idea of “viralling off”. They give a quick description of what it is, they do it, bam, it’s left in the dust as if it never existed. And it’s never really explained why they want to shut down the program. There was lots more they could have done with such a sinister subject.
Another issue is the characters are flat and boring. Cross himself isn’t even that interesting of a character. Even when it’s explained how he was put in the program, there isn’t much to salvage. It’s never a good sign when you don’t care about the antagonist too- as the saying goes, “a movie is only as good as its antagonist”, Byer doesn’t do much to lift himself from that trap.
In the third act, the term “an embarrassment of riches” comes to mind- the third act is too long, and is just chase scene after chase scene after chase scene and while the climatic motorbike chase is thrilling, at the same time it’s just… It’s like, the writers forgot the plot and just threw in as many chase scenes as they could.
If anything, think of The Bourne Legacy as a good chase movie. Because that’s what it is. It’s a decent film that’s entertaining and has plenty of great chase scenes and action. But as a Bourne movie… well, it’s that in name only, and despite Renner, is just a chase movie disguised in spy movie faff. And while it could have been a much, much worse movie,theres lots of ways it could have been better. By that, I mean “lots”.
3/5
Life at the barrier 