Review #1,083: 'The Bourne Legacy' (2012)

With Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass apparently done with the world of Jason Bourne (although they both returned this year), franchise screenwriter Tony Gilroy, also on directorial duty here, attempts to expand on the universe further with the fourth entry into the series, The Bourne Legacy. While the first three focused on Bourne's battle with the CIA's top-secret agencies' attempts to hunt him down to save themselves embarrassment and exposure, Legacy unravels the rippling effect the amnesiac's antics has on those at the top-level, as well as the other assassins who were usually a text message away from going toe-to-toe with him.

One of these assassins is Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross, who we meet early on alone in the Alaskan wilderness on a training exercise that requires him to take dangerous leaps between snow-laden rocks, ensuring he doesn't become dinner for a pack of wolves, and other harsh survival activities. These early scenes are full of promise, as Cross drops the meds key to his super-humanness and draws out fellow operative (played by Oscar Isaac) in the hope of re-upping on his supplies. They are quick to realise something is wrong when their hut is obliterated by a tooled-up drone. The attack is one of many on operatives trained under the Treadstone, Blackbriar and Operation Outcome programs, as Eric Byer (Edward Norton), an ex-Air Force colonel, is hired to clean up the mess uncovered by Bourne and journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine).

Cross's escape and quest to find more magic pills puts him on the trail of biochemist Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a good doctor who manufactures the drugs that enhance his skills and who he has encountered before in the past. A mass murder-suicide at the laboratory leaves her as the sole survivor, and Cross conveniently jumps in at just the right time as she is attacked at her home by agents posing as psychologists. Every occurrence in these films seem to be the handiwork of a tie-wearing, craggy-faced puppet-master at the top of the CIA, and one of the main joys of Jason Bourne's adventures was seeing him take revenge on the men and women working outside of the law, and those responsible for turning him into an emotionless terminator who carries out multiple killings. Legacy's main issue is that Cross's mission to find a fix removes the personal and redemptive elements in favour of a McGuffin that the film spends a lot of time trying to explain.

In the early scenes, Renner demonstrates precisely why he was hired to take over from Damon, delivering a chattier, more human protagonist with even a hint of maliciousness. Renner brings the same unpredictable physicality that won him Oscar nominations for The Hurt Locker (2008) and The Town (2010), and his dialogue with Isaac is by far the best moment of the film. Yet as the film goes on, his personality all but vanishes, choosing instead to have him play the one-dimensional action hero, leaping between buildings and occasionally beating someone to the ground. It's a terrible waste, and his character would have been served better if so much time wasn't invested in scientific gobbledegook explaining why he must get from A to B. There's a couple of reasonably entertaining action scenes here and there and Norton does slimy incredibly well, but the brute nature of Greengrass's aesthetic is sorely missing, and, despite the title, The Bourne Legacy fails to distinguish itself from any other film on the action movie conveyor belt.


Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie