Movie Review Repost - The Bourne Legacy (2012)

So a new Bourne movie is out now and I hope to see it very soon. I've seen most of the Bourne movies and I liked most of them. But I didn't quite like the fourth one: The Bourne Legacy. So today I'm gonna take a trip down memory lane and show you the review I wrote for that film four years ago. My thoughts on this film are pretty much the same as they were then... I think. I've only ever seen Legacy once, but I'm starting to think that Renner's character was actually more interesting than Bourne ever was. Enjoy!

   It's time for a new Bourne movie: the Bourne Redundancy... er, I mean Legacy. With a different director and a new lead actor we now have a fresh new take on the Bourne series.

   The one thing that Legacy has going for it is its acting. Jeremy Renner gives a great performance as our new hero Aaron Cross. He comes across as more likeable than Matt Damon's Jason Bourne (who is not present in this outing) ever was, though not nearly as sympathetic and interesting. For most of the movie Cross is accompanied by Dr. Shearing played by Rachel Weisz. Her performance is excellent despite starting out as a tad annoying.

   The plot is kind of hard to explain: it somehow manages to be both too similar and too different to the other movies. Legacy continues the Bourne movie tradition of not having anything to do with the books. Taking place immediately after Ultimatum, this film begins with the FBI investigating the CIA after Jason Bourne has publicly exposed the Treadstone and Blackbriar Operations. Because of this a few high-ranking CIA officers decide to wash their hands clean and liquidate all the assets of their illegal projects. So yeah, this is basically the same plot as the other movies: a shady CIA officer tries to clean up his own mess by killing the main character. It's starting to get old and as always it takes about 15-20 minutes to figure out what's going on.

   Anyways, remember in the other Bourne movies how the final boss (AKA: the last bad guy) was always there trying to get Bourne from the start? This movie quickly and casually introduces the assassin – Larx-03 – within the last half hour. Towards the end, our heroes partake in a motorcycle chase that lasts way too long and becomes kind of boring. This is immediately followed by a very abrupt ending.

   To summarize, this just doesn't feel like a Bourne film. There's no Jason Bourne. There's no Pam Landy. The first half hour of action takes place in the wilderness. There's only one gunfight. The whole film takes place in only two countries. These aren't necessarily bad things, but you can see where I'm going with this. The only things consistent here are the things you already didn't like: overused plot lines, annoyingly fragmented cinematography, and a somewhat misleading title. Bourne Legacy isn't horrible, but fans of the other movies will be disappointed after watching this one.

Final rating: two and a half stars out of five.