Review of The Bourne Legacy (2012) by Jonathan B — 01 Sep 2016

Now I actually really enjoyed this critically slammed movie. I'm not sure why the reviews have been quite so vicious as I thought Jeremy Renner made a decent lead, the story was exciting and the direction sound.

I held off watching The Bourne Legacy for a long time as the history of these kind of parallel spin-offs is patchy to say the least. This movie has very little to do with the first three movies, and Matt Damon only appears in a photograph.

Reiner plays Aaron Cross, an agent recruited to the same project as Jason Bourne. He is caught-up in the chaos caused as the CIA tries to cover up the dirty tricks it has been involved in and soon finds himself fighting for his life.

The female lead is played by Rachael Weisz, here taking on the somewhat stereotypical brainy scientist role. It's true that compared to the preceding movies, the plot here is a more standard form, however, this is an exciting popcorn movie that may not really advance the established narrative of the films that went before it, but neither does it do any real harm.