Review of The Bourne Legacy (2012) by Do You Even Jay C — 18 Jul 2014

[b]Final Verdict[/b] Disappointed.

Shouldn't this franchise be finished already?

The Bourne Legacy is a forced sequel to a franchise that had ended on a high note, or at least, it should have ended on a high note. Unfortunately, writer/director Tony Gilroy thought the franchise deserved one more sequel to give the Bourne series another storyline to finish. On paper, this film should have been phenomenal. You have the writer of the original trilogy along with two great actors in Edward Norton and Jeremy Renner and a very interesting premise. However, this film turned into a worst case scenario. It's dull, convoluted, and just feels unnecessary. There was never any need for a sequel to Ultimatum, which remains the best of the trilogy, so why create it? It may have been due to financial needs, rather than story telling.

The Bourne Legacy attempts to create an original story that coexists with Robert Ledlum's books and the movies. After the events of the first three movies, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), a product of a new government operation where chromosomes to soldiers are enhanced giving them superhuman abilities, is in danger for Bourne's actions. As a result, Eric Byer (Norton) attempts to terminate all soldiers and personnel involved. That's the basic premise, but to be honest, I got that from the RT "Movie Info" section. It's not my fault either. The film's cohesiveness is faltered due to the fact that it's just exposition.

The film just isn't very interesting, to be honest. The plot advances at a swift pace, not giving details enough time to develop. As a result, the film just becomes dull. Then, the runtime for this film is extremely short by comparison of what they were trying to accomplish. Yeah, a film sitting at 2 hours and 15 minutes would seem like enough time to flesh out the plot. However, there are too many times when a certain plot point is rushed or isn't executed well. Thus, the film's plot holes are coming into high gear by the "final act", which is another problem for this film.

By final act, I mean this film has no solution to any of the problems that were presented. When you walk into this film, you'll know basically the same amount when you walk out. Only new thing you learn is that there is "a lot more than Bourne". Nothing is solved, which brings in the fact that the only purpose this film served was to garner sequels in which they will possibly solve all of this. Most likely they won't and will milk this franchise until it's dead, but that's basically the point of this film. Throughout the film, all they mention is how 'Treadstone was just the surface of everything' multiple times. Not only does it feel like a cheap gimmick to continue the franchise, but they never go in depth of this. They just keep saying that same line over and over. "Treadstone was just the surface of everything". How so? Different operations? Didn't we already know that?

Another problem is Rachel Weiz. Other than the fact that her character did nothing important besides giving Bond-sorry, Aaron Cross the location of the chems to flu-out, she was very dull in this film. Scenes with her are laughable at best and her acting talent comes into question. I usually think she's the best part of any film she does. However, it's not like the lines she were given were horrible. I could see any actress pulling her character off much better. Here, there's a distinct lack of chemistry between her and Renner. Their underlying romance seems dull and forced, especially when she does something that endangers her life over Cross. It doesn't seem natural and is all over the place.

Then, the action sequences are very dull, much like the rest of the film. Hey, at least it remained the same tone. Most of the fight scenes are under a minute and the two that are over a minute aren't anything special. Yeah, there's a moment in this film where I thought it would get better, but the film remains dull and listless. The final action sequence isn't any good, either. They felt the need to shoehorn in a villain, so that he could fight Cross, or rather, chase him around on a motorcycle, to be more accurate, and they really pull this character out of nowhere. He appears and through the magic of expository dialogue, his character has reasoning for doing his actions! I think Gilroy knew he couldn't have Byer or Cross engage in a gunfight, due to the fact that almost all of Byer's scenes force him to engage in expository dialogue, handing out what is going on to the audience as if we didn't know.

With all that said, this film isn't really that bad. With what he was given, Jeremy Renner was charming and likable. He really elevated what could have been a dull character into a human being, something this film needed a lot more. And even though his character wasn't written well, I thought Edward Norton did fine with what he had, giving his character an extra boost though how little good Byer was on paper. And there were a few moments in this film where I thought "Okay, that was cool.", but most of those scenes are just short 3-second bursts. Unfortunately, that couldn't save this film from feeling like a tacked on sequel.

Overall, the Bourne series should have just ended at Ultimatium, but no, we needed a sequel. And by "we", I mean the distributors and production company. They are attempting to milk this franchise to death aren't they? Most characters, especially Byer, are expository machines telling us what is going on as if we wouldn't have understood through simple lines. Wouldn't "Burn the program to the ground" be enough to tell us what they were doing? But nope, they had to say that they needed so-and-so dead, giving the characters a one-note feel. Jeremy Renner and Edward Norton try their best to save this from falling down, (and they really had no help from Gilroy) but alas they weren't enough. This film is dull, uninvolving, and features a terrible performance to an otherwise decent actress. To sum this film up with a word that has been appearing through this review a whole lot, it is D-U-L-L.