Review of The Bourne Legacy (2012) by Joe H — 21 Jun 2013

With Matt Damon's titular super spy busily looking for his identity in the Bourne Ultimatum, this "parallelaquel" has Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, yet ANOTHER runaway from yet ANOTHER shady government program. Whereas, despite being a blank slate, Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass had us rooting for Borne in short order, in Cross we have a chattier yet less appealing hero, questing for the magic blue intelligence pills (yes, rely) that will stop him regressing to the idiotic bumpkin he once was.

It all feels more like a direct to DVD take off of a Bourne flick than the next chapter of the saga, and does itself no favours by frequently referencing old amnesia britches himself. The action sequences, apart from a bike chase through the packed streets of Manila, feel like pale retreads of the original trilogy, and the first half is bogged down with so many explanatory dialogue scenes that a more appropriate title might have been The Bourne Exposition.