Review of The Bourne Legacy (2012) by Christopher K — 16 Jun 2013

The lengths one drug addict will go through to get his fix! -- This film was actually better than I had expected. It was well shot, well directed, well acted, the action was great, etc. But the script was awful, which is a surprise because it's the same guy who wrote the other three films.

Each film in this series has become progressively worse. The writer gives himself a lot of avenues to explore in the set up, and then just ignores them. Dr. Shearing's boyfriend could be been an agent and appeared later in the film to help them, or Jason Bourne could have made an appearance, or we could have had help from Pam Landy, or Renner could have saved Pam.

Edward Norton's story arc just stops in the middle, and the super-agent at the end of the film promises a great showdown that we never get. Gilroy clearly has some kind of problem writing endings.

He just ends things. The first Bourne has the only really satisfying ending, the rest of them... eh. This one is particularly bad "I was sort of hoping we were lost." What? This line doesn't call back to any previous conversation.

It's the first sign of any flirtation between the characters. It's said as though there is some significance but there is none. This feels like an incomplete script. It feels like an episode of LOST.

Hints of secrets with lame revelations are... well... lame. Hints of secrets with mind blowing revelations are, you guessed it, mind blowing. It's like the writer got tired half way through and just started writing boilerplate action with the kinds of twists that give the word "twist" a bad rap.

The writers need to take a page from the Breaking Bad playbook and give us real surprises. I feel like if I stopped watching 2/3rds of the way through, I'd have thought this quite a good film, but the story utterly disappoints.

There is a lot to like, but in the end, it's like being served a beautiful meal in which all the flavors are off.