Review of The Bourne Legacy (2012) by Baldaaf — 18 Aug 2012

I loved the first 3 Bourne movies and I love Matt Damon. I was hoping for a cameo in this movie but no dice. Regardless, Jeremy Renner does a fantastic job, and overall this was an enjoyable movie. A couple of criticisms:

1) The movie is too long. Specifically the car/motorcycle chase at the end should have been about half as long as it was. It got pretty boring.

2) (Related to #1) Cross should have fought LARX #3, instead of just having an overly long motorcycle chase.

3) Overall there seemed to be a lack of good fight scenes us Bourne fans have come to expect from the first three movies. The few that are in the movie are good (especially the scene vs. the 4 CIA agents), but the rest are quite short, and Cross never fights anyone that seems to give him a real challenge. Again, he should have fought LARX #3. In fact, the movie builds up this inevitable confrontation between Cross and LARX #3, only to have the movie end shortly after their boring and too-long motorcycle chase, never having them engage in hand-to-hand combat.

4) I tend to dislike abrupt and open endings, and I understand they were setting it up for the next sequel, but it just felt like a weird place to end it.

Overall a good and enjoyable movie. Renner is great, and Weisz does a good job too. Ed Norton is fantastic as the not-quite-villain but definitely-not-good-guy-either antagonist. He makes some tough moral choices and they have definitely set it up for a confrontation between Cross and Norton's Byer in the next sequel. Hopefully we'll get to see both Damon and Renner in the next one.