1½ Pipes out of 4
The action remains but the heart is gone. With Matt
Damon removed from the Bourne series the logic and investment held by the
audience has disappeared as well. Jeremy Renner attempts to continue the
franchise made famous by Damon and puts forth a good effort but is not given a
whole lot to work with plot wise. Renner is in the difficult part of his career
where he has been pigeon holed and type casted as the next action star so was
the logical choice for Damon’s replacement. This is a problem when the Bourne
films have developed into more than just action films but acting and action
films. It also does not help that the audience has built an emotional
attachment to Jason Bourne only to have a fourth film that has almost nothing
to do with him. There is the occasional reference to Bourne as being in New
York with a news clip about his exploits but little more than that. For the
most part of the film the audience is following the exploits of Aaron Cross, a
bioengineered super soldier who is betrayed by his government. He then must go
and rescue a doctor (Rachel Weisz) who has been overseeing his bioengineering
who coincidentally has also been betrayed by the government. This then leads to
the main plot of the film which actually appeared to be a sub plot but turned
into the main which leaves the viewer incredibly disappointed at the end of the
film because they were expecting more. The rest of the film follows a
government official (Edward Norton) who is never really explained, only that he
has top security clearance and he is in charge of the numerous programs spawned
from Treadstone and Blackbriar. He is attempting to clean up the mess left by
Jason and that means killing both Renner and Wiesz’s characters. The writer and director
Tony Gilroy who also wrote the previous 3 Bourne films stated he likes that
being the director means he gets to do the film his way but maybe he needed
that input to make the movies good because
The Bourne Legacy doesn’t even come close to the other three films.
