Great Premise, Poor Execution

Rating: 5/10 (25 August 2012)

This movie looks great and, at first glance, seems like a worthy follow up to the earlier movies. After seeing it, however, I can say that, while it does have excellent acting, directing, and so forth -- it's just the story that's a bit weak. Without giving away specifics, it's fair to say that the movie attempts to follow several different developing story lines, to its detriment. The entire affair feels disjointed and disconnected. In the earlier movies, jumping from city to city and between different characters was an effective way to push the story forward and really notch up the tension. In this movie, it's just frankly confusing at times and absolutely stalls the momentum. One story line in particular felt completely superfluous and tacked-on. All things considered, not a worthy successor to the Damon movies despite Renner's outstanding performance.