Unremarkable, Unnecessary and Unchallenging. The Bourne Legacy Lingers.

Rating: 4/10 (16 August 2012)

Can there really be a Bourne film without Jason Bourne? Well James Bond managed to continue it's franchise whilst changing the lead, so could Bourne? Well the answer unfortunately is no. I went into 'The Bourne Legacy' with high expectations, and they were not met by some distance. And I thought 'The Dark Knight Rises' was a let down.
Matt Damon stepped away from this entry in the franchise when the director of the last two films, Paul Greengrass was taken off the film by Universal. So we now have the writer of the previous films Tony Gilroy to direct this latest film in the series. Jeremy Renner takes the lead role as Aaron Cross who is an outgo agent. After the secrets of Tredstone and Jason Bourne are leaked to the press, all the other agents in the program are meant to be disposed off. However, Aaron Cross goes on the run with a scientist from the organisations played by Rachel Weisz. Edward Norton is great as Eric Byer, he works for the USAF and is trying to track down Cross.
That's the set up for the film and that is pretty much the whole film. I can't recall ever feeling so uninvolved in an action film before. The action is hard and fast, but at the same time very tedious. The moments that aren't filled with chases and explosions are characters talking to each other about nothing important. In fact, if it weren't for Jason Bourne's name being mentioned now and again in conversations, then this would not even be a Bourne film. It would just be a standard chase film.
The chases in the film are good and in parts pick the film up, even if to be dropped back down when the action is over. In fact the action saves me from giving the film a really low score, even though I'm not going to give it a high one either. Oh, and the film doesn't so much end as it does stops. That's right, the film stops in the middle of two characters talking. But by that point I wasn't expecting anything else.
The thing I loved about the original Bourne series was that it had as much brains as it did action. The character of Jason Bourne was as much an enigma to himself as he was to the audience. This made the character intriguing and made the action sequence a surprising spectacle as the audience was unaware what the character was capable of. In this film, we have Jeremy Renner, who I really like, playing action man who just beats up the bad guys.
All the intrigue has been left behind and all the ground braking cinematography that was used when Greengrass was in charge has gone. The film feels very empty, lifeless and just a money making scheme that has little respect for the first three films. 'The Bourne Legacy' didn't blow me away as it did bore me.
It just goes to show Bourne isn't Bourne without Bourne. In my opinion, if Bourne isn't going to be in a Bourne film, then don't put Bourne in the title. Now that was a lot of Bourne's in one sentence.