Weisz and Renner act their assess off but not even their raw talent can save this film from Director Tony Gilroy's ego trip of a script and his lackluster directing.

Rating: 3/10 (11 August 2012)

This is truly a case of great actors who are left out there in the cold by a director, who essentially does not even try to respect them and the audience's intelligence by giving them something original or interesting. Tony Gilroy had written not only the first three Bourne films but the great Michael Clayton as well but here, it is obvious that he is on a destructive ego trip. Gilroy is more interested in making people see on how smart he is as a scriptwriter and filmmaker than actually try to entertain and stay true to what made the other Bourne films special. With that destructive mind set, Gilroy forgets that you need faith in your actors and the material they are working with in order to drive the movie forward. Gilroy also commits the biggest sin of all, which is to never underestimate the intelligence of your audience.
The script by Gilroy and his brother Dan tries to be cutting edge in scientific jargon and smart dialog but ends up with so many inconsistencies and flimsy characterization that you have to double back twice to see if Gilroy actually had a hand in the original "Bourne Trilogy". The characters in this film are only there to get from A to B and none of them with the exception of Rachel Weisz and Jeremy Renner (Who you can clearly see are both working beyond the call of duty to make something out of their paper-thin roles) has any real purpose at all. Poor Edward Norton is only there to bark orders and you can clearly see how frustrated he is with his role in certain scenes. The direction is not even very good, with pacing problems and a running time that excessively too long for its own good. The action scenes (The few of them in the film) do not jar well and are boring to say the least.
My advice to Universal, if there has to be a sequel, bring back Rachel Weisz and Jeremy Renner (Who both deserve medals for their efforts in making this lazy, self indulgent script work) and get rid of Tony Gilroy, who clearly does not respect anybody other than himself. You might have a better movie if you do.