Elegant replacement, but we miss Bourne himself

Rating: 8/10 (3 July 2014)

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) has stepped up and I would say that he is a worthy replacement, but it's just not the same thing without Matt Damon and his iconic Bourne character. After a wonderfully constructed trilogy, this franchise enters new territory with a change of characters, but with the same CIA secrecy and the same universe. In this movie, we find out that behind Treadstone and Black Briar, there is another covert program called Outcome that focused on developing bio- weapons that can be used to enhance the skills of their agents. Due to the ripple effects that occurred in the Ultimatum, the people responsible are looking to terminate everything and leave no trace and that ultimately sets up the plot for the rest of the movie.
Renner's Cross comes into the picture as an agent that escapes this dreadful fate and seeks out Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the clean-up, in order to get the viral treatment he needs to remain mentally and physically stable and therefore able to survive. The lead performances are great as Renner and Weisz expertly play their characters and understand them. Most importantly, Renner is very suitable as a combat expert and while not as awesome as Bourne, the shoes were filled quite nicely. As our CIA chaser, we have Edward Norton giving a good, if slightly less intense than any of the previous performances of this type of character. I'm usually not a critic of Paul Greengrass's shaky cam technique, at least not in Bourne movies, But I must say that Tony Gilroy's approach was an enjoyable and lighter one and I for one liked it. The script is, as you'd expect, a by the book Bourne story and a good one at that.
You might find yourself missing Bourne in this film and I think it would be awesome if Matt Damon could get on board again and perhaps team up with Renner's Cross. As far as this one goes, while it doesn't bring anything new to the franchise, it is still an enjoyable movie and on par with the original trilogy.
Rating 8/10