Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (30 November 2012)

I can't say that I hated this movie - in fact, I gave it a 5 out of ten. It was just really disappointing and did not, in my opinion, live up to the hype.
Perhaps it's because I'm a huge fan of the Bourne trilogy (and I don't really care whether or not they have been criticised by the actors in them - I judge films on their own merit). I find those films to be pretty perfect for what they are - tense spy thrillers, in which the action doesn't overshadow the plot. Each film is set and was filmed in locations which are obviously not sound-stages - the use of location work in Geneva, London, Moscow, Berlin, Tunisia, New York really grounds the movies in the real world, contrasting nicely with the almost science fictional premise of brainwashing and identity removal.
But back to the film I'm actually supposed to be reviewing. First off we get introduced to the idea that Aaron Cross is dependent on drugs to turn him into a super-soldier type - and the entire movie hinges on that, on him recovering the drugs, getting other drugs, getting off the drugs, going to the factory where they produce the drugs and so on and so forth. I really felt I was baited-and-switched by the trailers for this movie. None of the trailers gave me the impression that this was going to be such a major plot point - and yes, I know that in the Bourne trilogy the major point was Jason's identity and the agency that made him what he was. But it never felt so reductive as it does in this movie.
As regards the characters and actors . . . eh. Jeremy Renner was good, but then he always is. All the others did their best, but the script wasn't giving them much to work with. And I resent the summary way Pam Landy was gotten rid off. I'm trying to find a way to say that Rachel Weisz was too beautiful for her role without seeming churlish, but she really really was. In the previous movies, the female characters were conventionally attractive (just like most of the male characters) without being stunningly, head-turningly beautiful. This was really too much - coupled with the banal action scenes, this made what could have been a tense thriller into Action Movie Plot No. 15.
Finally, the action scenes. Oh dear. The set piece inside the house was good . . . kind of. It was definitely skirting the edges of over-the- top, but in the same way as the scene in the stairwell in The Bourne Identity. The set-piece on the motorbike, on the other hand, was terrible. Overlong, overdrawn, pointless - the best action, in a movie, is there to serve the plot, not the other way round. It very much reminded me of the motorbike chase scene in Terminator 2, which had a point, that of showing us how versatile and indestructible the T-1000 was. What was the point of this? That the guy chasing him was secretly a Terminator, and Outcome is a branch of Skynet? Come on.
While I love the Bourne movies and re-watch them often, this just made me tired. And bored. I love Jeremy Renner, but even he can't save this movie - I prefer watching him in the limited screen time he has in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol than this. At least in that movie he wasn't a junkie looking for a fix.