Not even this talented star-studded cast can shovel enough sh*t off a script THIS BAD to make it good. Legacy effectively ruins the series.

Rating: 3/10 (10 September 2012)

Mindless action flick I found unworthy of the Bourne title. The 4th installment (more of a spin off rather than an installment, which i find to be slightly less insulting) is subject to poor story telling, over-explaining of the poor story telling (which in turn makes the story awful), and is littered with action film clichés left and right, such as when lead female , Dr. Marta Shearing, is saved "just in the nick of time" or that suddenly there are all sorts of government assassination programs that were never mentioned previously in 3 films.
The film's protagonist, Aaron Cross, fails to capture any of what makes Jason Bourne the super agent that we know and love. When it is revealed that the protagonist is merely a superb secret agent because of medication/genetic mutation, it seriously hurts the entire film series.
In the previous 3 films, we know that nothing Jason Bourne does is by accident. it is carefully calculated premeditation, or it is carefully calculated improvization. Everything that Bourne does is done because he knows what to do, he knows whats going to happen, because he is the best. Bourne blends in, master of disappearing into crowds and speaks just about every damn European language known to man. Cross is none of that. From the very beginning of the film, through dialogue, you get the feel that Cross has no idea what he is doing or why he is doing it. Aside from knowing how to kill with his barehands, no parallels can be drawn between Bourne and Cross.
He lives merely by accident because he happened to step out of the house (oh that was convenient.) In a gun battle in the house he effortlessly slides across the floor into the basement of the house through a hole in the floor (oh thats also convenient.) In a foot chase across the roof tops he has no indication he knows that Marta is below him, he just happens to slide across the right roof top and stops for no reason (conveniently) Poorly conceived plot devices. The movie is littered with them. He's a super spy because he takes these pills (a plot device set up so there is an excuse to move the story to a foreign location), Aaron Cross is chased by wolves (a plot device so that conveniently he has a warm body to put his tracking device into), We're shutting down all our special operations assassination programs and killing all our field agents. except for one LARX #3 that we left alive in Asia, so we'll send him after Cross (plot device to give Cross a nemesis. A nemesis that he never even had a showdown with, in which case you could have completely skipped the "hes from another special government program made for murdering people" aspect and just left the motorcycle chase with a random goon.
all in all, the Bourne series has always been a "smart" action thriller. with Legacy, they took the smart out, and turned it into just another generic action movie. i was very disappointed in this film, i feel that it hurts the series a lot with all its shortcomings. the only thing that felt almost right was the fighting. and even then its not quite right. Bourne didn't kill anyone except for the assassins sent to kill him. Cross murders a number of people by shooting them, and even breaks one guy whos just trying to get by in the world as a security guard at one point.