Pill-popping Bourne

Rating: 6/10 (26 August 2015)

Doe-eyed Rachel Weisz has the rare talent of playing potentially annoying characters - here "damsel in distress" meets "naive scientist who ignores what her works are used for" - and yet making them sensible and sympathetic. And yeah, I like Jeremy Renner too, although obviously in a more platonic way, with his quiet intensity which never turns into obnoxious macho posturing. Add to them Ed Norton as the antagonist coldly barking orders to a room full of technicians and you have a solid cast.
Unfortunately, both direction and writing fall short compared to the Matt Damon trilogy - and before someone says they don't need to be compared, let me remind this was titled The BOURNE Legacy.
Set-pieces are competent, nothing more. There is a rooftop chase, inferior to the one in Ultimatum, and a high-speed chase, inferior to the one in Supremacy. The movie clocks in at an acceptable 135 minutes, but feels longer - and *is* in fact longer than the three Jason Bourne movies, which were tight and breezy.
The script has issues, which is surprising as Gilroy is one of the finest writers of action/thrillers working today. Again, comparisons with the original trilogy are problematic. A mystery man who is found floating in the sea with a bullet wound and displays unexpected combat skills is more compelling than a super soldier popping pills to get stronger and smarter. An amnesiac spy struggling to unravel his past and achieve revenge against the agency which trained him is more interesting than a rogue agent infiltrating a factory... with the help of a scientist who does have access to that factory.
In the first trilogy scale and scope were larger, stakes higher. Norton's antagonist gets no closure, which is just weak (and his previous connection with protagonist Aaron Cross feels pointless); the other bad guy is the series' typical unshaven hit-man who gets killed in a flurry of blows before he can utter a single line.
Still, this is per se an entirely watchable spy flick. Maybe they should just have titled it Crossing Aaron.
6/10