He is going to run out of brain

Rating: 6/10 (27 August 2012)

Continuing the Bourne series seems like an impossible task: The Bourne Ultimatum had rounded up Jason Bourne's story line with Blackfaire being shut down and both Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass refused to return to the series. But of course studio filmmaking is a business and no studio really wants to get a money making franchise go, so writer Tony Gilroy was promoted to direct a fourth entry and an new star, Jermey Renner, took the risk of replacing Damon in the lead action role.
Jason Bourne and journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) has cause a storm and forced the CIA into making reckless decisions and mistakes. Eric Byer (Edward Norton), the director of a clandestine operation for the CIA and Department of Defence decides the best cause of action is the eliminate the various projects and agents similar Blackbriar and Trendstone operations. Two victims of this decision are Aaron Cross (Renner), an Outcome Black ops operative who is training in Alaska and Dr. Martha Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a bio-chemist working on a Government project. Both end up needing each other, Shearing needs Cross to survive, Cross needs Shearing to supply him with pills (known as chems) to keep his higher levels of intelligence and physical abilities as Byer with the backing of the intelligence and military community hunting for them.
For an action thriller The Bourne Legacy is a very talky film, people talking about operational statuses and missions, the interlinking of the events from The Bourne Ultimatum and what the follow up was and the scientific explanations how the pills work. They is little action in the first half of the film, with only the drone strike and some The Grey like scenes in the beginning. The other set pieces were an attack on a house and the chase in Manilla. The action was too infrequency. It was clear that Gilroy wanted to capture the style and magic of Greengrass' direction but his pacing was too slow. The elements were there, the CIA agents monitoring events and running the operation in a control centre, the use of computers to find out background information and hiding in crowds. It is great that the annoying shaky cam has gone but the action is still too quickly cut making fist fights how to follow. The shoots out and the chase in Manila were better and entertaining. But there is a lack of an equal to Cross like Bourne had in the previous films, i.e. The Professor and Desh.
The Bourne Legacy has more of sci-fi story because the CIA are genetically modifying agents to be mentally and physically then regular agents which does not mesh well with the more realistic world and tone of the previous films. It seems more like the story for a series of Alias or in a comic book then a Bourne film. In the previous film it was implicated that Bourne's abilities came simply from training and mental conditioning and brainwashing, not genetic enhancements. As Empire Magazine said in their review it that it boarders on parody that Cross needs pills to prevent him turning stupid.
Renner, Norton and Weisz were all excellent in their roles and they did give the film their all. Renner is very convincing as an action hero, having the right build and is a very talented actor and Norton and Weisz are top professions. I was worried that in the trailers Norton and Weisz seemed a bit stiff and that the film was just a paycheque to them but they proved their talents as actors.
The Bourne Legacy has its moments, is entertaining at places but it would have worked better as a standalone film. It is a 3 out of 5 star film and Bond is still king of the spy action genre.