Lackluster

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2013)

This movie begins similar to part I. A body underwater, arms spread. Suddenly the person reacts and fetches some object. It's Renner's character, Cross, somewhere in the mountains, running around, dealing with wolves, drawing blood from himself, and taking pills- a green one and a blue one.
Parallel to this we learn that given the events that are taking place in Bourne III, the government is about to be exposed and decide to shut it all down- Treadstone, Blackbriar, everything. In charge of it is Eric Byer, played by Norton. We see other subjects taking pills but their pills are switched to yellow ones that kill them. Also, at the lab that produces these pills, one of the researchers goes crazy and shoots everyone including himself, except for Dr. Marta who survives. She was in charge of dealing with the subjects of the research, including Cross.
These two stories are told in interspersed scenes. So you don't really know what is going on in either of them. The two stories finally merge when Cross makes it to a hut. Some other guy is there but he's rather strange and suspicious. Eventually a drone missile hits the hut but Cross barely makes it out and now he's out of pills. He has a chip implanted so the government knows he's out there and sends more drones after him till he removes the chip.
Now that he's gone dark he goes after the only person who can provide him with pills- Dr. Marta. He makes it in time because the CIA is already there and they don't have good intentions. Now that Cross and Marta join up, she explains what is happening to him. One pill is for his psychological enhancement, the other for his physical. He doesn't know it, but he actually doesn't need the physical one anymore, the enhancement is now permanent, in his genes, transported there by a virus. The psychological enhancement however is still pill-dependent, but could in theory also be made permanent. But to do that they have to travel to the Phillipines where the viruses are.
Sure enough, they go there but now the government has figured out what is going on and they send someone after him, which leads to a chase scene in Manila.
The Bourne Legacy has a story, it has the big names, but the direction is dismal. To waste an hour of Renner's character running around pointlessly in the wild is just dumb. Even the extended chase scene, first on foot and then on motorcycles is pretty dull. The only exciting stuff is the government trying to find out what is going on and trying to find Cross and Marta. Most disappointing is the complete lack of action. While Bourne could deliver his a super butt kicking in the blink of an eye, Cross doesn't get to to do a whole lot other than shoot and run around. The casting is also a bit problematic. Norton, just doesn't look, let alone, sound the part. He does what he can but he just doesn't fit the role of some secret soulless government big shot. On paper at least, it sounds like Renner would be an ideal Bourne-type character. But he's not into it. He lacks the edge and intensity that he had in The Hurt Locker and that made him such a compelling actor.
The concept of timing the events of this movie around the same time that the end of part III is taking place is pretty interesting. And the science behind this movie is also pretty good. What happens in the lab, in government offices is quite interesting, but then you get the scenes of Cross doing something somewhere that just completely kills the mood, so to speak. The whole Manila adventures is a bit forced. That the government would outsource something as sensitive as these medical experiments to a third world country is a bit of a stretch. But the global international character that the Bourne movies have is a good thing.
Given that the Bond movies have become bad versions of the Bourne movies is a great opportunity for the Bourne movies to get into Bond territory. Unfortunately, with the Bourne Legacy they've taken down things considerably. One can only hope that the next installment will resurrect one of the most exiting action franchises around. Just don't let Gilroy direct it. He sure can write a script, but directing isn't his strength.