until the 2/3'rd mark...

Rating: 6/10 (19 September 2012)

The Bourne Legacy had potential to be really dynamite, with good (non) romantic chemistry between Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, and I was genuinely interested in his story as the (non) Jason Bourne of the story. In fact, I was glad for at least the first half the film was relatively action-free, and I could try to understand what this Treadstone thing was that came apart and then fell asunder.... And then the second half - no, I'll be more generous, the last third - came along, and it became another chaos-cinema spectacle with a chase through a Filipino city that is just ludicrous, and yet played completely straight.
The sad part is that Tony Gilroy, who wrote some if not all of the other Bourne movies and is a damn good director in his own right (see the excellent studio drama Michael Clayton and the good if not great studio comedy Duplicity), knows this world and finds a way to make the dramatic angle work without Jason Bourne. Indeed I found Aaron Cross, Renner's character, to be interesting because we don't know much about him at first, and yet it's not Bourne all over again; he knows who he is, at least sort of, in pieces (an ex-soldier who was 'turned' over to this special program and one of nine 'Recruits' for the program). All we know is, he needs his drugs. It's a nice drug-addict parable. What does he need it for? Well, to be a superhero, of course.
Seriously, that is the logic working here, and yet I could buy into it, because of the movie-science as laid out by Weisz's doctor, who is really into viruses and has a stable career... until her co-worker flips out and shoots up their lab (a really, genuinely tense sequence that shows Gilroy and DP Robert Elswit in their element, giving enough time to shots, and mounting dread as to how this guy can't be stopped - a more horror movie version of Cross mayhap). Surely the plot with Edward Norton, reduced basically to looking concerned throughout the movie and occasionally yelling at Stacy Keach, is not intensely interesting, mostly because we've seen it all before, in all three previous movies really. A man-hunt, track him down, squash the program, etc etc, oh and there's Joan Allen for a moment, move along.
What I had a small hope for was that Gilroy, a fairly sophisticated Hollywood director, and Elswit, who did a sharp job shooting the possibly equally preposterous spy thriller Salt, would change up the action just a little, and not make things as chaotic-actiony as Paul Greengrass had done with his previous films (it's been so long since I've seen Doug Liman's film so no comment there). But alas, Gilroy must have also thought that given that he's already dishing out a more intriguing character and dynamic between the male/female leads, and that there's more at stake, he has to give the audience what "they" want. And what is that? Brash, chaotic cinema: super fast cuts, close-to-the- character shots, spatial madness really. But where Greengrass, for his over-reliance on it (even in small dramatic scenes really), could manage it with a certain flair, I was lost in the miasma of the chase that ensues first over rooftop and then on motorcycle through the city.
So much built up, and then it was hard to care except in little touches, such as how the Chinese equivalent of Renner's super-drugged-up-spy-hero would be a bit more aggressive and dogged since, well, I dunno, he's Chinese (I'm merely speculating on the part of the cynical filmmakers). Will the series continue? I dunno. Renner is a capable and talented actor, finely physical but can bring the emotional weight when he has to, and Weisz is a fine addition. Yet, ultimately, Bourne Legacy is disappointing more because of who it's coming from. Had it been hacks, I might've forgotten about it. I may still, but not easily.