Cross is no Bourne and the action's nothing new

Rating: 4/10 (9 August 2012)

AARON Cross is one tough guy. We know that because the flick shows us freezing his ass out in some godforsaken part of the US. We know that he can jump, climb and shoot with great skill, which make me wonder if he should have been an Olympic athlete instead of an assassin.
The movie then abruptly shifts to office politics and discursive yak-yak that should not predominate an action flick. Viewers won't care for that. They come to a Bourne flick for the action.
That said, the first movie showed a great romance between Bourne and his girlfriend. In this flick, it's forced and contrived.
The doctor killing his colleagues brings back memories of last month's Colorado theater shooting and this week's massacre of 6 people in a US Sikh temple. The scene may have been an inadvertent one, but that's what viewers will think about when they are watching the movie.
Cross may have the same killing talent as Jason Bourne, but he definitely doesn't share the latter's enigma, coolness and debonair quality.
We get to see lots of shootings, driving, making fake ID cards and breaking into a Manila installation. Nothing new.
The flick's piece de resistance is the chase across rooftops in a Manila slum, running in narrow alleys, jumping off bridges and a motorcycle chase.
Is this a Bourne flick or another run of the mill flick?
This movie doesn't bode well for the Bourne franchise. Where art thou, Matt Damon?