The Bourne Legacy

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2012)

The first three film are fantastic action thrillers, and part of the reason is because of the great performance by Matt Damon, but when I saw this trailer for this fourth film, based on the book of the same name (that is meant to have Jason Bourne), I was sceptical one without the title character would not work, so I watched to see what I would think, from director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton). Basically the story in this story happen at the same time as the events in The Bourne Ultimatum are going on, where the authorities witness the shooting of Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) and are trying to catch Jason Bourne, but more importantly when the former Treadstone operative hands in the details about Black Ops operations Treadstone and Black Briar to Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) to release to the press. When those responsible for creating Treadstone and Black Briar know that the operations have been exposed, they are concerned how other operations they have will be affected, and on one of these other operations, called Outcome, is agent Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), and he is unaware that they are shutting down all operations all killing all involved. He survives their attacks, and he wants answers as to what is going on from the woman who worked on him when he started at Treadstone, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), and he also seeks the medication that apparently all subjects need to take to help them increase their senses and determination. When he finds her she has survived an attack with his help as well, she cannot answer all the questions about the program because she was only involved with the first stages, and she does not have any of the medication he seeks, because she confirms he has not needed it for a long time. While the operations people realise that an agent and a doctor have survived and are trying to escape them, Aaron and Marta head for Manila in the Philippines to go to the place the medication pills come from, and after getting some answers they also outrun an assassin in a chase, until they get away on a fishing boat heading for the tropics to live a life off the grid. Also starring Edward Norton as Retired Col. Eric Byer, Stacy Keach as Retired Adm. Mark Turso, Oscar Isaac as Outcome #3, Dennis Boutsikaris as Terrence Ward, Albert Finney as Dr. Albert Hirsch, David Strathairn as Noah Vosen, Scott Glenn as Ezra Kramer, Donna Murphy as Dita Mandy, Corey Stoll as Zev Vendel, Zeljko Ivanek as Dr. Donald Foite, Corey Johnson as Ray Wills and Elizabeth Marvel as Dr. Connie Dowd. Renner gives a good moody performance with ideas of how to get away and a determination to get to the bottom of things, Weisz does pretty well being scared and knowledgeable with doctoring, and the supporting cast members, especially those as the manipulative and scheming heads do well. Jason Bourne is mentioned most of the time throughout the film, it is obvious they have rewritten the story to revolve around a new agent, who did not lose his memory, what I liked about the previous films was the chase sequences and gripping fights and stuff, this film does have those moments, but maybe not enough of them, and obviously it just doesn't feel the same as the others, that is obvious without Bourne, nevertheless it is not such a bad storyline and action thriller. Good!