Unnecessary Espionage Scrap

Rating: 5/10 (13 August 2012)

In its purest form, "The Bourne Legacy" is a film that in a little over two hours tells the audience exactly what the trailer conveys—that "Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg." In this film, we follow a new agent named Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) who is physically and psychologically enhanced. The film follows a familiar storyline to other Bourne movies, in which an agency executive and his/her team of keyboard wizards try their best to find a highly-skilled agent running "willy nillly" around the globe. Accredited and well known actor, Edward Norton fits nicely into this role as Eric Byer who's only characteristic is that he cuts straight to the chase in order to avoid all possible collateral damage. Bourne Legacy also takes notes from The Bourne Identity and involves a female partner. The lucky lady in this film is Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), who works in a bio-medical super lab in order to help create and maintain the genetics needed to keep agents such as Cross, genetically enhanced. When Byer decides to shut down the genetic program and destroy any active agents, Cross narrowly avoids death and begins to search for Dr. Shearing who he knows will be able to help him find more gene-altering pills in order to find answers and survive the onslaught of trained operatives set on killing him and the doctor. Cross and Shearing travel around the globe to find answers and when they do, all hell breaks loose and both have to fight, gun, and ride their way to safety. Tony Gilroy, an original screenwriter for all three of the previous Bourne films, daringly attempts to write and direct a film that merges a new original story with Bourne's final days in the "Bourne Ultimatum" storyline. Unfortunately, the film, in so many ways, becomes an unfortunate mess.
It should be said that I am a massive Bourne trilogy fan. The original three films were great and ended in great fashion. Therefore, when Bourne Legacy was announced, I immediately had my doubts. Perhaps Bourne Legacy's first fatal flaw is that the film is entirely confused on who is more important—our new main character, Cross—or the Treadstone "messiah" himself, Jason Bourne. The first half of the film cuts between Cross camping in the mountains for no apparent reason and Byer tossing around policies and theories in which the audience has no idea what he is talking about. The Bourne films have always been known to be confusing and complex involving the CIA, US Senators, etc. yet the Bourne Legacy attempts to replicate the same complexity, however fails in execution. Instead, the story is confusing in the least attractive or interesting way. At times, I couldn't help but cringe a little at how hard Gilroy's story was trying to match its predecessor.
It wasn't until the second half of the movie that Legacy felt anything remotely like a Bourne film. Filled with the same deadly combat we all came to love in the original films, Renner shows that he can match Damon's showmanship in the "kicking ass" department, which was a welcome sight. Furthermore, Renner also flaunts his motorcycle driving skills in the film's only chase scene which seems to drag on into eternity. Although, the film's action sequences were impressive and entertaining, it was the little nuances that were completely unnecessary to both Bourne fans and the average movie-goer. Small aspects such as an enemy's ability to survive multiple bullet wounds, Shearing's over the top emotional cries and yelps, and Cross's lack of focus or "super-agent poise" was endlessly distracting and took away the little momentum the film had.
Now aside from comparing the film to its Damon predecessors, the acting and writing was sub-par at best. Although the cast featured many experienced actors, only Norton and Renner seemed to bring any actual ability to the stage and the characters they were playing. However, it was certainly the writing that seemed to bring everyone down. There were many emotional one liners that Renner's character spit out that seemed completely out of place in an espionage film. A super-agent is supposed to have composure and poise and yet Renner's script played at the opposite. Yet, perhaps the most painful of all writing and acting was Weisz's role. Although I do understand that the character was in an emotional position after being close to death many times, any genuine emotion from Weisz's character could not be found—even amidst the yelling and crying found too often in the film. In the end, the over the top emotion and mediocre writing felt odd and several times, laughable.
Near the end of the film, Weisz's character asks Cross if they are lost. Despite Cross's actual response, I cannot help but think that "lost" is the best way to describe Gilroy's attempt to extend the series further. Although entertaining and a fun cinematic adventure, Bourne Legacy becomes just another action flick that will soon be forgotten by its audience and any hopeful Bourne fans. However, Legacy's biggest flaw is the aforementioned fact that a two hour film was produced to reveal relatively nothing about Bourne, Gilroy's new character, or the popular story arc created in Damon's Bourne trilogy. As an audience, you cannot help but feel like the film takes you around in pointless circles and therefore, lost couldn't be any better of a term to describe the pile of espionage scrap Tony Gilroy found in the bottom of the—already empty— Bourne barrel.