Nowhere near as bad as feared, but what was the point?

Rating: 5/10 (20 June 2017)

Having recently watched the original Bourne trilogy films, they left me with the sense of how did it take me so long to see them. Really liked 'Identity' and 'Supremacy' and loved 'Ultimatum', even if neither were flawless.
Didn't really have high expectations for 'The Bourne Legacy'. From hearing about it, it did seem like it, despite having the name Bourne in the title, would not feel like a Jason Bourne film and that it would not be the same without Matt Damon. It also sounded like it was not much more than a pointless cash-grab. Finally seeing it, giving it the benefit of the doubt as deserved, 'The Bourne Legacy' was nowhere near as bad as feared and there are some good elements. To me, however, it wasn't a particularly good, let alone great, instalment and one really does question the point of it.
There are obvious strengths. On a visual level, it is every bit as slick and stylish as the original Bourne trilogy and the locations are stunning. The music pulsates and fits well without being over-bearing. While the action does seem not enough, some of it is executed very well and are pretty exciting, the highlights being the tense shoot-out in Weisz's character's home and the climactic motorbike chase that despite perhaps being on the too long side delivers big on the thrills, so much so one wishes that too much of the rest of the film delivered just as big.
Jeremy Renner had big shoes to fill and does so more than capably. Matt Damon and the character of Jason Bourne are very much sorely missed that it feels like a gaping hole has been left, but Renner does bring intense steel and vulnerability. Weisz's character is somewhat underwritten, but she makes much of little and shows an appropriate and necessary sympathetic charm.
On the other hand, Edward Norton phones it in in quite easily the weakest villain of all four films put together, injecting very little menace or gravitas at all. The supporting cast do do capably enough, but too many of them have next to nothing to do, some like Stacy Keach are so underused that one questions why they are even there in the first place. Paul Greengrass and Doug Linman Tony Gilroy is not, while showing beforehand he excelled as a writer there was an air of inexperience in his directing. It seemed like Gilroy was trying to hard to imitate Greengrass but without the excitement and intensity.
In 'The Bourne Legacy', the thrills don't come consistently with some scenes going on for too long and feeling muddled and underdeveloped. The script is messy, doing very little with the characters and too often it is far too talky but without the intelligence, subtlety or sharpness of 'Identity', 'Supremacy' and particularly 'Ultimatum'. It's very clunky and confused as well.
Story also could have been much better executed. It starts interminably slow, and while the connections and overlapping to the previous films (particularly 'Ultimatum') were okay on their own their placement was clumsy, convoluted and upset the flow. Understanding a film is very rarely a problem with me, some of 'The Bourne Legacy' was ridiculously convoluted.
Overall, a little better than expected but it wasn't needed. Anything deserves to be judged as standing on its own feet without being compared, but the drop in quality is so significant after the first three films being as good as they were that it was incredibly difficult to ignore. 5/10 Bethany Cox