By the book, mostly

Rating: Null/10 (3 September 2012)

I was toying with the idea of being really lazy, posting something like this: Ebert wrote "for at least the first 30 minutes I had no clear idea of why anything was happening". To this I would just add that the fun really starts when Jeremy Renner meets Rachel Weisz. For the rest of the movie, they run. Finis.
But that is probably too short for IMDb to accept. Besides the good effort all around deserves more. So here it goes.
The movie actually picks up from "Bourn Ultimatum" dropped off, an underwater silhouette of a completely motionless body suddenly awakes to action and swims off. But wait, that's not the same shot, as we soon discover that this is not Jason Bourn at the bottom of Hudson River, but a new face training somewhere in an icy lake in Alaska – Aaron Cross (Renner).
The confusing establishing scenes Ebert refers to serve really one purpose – to tell the audience that the authorities have decided to terminate a program that tempers with humans (physically as well as mentally) to create super fighters. The termination means killing various "subjects" scattered globally, in various shapes and sizes including an attractive Korean young woman. Aaron Cross is, needless to say, one of these termination targets.
Dr. Marta Shearing (Weisz) is an expert in chemistry who is in the program "purely for the science". The rest of the movie, as depicted earlier, of pairing the two in what seems to be a perpetual run, is all by the book.
If I am allowed to back up a little into the Bourne trilogy, the lost of Franka Potente after "Bourne Identity" takes away the romance element, reducing "Bourne Supremacy" to dry, hollow action. Enhancing Julie Stiles's role in "Ultimatum", even if it's the subtlest hint of romance prior and to come, brings life back into this conclusion of the trilogy. The hope of something beyond the trilogy with Damon and Stiles has all but vanished. If there is any romantic spark between Renner and Weisz, it does not surface until the very end. Maybe that is where the hope lies. Can we not have a double-date sequel with these two pairs teamed up to kick some asses in the authorities? How about it, Mr Gilroy?