The Bourne Legacy

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2012)

After a five-year stint, BOURNE redux (the fourth chapter) has returned with a pristine cast starring a red-hot Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, another secret agent going rogue (not Matt Damon's Jason Bourne), which I just watched in the cinema, from the original trilogy's screenwriter Tony Gilroy, this project is his third director job after MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007, 8/10) and DUPLICITY (2009, 7/10), although it fails to supersede Damon's version, but no one should conceived that situation at the first place, fairly speaking the re-ignition has a diverting start.
Running around 135 minutes, the film begins with a faint slow start, with a transition from Bourne to Cross, the intricate sub-plot is Gilroy's trump card, there are variable characters coming and going in the first half part (lots of cameos from the old trilogy), leading the way is new bureaucracy antagonist Edward Norton with his ultra-hectic staffs, then interweaving with another sideline context o the secret bio-lab where Rachel Weisz is residing;meanwhile Cross is trapped in the middle of nowhere in the snow land, fighting against wolf packs (a homage to the ending of THE GREY 2012, 7/10?), evading and sabotaging pilotless cruise missile.
So obviously Gilroy skimps on the action sequences for the rest half of the film. The lab- slaughter intensity is masterfully done compared with other showboating maneuvers (forcefully put a tracker inside a CGI wolf), which may not be proper to American's vulnerable nerves since the authenticity is strikingly nerve-racking. After that the next highlight is our hero saving the girl set piece, thanks to a more-than-average cast, this part is also neatly and gratifyingly exercised.
The final culmination is set in Manila and it is a roller coaster rider without brakes, but a precipitate ending on the picturesque tropical sea may feel a shade less considerate, although one could expect it as it dares not stretch out of the average length of the cinema-goers' habit like THE DARK KNIGHT RISE (2012, 8/10) fearlessly did.
Truthfully speaking, I hold no grudge with the reboot, and actually I prefer Renner's chattiness to Damon's woodenness. One wishful thinking, don't kill off Weisz's role in the next one like what they did to Franka Potente in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004, 7/10), she is such a bonus to the film even if her role is still a female accessory in the typecast action thriller.