Review: The Bourne Legacy

jason stives was bourne to be wild…

Coming out of The Bourne Legacy, the fourth installment in the Bourne series, I found myself split on whether I actually liked it or not. So confused was I that I suddenly started laughing out loud as if Walter White from the “Crawl Space” episode of Breaking Bad immersed himself in my self-conscious. I tweeted to the world with witty quips about what I thought the film was about (a film about a drug addict and his very confused dealer was one tweet), but I was just having a laugh because I was truly troubled with how dull the film turned out. I think it’s because I want to see this series continue even if its first step away from the original three films was a slow misfire.

Now to preface: I love the Bourne movies. In a way they provide an American alternative to the James Bond series with its own mythology, heavily layered character and a secret organization working against its protagonist. At this time five years ago when it was a trilogy and not a continuing series, the Bourne films were a solid action trilogy and the rare instance of having a third film better than the previous two in The Bourne Ultimatum. So if it is an American Bond it should rightfully find a way to continue and with Legacy it does even if it has a lot of false starts and muddled plot points ahead of itself.

The main problem is it’s almost as if Hollywood is forcing it to not only continue but return to Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne by the time they get a couple more films in the bag. It’s a sticking point I have in Hollywood at the moment because too many films have been released this year with the intention of being a potential franchise and not something that can be a solid standalone film with the capability to produce sequels. Prometheus did it and the Bourne Legacy does it as well. A lumbering and pointless plot coupled with its direct connections to the previous films leaves new star Jeremy Renner in a confused state where there are lots of questions, tons of running, and a lot of people being really shitty at their job.

The film begins, cleverly enough during the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, where we get reports of a UK journalist Simon Frost about to publish a story about the Treadstone operation and Black Briar, all the while Jason Bourne is making his way west to America. Remember these events from the previous one? Good, because you will only hear about them sporadically throughout the film. Intercut with this is the introduction to our new Bourne-esque impresario, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), here seen doing a training exercise that involves diving into freezing water and fighting off the continuing presence of a pack of wolves. Apparently Liam Neeson couldn’t offer any comfort to Mr. Cross. Soon we learn that due to Bourne compromising the Treadstone operative, all other secretive operatives within the US government are to be shut down and terminated, including its agents. Ultimately, Cross is the last agent of Operation Outcome standing and his only hope in saving himself from total personal annihilation, let alone being killed by the government, is to seek out Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a scientist who has prescribed Cross with the necessary chemicals he needs to stay super human.

The plot is very easy to figure out but the struggle with the film lies in its one dimensional nature. Other than the performances of our two leads, the supporting cast is remarkably forgettable including Edward Norton as Eric Byer, who was one of the Outcome operations specialist but his character and uber Pro-Patriotism doesn’t strike any chord and anyone could’ve played his role. Oh and the people he works with are really bad at their job. Too often during the movie, events are occurring and the minds behind Outcome have no clue why or they are blaming someone else for why they weren’t informed of some secret information. Collecting satellite footage takes too damn long and gaining information seems almost impossible on their part as one person notes that Cross and Shearing are about 17 hours ahead of them. Not saying much for government agents now is it? Mind you they say they aren’t as radical as the CIA so who the hell are they? The clean cut nature of chasing after Cross and Shearing because they are the last remaining people who know about Outcome makes sense but the film ends on no logical point and the final chase sequence while exciting at times just ends and has no logical purpose other than showing a potential threat to Cross on his level.

The film tries hard to balance both the intellectual discussion of the first Bourne film and the high octane, constantly moving atmosphere of the sequels which is a smart thing to do but director Tony Gilroy doesn’t know how to balance it. This is strange since he wrote the previous Bourne films so he knows this universe better than anyone and he has proven himself as a thrilling thinking man’s director as shown with his work in the George Clooney thriller Michael Clayton. That isn’t to say he doesn’t get some things right. The fight sequences involving Cross are great when they happen and are well choreographed but they happen so sporadically and a lot of the time is spent explaining the effects of the drugs that Cross has been taking.

Thankfully, and not surprisingly, the weight of the films issues doesn’t rest on Renner’s shoulders. If you know his work in films like Hurt Locker and The Town and not just from playing Hawkeye in the Avengers, Renner is perfectly capable of creating a blank canvas with each role and creating a stoic character that like an onion has its layers pealed back slowly. Cross is a war veteran who is brought into Operation Outcome, “Treadstone without the inconsistency” as it is referred to, and acts a super solider, constantly being fed blue and green pills to stay within the program. When Cross runs out of said pills, which enhance his physical and mental states, that’s when his pursuit of more almost becomes desperate. His protection of Dr. Shearing is mainly so that she can supply him with more chemicals.

Basically, Aaron Cross is a muscular junky with a sense of trust in him. There isn’t much that is reminiscent of Jason Bourne in Cross which is perfectly fine. Cross is a fighting machine when he needs to be but lacks the ability to truly grasp the interest of the audience. His background is rather generic and there are hints that there is more to him than we are seeing but upon first impression he doesn’t give off the one step ahead of everyone mannerisms of Bourne. All this seems feeble in a way so that may just be what the character needed to separate himself from his predecessor.

Weisz acts as the emotional pivot of this film, already highly emotional from witnessing a massacre in her lab by one of her co-workers which even for a PG-13 movie was pretty shocking to watch. Her initial confrontations with her apparent killers in her house is remarkably over the top but makes sense logical sense considering her distress over recent events. From there on out she is the sympathetic doctor to Cross who can feel out who he is or at least who he was. She works well alongside Cross acting as the formidable brains to his operative bronze.

In a way, The Bourne Legacy has the unenviable task of playing with a new deck after the government conspiracy arcs of the first three and you can only go so far with telling that story. Instead, we are presented with a different take on a world we are familiar with but the straight and narrow path of Aaron Cross’ story doesn’t leave much to be desired. He is on the run basically, outwitting the people trying to kill him but with no real resolution. Unless they develop a plausible storyline for Cross, the next Bourne films will just be a lot of running, if not running and searching to find Jason Bourne if it comes down to that. In the meantime, there is hope in continuing this franchise as long as they ground it in a strong narrative and not the mess of technical jargon and open ended results presented here. The Bourne Legacy is a fresh start, a dull one at best, with potential thanks in part to some strong leads, but in need of the same care and excitement that manifested itself in its original form.

Rating: 5 out of 10 (okay)