The Bourne Legacy **1/2

Review by Paul Stathakis  |  August 17, 2012

‘An action star is Bourne’

Some are going to walk into “The Bourne Legacy” not know­ing much about the lead actor. Most won’t even know his name. There are, of course, those will rec­og­nize him as “the guy” who dif­fused bombs in Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” or as the actor who played one of Tom Cruise’s side­kicks in last year’s “Mis­sion Impos­si­ble: Ghost Pro­to­col.” But one thing is cer­tain: by the end of this film, many will leave the the­atre know­ing who Jeremy Ren­ner is because this pic­ture rep­re­sents his induc­tion into the uni­verse of action films. “The Bourne Legacy” is not the best action film you’ll see this year. It does very lit­tle to stand out from any other spy pic­tures that have pre­ceded it and it’s rarely thrilling. But if it is at all watch­able it’s mainly because of, yes you guessed it, that new action star in it.

There may be some con­fu­sion here for those who think that Ren­ner is por­tray­ing the Bourne char­ac­ter in lieu of Matt Damon. That is not the case. Ren­ner stars as Aaron Cross, an agent from the same pro­gram as Jason Bourne. Damon’s “Bourne” films were mainly cen­tered on the protagonist’s search for his own iden­tity while elud­ing hordes of other agents and assas­sins who were con­stantly on his tail try­ing to wipe him out. Cross finds him­self in a sim­i­lar cir­cum­stance but he is not after his iden­tity. Instead, Cross is on a mis­sion to reach a top-secret facil­ity (a lab­o­ra­tory to be more spe­cific) where he can get his hands on a sup­ply of spe­cial blue pills. To do this he enlists the help of a doc­tor by the name of Marta Shear­ing, played grace­fully by Rachel Weisz who is every bit as good and con­vinc­ing as Renner.

Ren­ner and Weisz spend the entire film on the run from the CIA and that’s about as excit­ing as things get. The action here involves watch­ing the main char­ac­ters dodge bul­lets, fight, and find ways out of intri­cate and not so intri­cate sit­u­a­tions. Cross is good at what he does. He’s an expert in the same way that Jason Bourne was. They do a lot of the things most peo­ple on the run would do: they pre­pare fake IDs and pass­ports and when nec­es­sary they call on their cool­ness and fast-thinking ways to get around obsta­cles. Watch for the scene where Cross and Shear­ing arrive in the Philip­pines at a fac­tory. They are stopped and inter­ro­gated by a guard who is hes­i­tant to let them through.

The film was directed by Tony Gilroy, the same direc­tor respon­si­ble for the 2007 thriller “Michael Clay­ton.” Gilroy also co-wrote the screen­play of “The Bourne Legacy” as well as the pre­vi­ous Bourne movies. Gilroy is a direc­tor who is very much inter­ested in the lit­tle qual­i­ties and traits of his char­ac­ters. His char­ac­ters feel real, act real, and oper­ate within the con­fines of a real world though “The Bourne Legacy” does still incor­po­rate implau­si­ble ele­ments. The open­ing min­utes are ter­rific. We are intro­duced to Cross who is liv­ing in Alaska, sur­rounded by vast snowy moun­tains. He hikes his way through the snowy land­scape, dives into a cold lake, meets a stranger who we learn very lit­tle about, and he does his best to avoid a pack of wolves who are after him. Soon after come the mis­siles zip­ping by the protagonist’s head to get the action started.

”The Bourne Legacy” is not a par­tic­u­larly bad movie but it’s not a great one either. The writ­ers based this film on author Robert Ludlum’s “Bourne uni­verse” but there’s lit­tle men­tion of Bourne (he does make a photo cameo at one point). Aside from that, the only other con­nec­tion to the Damon films are actors David Strathairn, Joan Allen, and Albert Finney who reprise their roles as CIA operatives.

This is an action film that takes itself too seri­ously. Despite their best attempts to stretch a sto­ry­line which requires lit­tle to no stretch­ing, the writ­ers ulti­mately turn in a bore of a screen­play. Agent Cross squares off against the police, leaps from one rooftop to the another seam­lessly, and abuses the heck out of a motor­cy­cle while being pur­sued by an assas­sin. All this is fine because Ren­ner has the look, qual­i­ties, and physique to han­dle this kind of role and achieve these kind of stunts. I don’t have an issue with the action. I don’t even mind if the film­mak­ers push the bound­aries of real­ity here and there. Action films have always been about the pro­tag­o­nists doing impos­si­ble things and emerg­ing unscathed. But how about hav­ing an action star per­form these whacky high-flying manoeu­vres in a movie that mat­ters? Fill­ing some big shoes here, Ren­ner at the very least deserves that much.

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