(USA, 135 min.)
Dir. Tony Gilroy, Writ. Tony Gilroy, Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Donna
Murphy, Zeljko Ivanek, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Joan Allen, David Strathairn.
This week’s blatant cash grab in the summer where
originality came to die is the fourth installment in the
Jason Bourne saga. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is nowhere to be found in The Bourne Legacy except for a few brief
mentions and archival photos. The series is well served, but hardly reborn,
with Jeremy Renner’s turn as Aaron Cross. Cross is another spy in the covert
government program that gave rise to Jason Bourne. The Bourne Legacy recycles styles and sequences from the Matt Damon
trilogy, but for all its redundancy, the film is nevertheless a wild,
thrilling, and entertaining spy flick.
The action of The
Bourne Legacy occurs somewhere near the endpoint of The Bourne Ultimatum, which is the third and best Jason Bourne
movie. Viewers who have not seen the previous Bourne film will be hopelessly lost in The Bourne Legacy because the drama occasionally intersects with
that of Ultimatum, although few of
the series’ original characters actually appear in the film. Things are
referred to and the discussions are all very hush-hush, so The Bourne Legacy has a good deal of intrigue and espionage.
Since Legacy
starts a new tale in the midst of old drama, it is really more of a pseudo-origins
story or a spin-off than a continuation or a sequel. Aaron Cross begins the
film in a sort of training exercise. Like Jason Bourne, he has brute strength,
slick agility, and fine survival skills. Aaron also has the troubling
fragmented memories that Bourne has. They’re two products spit out by the same
machine.
Aaron’s assignment becomes a rapid-fire quest to stay alive,
though, when he and his contact/fellow mercenary (Oscar Isaac) are targeted by
search and destroy missiles. Aaron survives thanks to an impressive action
sequence involving hungry wolves and stealthy aerial warfare. He then scrapes
together enough memories to create a lead to find out who is trying to kill
him.
In the meantime, people involved with the top-secret mission
are dropping like flies. Agents are falling off the radar and there is even
talk about taking out Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), Bourne’s ally who blew the
whistle on the Treadstone operation. Behind all the renegade hits is Retired
Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton), the man who recruited Aaron Cross for the job.
Crosscut between those scenes – there is a lot going on in The Bourne Legacy – is some action at a
lab that runs tests on the agents. Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) performs
routine analysis on the men. She seems like a small fish in the whole
operation. Her status rises to big fish, though, when one of her colleagues
opens fire on all the doctors working in the top-secret lab. As the lone
survivor (and the one who appears in Aaron’s memories), Marta is the missing
link between all the hocus-pocus and housecleaning.
Much is introduced and discussed in all the frenzy of The Bourne Legacy, but it amounts to
surprisingly little. A lot of the dialogue is comprised of grandiose speeches
and hyperbole, too, so it seems as if the mystery of Aaron Cross (if one can
even call it that) will unfurl a new climax in the Jason Bourne drama. It
doesn’t. The film merely offers lots of fanfare and then piddles out in its
final act.
It’s not as if the Bourne
team has sent out a mercenary death squad to put a hit on the franchise. The Bourne Legacy is just an unnecessary
addendum to a strong finished product. It’s like adding filler to a burger that
tasted good because it packed so much meat. Like the old processed McSomethings,
The Bourne Legacy satisfies for its
quick thrill but it offers nothing substantial. One could hardly say the same
about the previous three installments in the series.
One might think it unfair to judge one film against the
films that came before it, but since the new Bourne movie aligns itself within their legacy – and specifically
chooses to evoke their legacy in its title – then one must see if the new
instalment upholds that legacy. This film does not. I remember walking out of The Bourne Ultimatum with my knees
shaking from adrenaline because I felt as if I had just survived a series of
high impact collisions in a speeding car. I felt the same after I saw the film
a second time in the theatre.
The Bourne Legacy,
however, almost proceeds like an algorithm. It moves through scenes of dialogue
and scenes of action at routine intervals. It feels too procedural, even if it
adopts the hyper-kinetic style of the Paul Greengrass Bourne films. Director Tony Gilroy, who wrote the previous Bourne trilogy, just doesn’t pull it all
together as well as his predecessor did.
Although much of the above review veers on the critical
side, one can hardly accuse Gilroy et al of making a bad film. The Bourne Legacy might be nowhere in
the league of its predecessors, but it is still a riveting piece of escapism
with good action scenes and entertainment value. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) gives a solid turn that
is worthy of Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, and Rachel Weisz is characteristically
strong as his eventual ally. The failing of The
Bourne Legacy could be that it evokes a precedent rather needlessly.
It might not be until Moby’s “Extreme Ways” plays over
the end credits that one remembers that one is watching a Bourne film. The memory could evoke some disappointment, but Legacy works as a stand-alone piece of
entertainment. One might best enjoy the film with a case of amnesia and the
memory of the other Bourne movies
erased.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
The Bourne Legacy is currently playing in wide release.
