The Bourne Experiment
When the CIA become aware that the Bourne situation is going to explode with the media involved they take the decision to shut down all of their secret ops and make sure that anyone with knowledge of what went on disappears with any evidence of the operations. One of those they need to make disappear is Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), part of an operation called Outcome where super trained killers take daily tablets to keep them operational. Having survived one attempt on his life and with his medication running out he tries to find Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who had been one of the team who originally worked on him. But it seems someone wants to silence her as well.
When they announced they were making another Bourne movie, a spin-off with a different character I didn't want it to happen and after watching "The Bourne Legacy" I still don't think it should have happened. Not only that the recent rumours of another Bourne movie with Matt Damon reportedly returning shouldn't be made either as the original trilogy worked in a contained manner and "The Bourne Legacy" plus any further movie seems little more than an attempt to profit from the trilogy's popularity.
Yet despite saying that I still enjoyed "The Bourne Legacy" and it is a functional action thriller with a nice dose of mystery and action. The thing is to enjoy "The Bourne Legacy" you need to forget some things you know from the original trilogy and just sit back and watch it as a new action thriller rather than one which is a tie in. Even then it has issues and the cleverness you expect from a Bourne movie is traded in favour of impact action which is weak for those who expected intrigue as well as action.
As for Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, well he has the physicality for the role and like the movie on a whole he does a good job. But compared to Matt Damon as Jason Bourne Renner comes up short and it is really to do with his characters writing rather than Renner's acting ability. But like Renner the rest of the cast including Norton, Glenn and Weisz all play their parts well and in many ways they save the movie.
What this all boils down to is that "The Bourne Legacy" isn't terrible and in truth as an action thriller it works but as part of the Bourne universe it is not up to the levels you expect.
