The Bourne Legacy opens in theatres this weekend and it’s a movie I really wanted to like but I just couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad movie. Not by any means, it’s just not a very good movie.
The movie is the sequel to the Matt Damon’s Bourne movies just without Matt Damon… and Jason Bourne. It is supposed to be Universal’s continuation of the franchise, taking place in the world of Jason Bourne but featuring a new character. This time around we get Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, an operative not unlike Bourne, who’s caught up in the fall-out of the events from the previous movies. Renner is good in the role and does his best to work with what he’s got, which sadly isn’t much due to a script from director/co-writer Tony Gilroy. Gilroy, who co-wrote the previous movies, was promoted to the director’s chair this time out and does his best to prove that the Bourne franchise still has legs.
Unfortunately, the script has some major problems, one of the most glaring being it’s pacing issues. The movie clocks in at 125 minutes but feels at least 20 minutes longer. That’s not good. The first act of the movie takes waaaay to long to get the ball rolling and set up the pieces (that don’t move very quickly once their set). The movie is compounded by a needlessly complicated plot. The over-all plot of the movie is actually pretty simple and can be summed up without spoilers: While Jason Bourne runs loose during the events of the 2nd and 3rd Bourne movies, Aaron Cross and the rest of the agents are wanted dead. The project is ordered shut down (an order given by a crisis controlling Ed Norton who never seems to leave the same room the entire film) which is simple enough to do since the agents need some magical pills from the government to keep going. Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) can help cure Aaron of this need but obviously it’s going to take some running and close-quarters fighting to do it. Cut to a few decent action scenes and end the movie with Moby’s Extreme Ways so that the audience knows it really is a Bourne movie (without any Bourne). Sounds simple enough, right? But the movie tells that plot in the most complicated way it possibly can, as if a straightforward narrative wasn’t good enough to continue a film series built on straightforward narratives. I’m still stunned as to how that happened.
The cast is quite impressive. Along with Stacy Keach, Albert Finney, Scott Glenn, David Strathairn and Joan Allen make what can best be best described as brief cameos, probably just to remind us that this takes place in the Bourne universe. Edward Norton is practically wasted in his role as CIA “badguy” Eric Byer. They stuck him in that room for the entirety of the movie and told him to be the evil spook (I actually think that may have been the direction given to him). Rachel Weisz isn’t bad but is given an under-written damsel in distress role, so there’s really only so much an actress can do with that. And Joan Allen gets solid billing even though she’s in the movie 4 more minutes than I am (and I’m not in the movie…).
The movie has a few good action sequences that could have been better but suffer from some poor cinematography and editing. Director of photography Robert Elswit has worked on some great movies such as The Town, There Will Be Blood, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, so I’ve got to place the blame on Gilroy. This is only his third movie, with Michael Clayton and Duplicity being his previous movies (and neither of them carrying this much action). Excessively covered, hand held and quickly cut action scenes don’t always result in action.
If it sounds like I’m being harsh on this movie, I’m trying not to be. Like I said at the beginning, I really wanted to like this movie. I loved all of the ingredients of it but sadly The Bourne Legacy just feels overstuffed and undercooked. Maybe they will get the recipe right on the next try though. As a fan of the franchise, I know I’d still watch it.