As the title might imply, I'm a huge fan of the Bourne Trilogy. I like to think of sagas in their own little universe and I rank them a bit differently than standalone movies. So when one asks me what my favorite movies are, sagas don't really get considered. I believe that to tell a story that involves multiple installments, it's difficult to do it with movie scripts. As a result, sagas which are film adaptations of novels, tend to rank a little higher in my book. The Bourne Trilogy is right up there with Star Wars, The Matrix, and the Lord of the Rings as my favorite movies/sagas of all time.So naturally, when I saw Jeremy Renner was starring in an expansion of Robert Ludlum's Bourne universe. I was pretty excited. Granted, I went into it expecting less than excellence, which was good in retrospect. Had I gone into it expecting the sheer awesomeness that the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum gave, I probably would have been quite disappointed. I knew that seeing as how this movie didn't have a novel to take base from and was completely movie script, that I probably wouldn't see the cohesivness and continuity that the trilogy offered. And I was right. I also expected a slightly different camerawork and editing style, since it wasn't directed by Paul Greengrass (although there was nearly no disconnect between the Bourne Identity, and the last two installments in the trilogy despite a change in director). I was right about this as well.
In short, this movie was good. Not excellent, but certainly not bad either. It gives a lot of the awesome action sequences showcasing how much better these Treadstone/Blackbrair/Outcome agents are at all things kick ass than anything else the US government can throw at them. Which is half of what an audience expects when taking in a film with the "Bourne" title on it. Although I was fairly disappointed in the lack of hand-to-hand combat between these agents; something that characterized the trilogy and, in my mind, set it apart from other action movies. For example, I always loved how Jason Bourne would use clever objects as weapons to gain the upper hand on agents who were his equal in hand to hand combat. He used the pen to kill the Treadstone agent from Rome in the Bourne Identity; he used the rolled up magazine to counter the Treadstone agent's knife in the Bourne Supremacy; and he used the cookbook and towel to finally kill the Blackbriar agent, Desh, in the Bourne Ultimatum. Unfortunately there's none of that in this movie. And near the end, I thought they were building up to exactly that, but the scene ends when the opposing agent is taken out in the car chase scene. I don't know if this was intentional to ensure they stayed away from trying to clone the trilogy movies, or what. Either way, I was certainly looking forward to it, and it wasn't there.The character of Aaron Cross is rather different from that of Jason Bourne. Where Bourne was mostly quiet and reserved with a sort of brewing intensity, Cross is comparably more of a humor spouting, loud mouth. Frankly, I think Renner lend's himself well to the character. And if I understand the story correctly, his superior abilities aren't a combination of inate ability and wiley veteran experience as in the case of Jason Bourne. Rather, they're gained from medicine that he takes (which is the centerpiece of the storyline) that enhances the metabolic abilities of his cells and brain functionality. The only hint that you get that he may be superior to his peers, is at the beginning when he's told he cleared a trial in record time. Again, any concrete proof of his dominance over his peers in the form of actual combat is non existent, and all you see is him besting those less trained than he.
Another strength of the Bourne movies was that their plots were never too far fetched that one would shrug it off as if there's no way it could happen. You always got the sense that this stuff was well within the realm of possibility. And that is definitely here in this movie. The plot focuses on a medication regiment the agents take that uses viruses to deliver the payload to the cells, and this becomes Cross' sole focus throughout the movie.
So all in all, The Bourne Legacy is a good movie, worth a theater trip for sure. However it just doesn't lend itself to the excellence I've come to know from the other movies bearing the "Bourne" branding. The story ties in well enough to be considered with the other three, while still being it's own self sustaining piece and not a simple recycle of the trilogy. No amnesia and revenge here. There were just some elements that I was really expecting there to be that just weren't there. Again, I don't know if these are script faux pas or conscientious attempts at avoiding copying the trilogy. Either way, I felt they held the movie back a bit.
