Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

Movie Review:  The Bourne Legacy / Rated PG-13 / Universal Pictures / 135 min. / Dir. Tony Gilroy

After the huge success of 2007's trilogy capper, "The Bourne Ultimatum", Universal Pictures understandably wanted another chapter in the Robert Ludlum-based franchise.  However, Paul Greengrass who had directed the 2nd and 3rd films with a shaky-cam real-world intensity felt that "Ultimatum" wrapped things up nicely and wanted to move on.  Matt Damon, who gave super-spy Jason Bourne a terrific fierceness combined with a surprisingly warm likability, was very clear that he wouldn't return to the franchise without Greengrass, so Universal decided to move on without Damon.  In fact, they decided to make a Bourne movie without Bourne, which seemed like a bit of a misstep at first.  It's sort of like making a James Bond movie sans James Bond or a Batman without Batman.

However, they made a smart choice in turning the directing reins over to Tony Gilroy, a man who has shown he can capably handle thrillers or different styles, be it political ("Michael Clayton") or comic ("Duplicity"), but also has a connection with the franchise as writer of the first three films.  

Of course, Universal has dropped the dreaded "r" word in describing "The Bourne Legacy", but it's really not a reboot, which, in my mind involves taking a franchise back to step one, usually without a connection to the original franchise (with J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" being one of the unusual reboots that actually fits into the mythology of the original).  No, "Legacy" is more of a sequel....or maybe a sidequel, in that it takes place at the same time as "Ultimatum" (needless to say, seeing the first three Bourne films is somewhat necessary to understand what's going on in the new movie.

You see, while Jason Bourne was fighting to stay alive while a mysterious government organization used all of their resources to kill him, another mysterious government organization was apparently worried that the highly publicized manhunt for Bourne might shed a negative light on their similarly morally ambiguous program.  So, the program head, retired Air Force Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton) decides to scrap the program before the details can come to light.  Of course, scrapping the program for these mysterious government organizations means killing everyone who ISN'T in charge of it, but knows about it, so Col. Byer decides to order the termination of not only all his agents, but the scientists involved in the enhancing both physically and mentally of said agents.  Without giving anything away, I'll say that most of the movie is spent with people in dark rooms frantically trying to find one particular agent (Jeremy Renner) and one particular scientist (Rachel Weisz) who have joined forces in their fight for survival.

"The Bourne Legacy" is quite a nice continuation of the Bourne franchise, although the absence of Damon is felt throughout.  I read recently that Gilroy is hoping that in the future he can convince Damon to rejoin the franchise and combine with Renner in their fight to take down the cowardly men in the dark rooms trying to kill them.   THAT is a movie I would love to see, because I really like Damon and I really like Renner.  Both of them are natural leading men who take on both the emotional aspects of their character and the physical demands of the stunt work with a seamless ease.

The screenplay for "Legacy" feels a little more "connect the dots" than the first three Bourne films (it's telling that it's the first one that has no connection to the Ludlum novels).  As such, the movie stalls a bit when it puts the focus on Norton and his nefarious team of agent hunters.  There were two or three too many scenes of them shouting orders like "Get me every video surveillance from every airport in the city!" or  "Contact the Department of Transportation and get me every shots from every traffic camera in the last hour!"   Also, the first Bourne movies had at least a few people in the government that thought that maybe blindly ordering the death of someone isn't really a good thing.  There was always someone trying to understand what Bourne was doing and why while they were hunting him.  Here, they all know that Renner's character is completely innocent.  They don't care.  It's hard to relate to any of these characters when what they're doing is unquestionably morally reprehensible.

 However, whenever the movie focuses on Renner and Weisz, the movie is stellar and contains all of the spy-movie thrills of the previous installments.   Plus, there's a real chemistry between the two, especially as the story reveals more about their personal pasts.  I'm excited to see where future films will take these two very likable characters.

Overall grade:  B+, not quite as good as the 2nd and 3rd Bourne films, but a very nice continuation of the franchise and a great promise of where Gilroy could be taking things.  Well worth your time and money.