FILM REVIEW: THE BOURNE LEGACY

THE BOURNE LEGACY (12A)

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach

Director: Tony Gilroy

Running Time: 135 minutes

Released Out Now

Released by: Universal Pictures

When Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass called time on the Bourne franchise, it could well have been the end of the films that were loosely adapted from the best-selling novels by the late Robert Ludlum. But this, after all, is Hollywood and the success of the film series featuring an amnesiac agent trying to discover how he came to be disavowed had proved a strong box-office contender and you don't just forget that.

So the question was not IF the franchise would continue, but how. Batman and Bond recast on a frequency that suggests it's going out of fashion, so the most obvious route was simply reassigning the part. However, in this case, a more complex solution was suggested. Why not run a different story, inspired by the original but running parallel to the events of the previous outings.  In short, farewell Jason Bourne, hello Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) and director Tony Gilroy...

With some of the bad-guys nefarious programming and espionage dark arts exposed by the events of the previous chapters, it is decided to burn similar projects to the ground, leaving no real evidence and no trail to the guilty. This involves not merely the shredding of paper but the termination of some top agents in the field. They are top assets - their response-times and brain patterns enhanced by a formula delivered in regular pill form. Either by poisoning that supply or the old-fashioned gun to the head, those assets are disposed of... but some are less easy to reach than others.

"For its first half, this new Legacy is something of a 'talky' rather than a 'walky' - suggesting that this might be a change of pace...the film continues with something of a split-personality, never quite deciding what pace and momentum it wants to settle upon..."

Aaron Cross is halfway across an extreme mountain-range, facing sheer cliffs, deep chasms and hungry wolves. Despite that, he's making record time and arrives at the isolated cabin safe-house a day early. There he finds another agent like himself, but despite their shared heritage, many of Cross' convivial questions are met by silence. While outside, getting ready to move on, Cross witnesses the cabin blown to bits by a drone aircraft. He quickly realises it is his own side who are trying to eliminating him, so making them think they've succeeded, he heads to the only place he can... back to the institute where he was supplied with the special pills that keep him sane.  However, back at the laboratory, doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) is having her own problems. She's aware of the shadowy nature of the treatments she's provided, but not the bigger picture. When her own department becomes 'expendable' she survives the massacre, but can Bourne get to her in time to get them both answers?

For its first half, this new Legacy is something of a 'talky', rather than a 'walky' - suggesting that this might be a change of pace. The previous entries were always clever, detailed and intricate looks at the world of counter-espionage and dubious morality, but one wonders if the more 'action' elements have largely been dispensed with altogether in favour of a good, but slower-moving thriller.

However, the film has an epiphany when Cross gets back to civilisation and kicks up a gear, with Cross/Renner demonstrating some killer instincts and fine hand-to-hand combat moves as he and Marta go on the run. Has the slow-burn paid off?  

Well, not so much... the film still continues with something of a split-personality, never quite deciding what pace and momentum it wants to settle upon.  The problem - though it isn't Renner's - is that Cross is supposed to be a killer agent, not without emotion of conscience but definitely putting such on a back-burner to do a pragmatically amoral occupation. His new status is initially driven by the need for a new supply of pills, but in a blink of an eye he essentially becomes a good-guy saviour and protector of Weisz's doctor. True, she's his link to more medication, but short of the fighting sequences and Cross developing the occasional cold-sweat there's never any real sense of urgency or hint of the ruthless agent beneath. He's not using her, he's protecting her and while that's good for our idea of a hero, that's not what Cross's character is supposed to be.

Also missing is the dynamic camera-work seen in the previous Bourne movies. In such cases, we followed our characters out of windows as if we were jumping through them ourselves... it was a visual style that was so impressive that it ultimately caused the Bond franchise to reassess its priorities. For Gilroy's  Legacy, we're back to what amounts to fairly generic cinematography with long-shots and framing devices we've seen in literally hundreds of flicks before - it's almost as if, ironically, the director is now taking cues from the classic Bond.  The hand-to-hand combat moments prove more successful. After a grounding in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Avengers, Renner knows how to work a martial-arts move and please the camera and his face reflects the tension we saw in his breakthrough The Hurt Locker.  But while he excels in the up-close-and-personal, the script he's been given slowly descends into a formula that isn't bad but merely unsurprising and less challenging than expected. The main bad-guys (Edward Norton, Stacy Keach etc) are merely desk-jockeys barking suspect orders and frowning as their plans unravel... never a front-line threat or in danger of a physical comeuppance.  It's all perfectly adequate but feels like it could have been more.

A sprinkling of familiar faces (Albert Finney, Joan Allen) from the first films act as distracting punctuation, but by the time the credits roll, there's a feeling that this was an expensive opening salvo, all set-up but no real pay-off...  a big-budgeted television premiere rather than a standalone movie.

There's a lot of potential here, but once again we have a film that seems to be trading on the expectant principle that more will be revealed in a sequel, but one that , in reality, is far from a foregone certainty...and so the gaps and lack of conclusion are less forgivable.  There really should be a compulsory notice when film-makers intend to deliver half a story...

That being said, as action-thrillers go it has all the components needed and a cast that delivers what they are required. It should do decent business at the multiplex and even moreso on DVD. It's nowhere near the highlight of the summer, but the Bourne Legacy is  just about alive and kicking... though its pulse could do with a little quickening...

3/5