Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

I apologize for the lack of posts on here, but I have either not had enough time to post or known what to post about. So, I will give a review of the latest addition to the Jason Bourne series: "The Bourne Legacy."

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

The movie is a further continuation of the popular "Bourne" movie series. While the events of "Bourne Ultimatium" are happening, more government conspiracy involving other spy programs is going on. Ezra Kramer, fearing that Jason Bourne will expose the government's secret operation, goes to Colonel Eric Byer (portrayed by Edward Norton) for help. Byer and his team decide to destroy Operation Outcome, a project that uses pills to increase the physical and mental abilities of its subjects. This means them also killing the operative Aaron Cross, portrayed by Jeremy Renner. Cross manages to evade Byer and meets up with Dr. Marta Shearing (portrayed by Rachel Weisz), who has just survived a shoot-out at her work that was ordered by Byer because of her work's connections to Operation Outcome. Cross and Shearing then make their way to the Philippines to get access to a virus that will help Cross maintain his mental abilities.

When I heard of the movie being made, I was optimistic because, even though the director was different, Tony Gilroy, who wrote the other movies, was directing, which made me enthusiastic that the movie's quality would be as good or maybe even better than the other films. Unfortunately, I found this film to be the weakest of the Bourne films and my least favorite.

One of the major problems with the film was the plot. It was weak, and there were several aspects that did not make sense or were not explained well- enough, such as Byer's connection to the shoot-out at Mara Shearing's work. While the previous films focused on Jason Bourne trying to remember his past and bringing down the government conspiracies, this one focuses on a government operative successfully fleeing for his life and trying to find a virus that will enable him to keep his mental abilities because the pills have increased his IQ and he does not want to lose his newfound intelligence. The whole introduction of the manipulation of genes and the pills that can improve people was a bit strange, especially when you consider the content of the previous films, and I did not find it as intriguing of a plot as the other films. Another issue with the plot was that the movie did not end very well; the audience finds out that Pam Landy's attempt to reveal the government's secret operations fails, which I think is realistic, but the movie felt like a letdown because the bad guys are still working and nothing has truly been solved or dealt with.

Another problem was the characters. Jason Bourne was difficult to sympathize with because he was more machine than human in his personality, but Aaron Cross is different, as he knows how to talk and interact with people. However, I did not like Cross as much because, to me, it seemed like his goal of maintaining his IQ was a selfish one because he had no intentions of revealing and putting an end to the corrupt politicians who used him for murder and other crimes. Rachel Weisz did a good job, but ultimately her character was not overly memorable. Edward Norton is a good actor, but I don't really recall anything special about his character Byer.

The stunts for this movie were only ok, which was a disappointment. To me, the stunts got better with each film with spectacular chase scenes and fight scenes, but this film did not ultimately have any memorable action scenes. The final chase in Manila seemed to be too similar to the chase in Tangiers in the 3rd Bourne movie, which made it a let-down and, in my opinion, not very good.

I had high expectations for this movie, but I found it to be a letdown. It was not very memorable and was a few steps down from the quality that I have found in the rest of the trilogy.

I give it two and a half stars out of five.

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