“Bourne Legacy” fails to wow
By Anna Sturla
HUB Editor-in-Chief
Secret agent fleeing CIA: check.
Traumatized love interest: check.
Terrifying urban motor chase: check.
“The Bourne Legacy” may have all the components of a Bourne film, but someone appears to have misplaced its heart.
The first three Bourne films set themselves apart by asking tough questions about identity and what it means to be human, while still providing incredible action sequences that were relevant to a believable plot.
In turn, “The Bourne Legacy” airbrushes a series that earned its street cred by embracing the awkward, realistic side of a genre better known for the James Bond franchise.
Sure, Jason Bourne may be kicking butts all over Europe, but you’re still more likely to see him slugging through Zurich slush than tanning in Monaco.
Aaron Cross is our new hero, played by Jeremy Renner with his characteristic stocky seriousness. Cross leaps and races through desolate winter wilderness and crowded cityscapes with the same bizarre intensity, a CIA agent with Olympic-level athletic abilities and genius IQ who, we discover early on, is propped up by a steady stream of government-issued medication. There’s a brief shining moment when Cross explains his franticness to find a new source of his medication after his program is shut down: he was 12 points under the military IQ limit, but let in anyways. His vehicle was hit by an IED, and his identity remolded into CIA superman.
Unfortunately, it’s not a major plot point, and isn’t all-consuming like Jason Bourne’s amnesia.
Jeremy Renner has heartily demonstrated his ability to play rough characters with an innate weird charm. He may seem more angry than Matt Damon, but that wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome in a character who’s been even more screwed over by the system.
Quick note: Whoever the stunt people on this film deserve gold medals. There’s more head-on collisions (with cars riding max speed, concrete pillars and other people) than one could believe physically possible.
Watch it. It’s fun. But it’s not Bourne.
