“The Bourne Legacy”: Not Quite A Worthy Successor
Saddled with the unenviable task of having to continue the successful Bourne franchise sans star Matt Damon, Tony Gilroy – screenwriter of the three previous films – slides into the director’s chair intent on linking the established Bourne universe with the fourth installment. This is a bold strategy and Gilroy, who has proven in his prior two films as auteur, Michael Clayton and Duplicity, that he has no sympathy for those who can’t follow his dense, twisty plotting, spends roughly 45 minutes of The Bourne Legacy simply setting the table by dizzily cross-cutting between characters and locales and weaving in all kinds of bureaucratic terminology like “crisis suite.” (Is that where Obama waited out Operation Neptune Spear? In a “crisis suite”?)
Although Jason Bourne is technically never seen, his photo is occasionally glimpsed in news reports and his presence looms over everything. It is he, in fact, who has exposed the ominously named black ops programs, Blackbriar and Treadstone, of the original trilogy and with heat coming down on the CIA, Eric Byer (Edward Norton), in charge of the just as illicit Operation Outcome – which forces selected citizens to pop pills to turn them into fightin’ machines – senses the heat around the corner and decides to shut it down by eliminating everyone involved (you know, a little like Order 66).
This would include Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), a war vet, who talks bluntly and thinks quickly. He is in the wilds of Alaska for a training exercise and manages to escape a drone attack ordered by Byer via, alternately, fortuitous and then wily means. Alas, the attack also wipes out the precious supply of blue pills Cross so desperately needs to maintain mental dexterity. Without them, he’s a goner, and so he determines to track down the kindly doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who has treated him and the others like him, unwittingly (a need to know basis, I believe it’s called), though she suspects something is amiss when a colleague goes rogue and shoots up her lab in a scene that is brilliantly staged, though (obviously unintentionally) eerily close to recent real life.
That scene coupled with Cross’s drone escape are the highlights of the obligatory action sequences. Less successful is the gigantic motorbike setpiece to close out the proceedings. It is filmed with the Greengrass-esque hyper-editing style of Supremacy and Ultimatum but is choppy and blurry and confused, such as in the moment when the motorbikes go sliding down a stair railing but we don’t actually SEE this happen. Could Gilroy not pull off the stunt or did John Gilroy, Tony’s brother, the film’s editor, not know how to piece it together? Yet, in spite of that, the sequence’s biggest issue seems to lie in its very existence. I may be off base but it emanates a distinct smell of studio interference – as in someone said to Gilroy, “this movie needs a gigantic setpiece at the end. Add it.” One could argue that Gilroy has, in fact, set out to craft a character study built around the structure of an action movie. The people and their problems seem of most interest to him and it’s why the final setpiece feels so perfunctory.
The only trouble is the problems of the people just don’t amount too much. Cross, ably played by Renner, is certainly a different protagonist than Bourne and, in the end, that turns out to be the film’s fatal flaw. Bourne, for all his kung-fu and car chases, was an existentialist, attempting not only to determine who he really was but to seek out absolution for the sins he had been programmed by the government to commit. Cross is a more straight-forward bird. He needs his “chems.” (This movie sets a record for number of mention of “chems”.) He loses his “chems.” He will get his “chems” by any means necessary. That is the story’s driving plot point. He is, in essence, an addict and the film’s crucial Reveal goes to show that he is an addict who needs and wants to stay the way he is.
Jason Bourne was desperate to reclaim himself. Aaron Cross is desperate to be anyone but who he is. The Bourne Legacy leaves the oddest aftertaste. It not make more for an entertaining sequel, but I really think Cross needs analysis.
9 Comments
I spent a lot of my time watching this film pondering Cross’ motives. Eventually came to the same conclusion as you. While he presented a bit more of a human character, I personally preferred Jason Bourne’s outsider.
It’s a shame really that this film isn’t better. It does feel like a film that was brought about purely by the studios need for another success in the Bourne franchise. There’s no need in it.
I really enjoyed Renner and Weisz’s performances. The saving grace for this film for me.
I actually really enjoyed this film, but I have to agree with you and Jaina, Nick — Bourne’s motivations made him a better character. Cross is actually a little cross throughout (like that?). He was a bit of a robot in parts. The movie very much felt like it was trying to be another success story and nothing else.
Oh well. At least Jeremy Renner was shirtless twice in the film. And the stunts were pretty cool. The performances were great. Woot!
Yes. I do like that.
+1 for shirtless Renner too!
Fine review, Nick. I agree w/ you about the rating and that essentially Cross is just not as compelling a character as Bourne. I’d think that’d come across on paper before they shoot this film?? I mean, why follow up such a beloved franchise with a character that is already inherently sub-par to the original? That’s just ill-advised.
I agree that the film was slow to pick up (though I quite liked the Alaskan interlude; it gave me the wolf-fighting version of The Grey I always wanted!) and the editing could have used some work, but overall I enjoyed the new character. I don’t see why people think Cross has to be as complex and philosophical as Bourne was; if they tried to do the exact same thing, people would call it a rip-off or a reboot. This is just a spin-off. Cross is human, personable, and down-to-earth. I loved him.
And I think the chem problem, which you (and others) compare to drug addiction or “trying not to get dumb again,” is almost beautiful in its simplicity. Imagine how terrifying it would be, to know that you were slowly losing your mind? He said that he was from a “state home” in Reno – so he couldn’t even function independently in society? As he said, it’s a pretty long way to fall.
Granted, it would have been more effective if they had SHOWN some of that danger (he never showed real signs of it himself), but overall I think avoiding that fate is a very credible motivation.
I actually liked how Gilroy chose to make Cross a different character from Bourne and I really liked how he tried to use the chem subplot to focus more on character than just on action. I just didn’t personally go in for the execution of the chem subplot. Like you say, I didn’t feel as if the danger level was high enough for him and, in turn, that didn’t push it far enough toward potential tragedy.
yeah, i had trouble with the motives of aaron cross too. but i think renner was a good successor, even though his story was not as rich.
I’ve burned off a lot of rage over this one already, but this might be one of my least favorite movies of the year. It’s the worst kind of lazy and stupid, and an example of why franchising can be problematic. The film manages to recall the events and facts of the previous Bourne pictures too much while also speaking too little about them, which is an amazing feat; worst of all, Gilroy has the temerity to let his movie unfold in time with the events of Ultimatum. That could have worked, but Gilroy decides that that means nothing can happen until Ultimatum ends in Legacy‘s timeline, so the first hour feels like it’s twice as long as that. It’s a slog.
Cross is almost as big a problem, but Renner’s a good action star. He’s saddled with a character written with terrible motivations; I like the idea of separating Cross and Bourne, but good god, give Cross some pathos. He wants to make his drug enhancements permanent so he can avoid going back to being a stupid GI; Bourne wants to atone for his past sins. It’s so much easier to get behind Bourne that that need to make Cross a different character becomes detrimental to the film’s health.
After that final, messy action sequence– when the film just ends without really resolving anything, because it KNOWS it has a whole other movie to do so– I just found myself wishing I had rewatched Ultimatum instead.
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