The Bourne Legacy Review

Following the trilogy that Matt Damon would be forever recognised, Jeremy Renner takes the brave role of Aaron Cross; a highly trained member of a black ops defence programme.

We get introduced to Aaron (Jeremy Renner) in the freaky weathers of Alaska as we witness the abilities of Aaron as he fends off wolves and climbs mountains...literally. The survival skills revealed would put Bear Grills to shame. As we try to get a hold of Renner's character, another story is unfolding as Jason Bourne has operation Blackbriar sweating on the fact he is trying to expose their links between a Treadstone project. This leads to a cameo return for Pamela Landy who is now being investigated by the FBI.

With the FBI up the asses of the CIA's operations, it is when former USAF colonel Eric Bryer(Edward Norton) is called upon to help weather the storm. So with the plot slowly getting under way, all is forgotten about the one of few remaining soldiers, Aaron, who finds himself caught in the headlights as Eric seeks to rid any trace of Treadstones trained soldiers.

Mark Turso (Stacy Keach), a retired member of the operation is also on thin ice. Although the majority of Turso's operation may not agree with Eric's way of dealing with the situation, it seems the clock is ticking as with Pamela Landy under interrogation, the programmes oblivion seems logical.

With Eric and Co desperate to finish Aaron, he is fighting two battles with his stamina and abilities beginning to wear. Aaron is pretty much a super-soldier who in order to remain in shape, he needs to take certain pills. Subscribed by the programme that assigned him, the green and blue pills are what is needed for Aaron to sustain his energy and hopes of surviving long enough to unravel the reason behind the programmes portrayal.

Dr. Marta (Rachel Weisz) is responsible for the routine dosage of pills supplied to the soldiers as Aaron soon learns that she might be the key to his investigation and survival.

Expectations were high, for myself anyway. So it saddens me to say that this movie could have been made under a different name and nobody would have noticed let alone cared! It succeeded in terms of a fine cast of acting but lacked the same high-octane concept of the originals. Of course the movie wanted to do-way with the previous flicks but it couldn't. It struggled to be it's own. The plot was pretty mundane as you focus on the situation of both Aaron and the Treadstone controversy.

When you are not watching Aaron run around landscapes you are updated every 15 minutes on how Jason Bourne is here, there, most places blah blah. The film seemed it wanted to try ever so hard to remind you that this movie is still a "Bourne" flick. News flash, it isn't. The story was weak, the action scenes were boring concluding with a car chase near the end that failed to anticipate an apparent sequel to come.

It is set a couple of years after the "Ultimatum" so the Pill concept might have seemed appropriate or original. Personally, the super soldier thing didn't do it for me. It stole the human knowledge and overall abilities that Jason Bourne Graced us with.

The Bourne Legacy was two hours too long for me. I was looking forward to Edward Norton and was quite glad to see him on screen again. As for the rest of the cast, quite frank they could do no wrong in such a basic movie!

Overall: Dull and too long with a story that failed to keep interest. Skip this and have a Jason Bourne night in!

5/10