The Bourne Legacy (Tony Gilroy)

[Henry Gale]

I enjoyed this up until the point I realized it wasn't going anywhere.

I think it could've been a much more acceptable and interesting film if it was entirely its own thing. It arguably works at all because it's an already established universe that we're able to follow the second these new characters are thrown in, but even when I found the action to be exciting or those new faces managed to make me care about them, it felt constrained by what the other films dictated, padding time with tons of scenes with more people we'd never met before arguing in rooms about shutting down programs that didn't seem to be relevant anymore. Not to mention the whole plot here is about Renner's character needing to obtain ability pills that never really would've fit in well with the tone of the Damon films anyway.

Obviously the only reason this movie exists is because they were always going to make another Bourne movie instead of greenlighting a new CIA actioner about blue and green pills letting agents jump, heal, and think better, but it just makes me wonder if it needed to exist at all. And considering the place the story wraps itself up and the reaction I had to the Moby song was essentially "Really? That's all you have?", I think Gilroy could've saved himself the trouble.

It's better than it realistically should've been, I'm just not sure it should've been at all. I did really like the shootout at Weisz's house and the Wolf / Drone sequence though. Ah man, now I just really want to see a movie called Wolf Drones.

[EvilShoe]

This is one of the most pointless movies I've ever seen. It spends so much time trying to justify its existence, that it actually forgets to like... do something.

[Dukefrukem]

My movie interest bounces around so wierdly. After watching The Ice Road last night I got the urge to watch the snowy intro to this film. I stand by this is the best film in the franchise, but admittedly, I've only seen the other films once when released.

[Skitch]

Oh man, this was my least favorite of them.

[Peng]

Initial storylines ranked by interest: Weiz > Norton >> Renner. So the Renner stuff feels pretty long in the early-goings; I almost thought he'd never get out of the damn forest. Pace picks up when he joins with Weiz, but then it reveals how little story this entry has. The previous three may have teased out Bourne's origin story piecemeal, but each film stands alone as complete story, while this feels deliberately so much like the start of a franchise, to the point where the ending comes off as a shrug, and the Norton storyline that should be integral feels bizarrely reduced and tossed to the wayside. And that's not even getting into the action, which is diverting enough but doesn't measure up to even Identity, let alone Supremacy or Ultimatum. 5/10