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5 years since Ultimatum seems like a reasonable enough
amount of time to start the studio machine up again and squeeze more life out
of the Bourne franchise but Legacy is unfortunately for the most part an inert
attempt to expand the Bourne universe. Although it has a great cast with Renner
as a believable successor (contemporary?) of Damon's Bourne, a good dynamic
between Renner and Weisz and Ed Norton inherently watchable, the script becomes
confused too early on and fizzles out. Everything seems a bit rote after it was
so excitingly done in the Bourne trilogy, and although the final chase in
Manila is very good, it doesn't quite match the superbly orchestrated sequences
in Ultimatum. The first act suffers badly from a case of crosscutting mania as
the elaborate machinations within the CIA are intercut with Aaron Cross on a
training mission in the mountains - whereas in the trilogy the political
warfare within American secret intelligence is actually compelling to watch
here it is dry and unimaginative, Joan Allen's absence being a particularly
conspicuous one. There are some interesting echoes in there about Cross'
dependency on chems and his body's degeneration in a similar vein to Bourne's
coercion into the Treadstone program, but it isn't as intriguing as Bourne's
amnesiac quest to discover his real identity. So a passable thriller, but an
unnecessary addition to the Bourne series.
