Review
As most of you know, I was never a fan of the Bourne series; it always annoyed me how people would say that “this is the future of action movies”. No it ain’t and it looks like this franchise is finally going to die. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the other 3 movies were (mostly) well made, but they were action movies for people who don’t like action movies.
To describe this movie as a mess is an understatement; the narrative structure is all over the place and the pacing is unremittingly tedious. I knew in the first 15 minutes when NOTHING happened that this was going to be a long night. Every scene went on for way too long and it really needed some judicious editing.
What was the point in the entire scene in the hut at the beginning? You’re waiting for a surprise fight or something but… nope. It would be fine if they were building tension but it didn’t build up to anything we haven’t seen a million times before.
The motorbike chase finale went on for too long and by the time we reached it, I had long since stopped caring.
The lack of any well developed characters didn’t help matters either and it was the first time that I just didn’t like Rachel Weisz. Normally she’s lovely, but her character just kept saying “I DON’T KNOW!” while running around crying.
There were some decent moments eventually, but they were few and far between. There is an awesome bad guy death and the scene where Renner kills the security guards is pretty cool too. Speaking of Renner, he was actually very good as Aaron Cross and was a believable badass. I am a huge fan of him as an actor which was the main reason I paid to go see this.
The entire film just feels like it’s setting up future events and just does not work on its own merits. The ending is utterly open for a sequel with some potential for Damon to come back… lucky us. It will be interesting to see the final box off receipts for this one as I can easily say it’s the worst film I’ve seen this year.
Overall, The Bourne Legacy was an exercise in tedium with poor direction, bland writing and bad pacing. The odd decent action scene and Jeremy Renner redeem it from being utterly terrible, but this is easily the weakest in the series. Wake me up next week when a REAL action movie hits our screens.
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Cochise, those are some long ass arms haha.
Eoin, when we were watching this, I was wondering what I could have done with my life instead – like sit on the crapper for 2 hours. Renner is a great talent, but I hope he moves away from this dead franchise.
btw Eoin, maybe you’ll enjoy this…
http://www.moviefancentral.com/cochise-2/blogs/this-is-an-actual-poster-for-the-bourne-legacy-lets-play-a-game-i-spy-with-my-little-eye
That bad huh?
Well, I can always sit here and wait until next weekend.
Yeah man, Renner needs his own franchise. I like the guy and he deserves to be a star but not by being sloppy seconds in someone else’s franchises.
Why do they even keep making these damn Bourne movies anyhow? I have only seen the first one and Ultimatum, and it was not my cup a joe! Renner is a good fit for an action star, but I wish he started his own franchise and not jumped on board for another. He is already on board to take over the Mission Impossible franchise after one more if im not mistaken. Also the Avengers! Dude, find some new material.
He he, you know what? I wish I had seen bloody Total Recall instead cos this was pants. The other 3 were decent movies but this was poorly made and you know I can find something positive to say about most movies. Wait for DVD and cehck it out then, so you can turn it off half way through.
Even if it’s just to look at the eye candy, you shoulda spent that money on Total Recall! haha
Legacy doesn’t look very interesting to me, and I absolutely love the Bourne Trilogy over here. For one the story just doesn’t intrigue me and secondly I despise the cheap and sleazy marketing campaign this one had, including the title itself. I’ll see it, but I’ll make sure to downl–see it on blu-ray, heh. Nice review dude