My Favourite Movies: The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Some of you will already know how much I liked the Bourne trilogy which changed my view of Matt Damon forever. So here we have a kind of spin-off without the man himself. How’s that going to work? Needless to say I was in two minds about this but three things pushed me over the edge of wanting to see it (ignoring the whole Bourne thing for a moment) – the trailer which looked interesting and the fact that I liked the two leads, Jeremy Renner (who plays ‘Subject 5’ AKA Aaron Cross) who I a lot of time for and Rachel Weisz (who plays geneticist Dr Marta Shearing) and who I think is very underrated.

But what really impressed me about this movie was the fact that the director (Tony Gilroy) took his time to actually tell a story rather than just string together the usual action sequences with the minimal of fuss in between. Interestingly this film wasn’t actually a sequel to any of the existing Bourne films but actually happened at the same time as the first movie – and actually cut scenes from The Bourne Identity into the narrative to allow the audience to see where everything fitted in. That, of course, was another thing that impressed me – the fact that the director expected the audience to be intelligent enough to keep up with the complex storyline and (I think) had expected them to come already having seen (and understood?) the previous three films.

You definitely had to keep your wits about you with this one. Not only was their lots (and I mean lots) of covert goings on in the CIA and other agencies – and these activities being covered up (usually by killing people) – but there was also a lot of discussion of the Programme itself which was designed to ‘tweak’ the human body chemically (and later virally) to enhance both physical and mental abilities – where do I sign up I couldn’t help thinking! However, with most of the complexity in the background (brilliant to watch but nevertheless happening in the shadows and dark corners of the plot) the central story is a simple one. After the attempt to kill Aaron Cross fails (I’m not giving a great deal away here!) he needs to obtain a secure supply of his ‘chems’ to be able to function at the levels he’s used to and useful for. To do that he latches onto Dr Shearing (Weisz) and incidentally saves her life from another aspect of the rolling cover-up. Much explanation (and a great virtual ‘chase’ scene) ensue as they go where the ‘chems’ are.

Of course the great thing about series like this is the amount of depth they can develop after four movies which I personally love to delve into. Equally expected from the whole Bourne series is amazing action and especially close-in fight scenes that, I think, changed this aspect in other thrillers afterwards (as seen in the new Bond films for one thing). I still remember Jason Bourne defeating a baddie with a rolled up magazine – and it came across as totally believable! Cross doesn’t do anything quite that off the wall but he does have an interesting encounter with a Hellfire armed Drone that I thought was superb if a little far-fetched. There’s some pretty good fight scenes (mostly with normal people) and a great motorbike chase in Manilla to finish off that I enjoyed a great deal. Overall I thought it an excellent addition to the Bourne storyline and I hope that they make more of them.