The Bourne Legacy Review
By:Ursula
The Bourne Legacy had potential, but got lost in a lot of political back and forth. The beginning of the movie is a drag. The effort to catch the audience up on the previous movies becomes repetitive and unnecessary. Aaron Cross, (played by Jeremy Renner) starts out alone, climbing and scaling rocky snowy covered mountains. Apparently, he has been banished for wrong doing. All this is going on while politics unravel back at Treadstone headquarters. Aaron Cross is linked to Dr.Shearing (played by Rachel Weisz) by her testing blood samples for her scientific research. Her tests are on the effect the pills had on him and others in the program. It was rough sitting through the first half of the movie, other than a doctor going postal in a high security lab, because the scenes were not captivating and interesting. The characters are what carried the film. Both Aaron and the Dr.Shearing had depth and integrity. Being that they were not a large part of the first half of the movie caused the beginning to be weak and boring.
Aaron Cross, a soldier that has a lower IQ when entering the armed forces and is allowed in with a falsified higher IQ. He is recruited into this “super soldier” program and becomes addicted to the drugs that raise his IQ and physical abilities. He comes to Dr. Shearing’s rescue, to obtain the virus he needs to sustain his improved IQ. I liked Cross, he had heart and tenaciousness. I could not help having a heartfelt compassion for his character. He had a willingness to supersede what he was dealt with the help of Dr. Shearing, and is allowed to get a second chance at life. He repeatedly engages in conversation and remains friendly with strangers. I had the sense that the potential of his newly found “super powers” opened up a whole new world to him that he desperately needed to explore. While Cross is interesting, it is a shame that they did not go into more back story of him in the beginning of the movie. I would have liked to have gotten to know him and the doctor more than the all of the political background we had to suffer through.
Dr. Marta Shearing is intense and passionately in love with science. Shearing has no clue what her research is really being used for or how it is affecting the soldiers they are augmenting. She only wants to help for the better of society. She plays the damsel with perfection and is scared and freaked out for most of the film. I found her ability to keep up with a trained assassin to be unbelievable. This whole dynamic always fascinates me in films. Shearing is a doctor and yet able to run right alongside this guy that no one can seem to catch, not even other trained assassins’. I still really like her because she delivers a heartfelt performance. Weisz really can act and has an adorable baby face. Her famous pout manages to charm at all the right times, and bad ass when necessary. The doctor is so convincing in trying to right her previously unknown wrongs and help Cross to the best of her ability. She also knows that her survival depends on him remaining at his best. If he loses his IQ abilities then he will not be best suited to protect her. She is not left with many choices considering the FBI wants her dead.
There are so many rough patches that imply the editing team may have just snoozed through this film. They got a little sloppy on the lengths of scenes and on the story. They could have shortened the chase scene as well as the beginning.
Overall this movie had a few good action scenes but not enough to make it a Bourne movie. It was a bit tedious when it was not necessary, and they focused too little on the development of the characters to the audience. This film indeed had potential. However, it did not compare to my experiences seeing the other Bourne movies in the theater.
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