Adrian Cross (Jeremy Renner) is a secret operative who went AWOL and is being punished in the way of a tough training mission in icy Alaska.
When he finally comes over the mountains to make contact with 'Outcome' (this films version of Treadstone) it has already began closing down operations due to the incidents surrounding The Bourne Ultimatum. This obviously has repercussions for Cross who is reliant on the supply of green and blue pills, or 'chems', to keep his mind and body strong and agile.
Cross now has a race to find the only surviving Outcome scientist, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz, who is good but her character is weak), against CIA's Eric Byer, played by Edward Norton, who, dare I say it, is awful in this film. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, it may be due to a poor script and bad direction (Tony Gilroy).
The direction is not as clean as Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum, Tony Gilroy, who wrote the previous instalments, took a back seat to allow his brother, Dan Gilroy, to write most of the screenplay.
The dependency on the green and blue pills as a plot device holds up weakly against the Matt Damon trilogy and although it has all the right ingredients of a Bourne it feels underdone, on the whole.
Renner is hard to read, his recent performance in Marvel blockbuster, The Avengers Assemble, was great, but, when you think it through, he didn't really have a lot to say.
At times he looks like a lost school boy and in some scenes he appears as a gentle assassin, but ultimately he finds it difficult to hold screen presence like a lead man.
The female characters are better thought out than other action films but not as good as the Ultimatum's Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) or Nicolette Parsons (Julia Stiles).
The car chases are not as well edited and the 'supersoldier', Larx-03, was a poor advisory, as you question the feasibility of creating a soldier without empathy, and how he would be able to anticipate targets next move.
After reading that the clothes in Bourne Legacy had been well thought out, it was pleasing to see that, despite, his weeks of survival in Alaska, Cross has a red coat that looks as crisp and fresh as if it had never been worn, either that or there was a Walmart in a cave? A silly thing, but it took some believability away.
There is a real attempt to make an action movie here and largely it is passable, but there is the definite feel that money spinning is the greatest motivation behind it.
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