The Bourne Legacy

Just when you thought that Matt Damon was done chasing spies as Robert Ludlum's rogue assassin Jason Bourne...you were right!

Since director Paul Greengrass wasn't interested in getting Bourne again, neither was his star. With Greengrass gone, Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter for all three Bournes, has been promoted to the director's chair in The Bourne Legacy.

Rather than re-cast Damon as Bourne, Gilroy introduces a new protagonist, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner). Aaron is part of Operation Outcome, the same Super-Assassin program from which Jason Bourne got his skills. One day, while enjoying the Alaskan wilderness, Aaron starts to run out of his Super-Assassin Medicine. And so, he goes back to civilization to find some.

Meanwhile, Government creep Eric Byer (Edward Norton) and his fellow Bureacrats, are irritated with Jason Bourne's meddling. And so, they decide to clean house by killing everybody involved with their schemes.

One Dr. Shearing (Rachel Weisz) survives one of their house-cleaning schemes. She's now targeted for death since she knows about the Super Medicine. For that reason, she's the first person Aaron seeks out and now must protect.

For around the first half-hour, I was surely bored with Bourne. Nothing really happened. All the names that were relevant in the last three films made the backstory almost incomprehensible. And it surely felt longer than half an hour.

But once it speeds up, everything gets better. The film's action scenes, edited by Tony's brother John, master both style and substance. While these scenes contain plenty of exciting stunts, there's also some masterful suspense involved. So much so that it could easily follow its predecessor, The Bourne Ultimatum, to a Film Editing Oscar.

Having not seen the prior Bournes, I don't know where this measures. But as a standalone, The Bourne Legacy is some fine entertainment. Let's just hope that the next one gets it better, or else we might just get stuck with The Bourne Redundancy.