Mr. Cinema

Deadline is reporting early estimates of between $46 - $48 million. Not a bad opening for Renner.

Roybq

During the first 1/2 hour of the movie, Renner's character is in Alaska apparently being stalked the entire time by a wolf pack. There's a final confrontation scene where he's attacked but there's a unbelievable payoff for him getting into that situation.

I thought the film was alright, but if you're going into it to see an action film, you'll be waiting practically most of the film to see that action. I thought the final chase villian was pretty lame considering we never heard of the character until minutes before he's trotted out to hunt down Renner.

The movie does end as if it's expecting a sequel to continue the story. Sounds like the box office opening should be encouraging enough to get the ball rolling on a 5th film in the series. Hopefully this was all set up for a better sequel.

It's a matinee or a rental. The one thing that I did like above the previous films was the overuse of shaky cam. This is the first movie in the series where I didn't feel like throwing up in the men's room afterwards.

Why So Blu?

And it will dethrone TDKR.

stingermck

What a disappointment.

Nothing happens in this movie, and it has no real purpose. Minimal action, and only 2 fight scenes that last seconds. Long stretches of scenes without purpose or just too much dialogue. The first half was just boring, with Renner walking around the snow.

At the end they throw us a cameo, and Moby starts playing, desperately trying to remind the audience all this is somehow linked to the originals.

While leaving the theater, everyone withing ear shot was saying how bad it was. One guy didn't even know Damon wasn't in it. I think word of mouth is going to kill it fast.

onebyone

Now you cannot blame that one on the filmmakers. Someone wasn't paying attention. At all.

stingermck

Oh I agree, but this is general public were talking about.

DJariya

I'll echo everyone's comments as well. The movie was a disappointment. Honestly, I don't think there was really any point to it. All I could really understand was the Government wanted Cross dead and he needed some blue and green pills.

The movie gets off to a horrendously sluggish start spending the 1st 35+ minutes with Renner playing in the snow. The 1st major action sequence didn't happen until a little over 50 minutes into the movie.

Besides a few good action scenes with Renner and his scenes with Rachel Weisz, I felt like alot of the movie was a collection of deleted scenes from The Bourne Ultimatum. Joan Allen and David Strathairn were basically relegated to cameo appearances. The scenes with Ed Norton, Keach in the control room didn't really go anywhere or add anything to the story arc.

And I will agree with an earlier comment that this was by far one of Rachel Weisz's worst acting jobs. She was at times way over the top as Marta. One thing Weisz was good at in other films was humanizing her characters and making you sympathetic to them. I don't think she did that here.

And frankly I was really surprised there was no resolution and the movie just ended.

Overall I would give this a C

The Bus

Wasn't Universal expecting $30MM?

It's a shame that reviews don't seem to be positive.

Maybe the last two Bourne movies are just lightning in a bottle. Because Greengrass and Damon working together doesn't guarantee a good movie, as Green Zone proved so anticlimactically.

stingermck

Another thing that bothered me was they bring in the super agent guy, and all he does is chase Renner on a bike and falls off of it. No epic fight scene. Ugh.

mdc3000

^Green Zone is a fucking MASTERPIECE compared to The Bourne Legacy. What a HUGE disappointment. I have no problems with them doing a spin-off flick, I like Renner a lot and thought the idea of a story that ran parallel to the other Bourne flicks was an ingenious idea.... yeah, I was dead wrong.

The first half of this movie is dreadful - we are constantly bouncing around from place to place, person to person, with very little of anything happening. All exposition and most of it means next to nothing - a lot of meaningless talk of Treadstone, Outcome and Blackbriar...I'd be fine with that if it WENT ANYWHERE or added anything that we didn't already know from previous films, but it doesn't. The scenes with Renner in the wilderness are dull and I was hoping for a bigger payoff between him and the mystery agent at the cabin.

There are cool scenes here and there - when Zeljko Ivanek goes on a shooting rampage, the hand to hand combat that the series is known for and when Weisz and Renner are finally together, the movie is at least tolerable...but by the time we get to the big action setpiece of the movie, the motorcycle chase, I couldn't care less...and then it abruptly ends, with little satisfaction. Unbelievable. Gilroy had such a rich world to work with and he squandered it. The score by James Newton Howard was OK but not nearly as effective as John Powell's work on the series and we don't even get the full on Bourne Theme that is so iconic - but we do get Moby's Extreme Ways Again?!? What. The. Fuck.

All the stupidity and mundane exposition could have been stomached better if the pace had been quickened - keep us thrilled and we'll overlook some of the lesser parts (TDKR for example). If we got 10 minutes to bring us up to speed and then throw Renner and Weisz together and on the run for the duration, would have been a lot more enjoyable. As it stands, Gilroy has made the worst entry in a franchise I love and really proves that Damon and Greengrass were right in calling another film "The Bourne Redundancy". Add to that the scene with Pamela Landy at the end made me furious - so her faxing those documents at the end of Ultimatum, a great 'Fuck You' to the company and Noah Vossen, ended up meaning practically fuck all in the long run. LAME.

Why So Blu?

Green Zone is underrated - it's a really cool film, imo.

Patman

The film starts out promising enough, with Aaron Ross (Jeremy Renner) traipsing across Alaska looking for meds to keep his enhancements levelled out, and discovers he's being targeted for death. With call backs to the past Bourne films, the program that created Jason Bourne is being systematically scuttled to cover up further exposure to a deep covert government involvement (a la super-solider development black-ops style). Once you find out Ross's motivations (besides staying alive), it feels like the film just flutters around like a balloon whose air has been suddenly released. Ultimately, I was let down by the film's third act where they borrowed quite a bit from Terminator 2, laughably so.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

RocShemp

I liked Green Zone until the horrid tacked on ending.

DJariya

I guess the majority of this forum is in no rush to see this movie now huh?

Very few comments for such a high profile summer action film. I guess reading that the movie is mediocre to a disappointment killed some of the interest. Either that or alot here just don't like Jeremy Renner.

After seeing this movie a few days ago, I don't think I'm in any rush to re-visit it on Blu-Ray.

stingermck

I have no problem with Renner, if only the movie gave him something to do.

DJariya

I thought he was fine as well. I think he definitely has the potential to be a solid action hero. He had a few good hand to hand combat scenes and I enjoyed the motorcycle chase scene with the Thai hitman to an extent. But in the end, good action scenes are empty without a good cohesive story.

I would love to see Renner come back in Mission Impossible 5.

Cellar Door

I'm kind of meh on Renner. I thought The Hurt Locker was overhyped and he was unnecessary in MI:4. I liked him okay in The Avengers, though really I think just about anybody could have played that role as well.

I've been a fan of the Bourne series, but I'll wait and catch this movie on video.

Mr. Cinema

The Bourne Ultimatum is so damn good. It's unfortunate for Renner that he has to follow that film. However, $40 million is still a solid opening considering the title character isn't in the film. Unless it has a massive drop, this should reach $100 million or so and allow Universal to sell a few copies on DVD/BD. And then hope Damon returns for a Bourne Finale in a couple years.

I'm watching Bourne Identity now and it's not exactly filled with huge action set pieces. It's tame compared to the Greengrass films.

Does Legacy compare more to Identity? I probably will catch it next weekend.

Supermallet

Am I the only one who thought Ultimatum was a half-baked rehash of Supremacy? Didn't like that movie much at all.

mdc3000

^You might be - I thought Ultimatum took everything good about Supremacy and expanded on it while upping the action and giving us huge payoffs about the origins of Jason Bourne. Easily one of my favourite action films of the last 10 years. It has so many great moments - Bourne vs. Desh is probably the most brutal hand to hand fight of the series, David Strathairn vs. Joan Allen makes the CIA stuff more lively than the other flicks and Bourne coming home to New York to get the full story from Albert Finney finally fills in most of the gaps/questions of the story. Add to that Greengrass finally nailing the perfect balance of shakycam/quick cuts to make the action intense but still coherent and you've got a real winner.

stingermck

Agreed, but one review I read said in terms of action each film builds and builds. Then this one goes back to the amount of the original, and some fans wont like that. I am one of them.

Supermallet

Yeah, see, I thought the action was done better in Supremacy, with more urgency. Albert Finney as Dr. Exposition, PhD was a snooze and a real disappointment coming off of Chris Cooper and Brian Cox from the first two films. Also Julia Stiles is utterly incapable of expression emotion, so the stuff with her was wasted. I don't know, it's not a bad movie but it's a definite step down from the first two.

Solid Snake

Cox is always better.

Joe Schmoe

Saw this today. Couldn't wait till it was over. The rooftop chase and motorcycle chase were entertaining, but they were too little, too late. It was a snoozefest up till that point. The Bourne Legacy? How about The Boring Legacy. What a disappointment.

WeylandYutani

.

That Identity isn't filled with action set-pieces like its sequels is why many people, including me, still think it's the best film of the Bourne trilogy.


Legacy is a complete bore and a waste of time. It is a film without an ending.