The Bourne Legacy

This film is not based on the 2004 spy fiction thriller novel written by Eric Van Lustbader. This was written and directed by Tony Gilroy, which is based on the first 3 movies. The plot is a side story of The Bourne Ultimatum film (3rd of the series), showing scenes like the shooting of reporter Simon Ross at the London Tube Waterloo Station, Pamela Landy's expose of Treadstone and BlackBriar to the US Senate, the ongoing hearings, etc.

This time, the spotlight is not on Jason Bourne but on Aaron Cross played by Jeremy Renner. Aaron is also a super agent like Jason, and he is in danger of being assassinated like his fellow agents as part of the "elimination" of everyone connected to the controversial CIA projects exposed by Pam Landy.

The other targets of this elimination strategy are the doctors and the scientists who helped developed the enhancing drugs to the super agents. Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) survived the seemingly planned killing at the laboratory and subsequent attempts to kill her. She then crossed paths with Aaron, as the latter was looking for him because he was running out of drugs to sustain his stamina. They travel together to the Far East to find the needed drugs and solutions for Cross and to run away from the CIA.

The beginning of the film was almost dragging, perhaps due to the lack of much needed action-packed scenes. There were clips showing scenes from The Bourne Ultimatum movie which looks like this film was recycling clips to unnecessarily prolong the movie. The part of the film that really excited me was the last part - the scenes shot in Manila, Philippines.

I have to commend the actors Renner and Weisz for doing such a good job delivering their characters amid the not-so-excellent script and story. They successfully showed the viewers several emotions like fear and desperation in the different situations they were in.

The people behind this movie did a good job in giving good visuals through the great cinematography and camera shots in the different locations (Alaska, Canada, New York, Virginia, Pakistan, Philippines, etc.). To be honest, I have never seen a Filipino action film that has shown third world Manila in such range of color and beauty. And the Finale shot somewhere in El Nido, Palawan, Philippines just totally blew me away.

Overall, I think this could be the weakest link from The Bourne film franchise, but is still worth to watch. It gives a different look at the CIA agents' stories and offers satisfactory action and wonderful visual treats.

My rating: 80%