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Tony Gilroy
August 10, 2012
The movie starts with Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) arriving in Manhattan, although Matt Damon, who popularized the character, is not present. The CIA’s Treadstone/Operation Outcome team has been exposed as a result of Bourne’s presence, so head honcho Eric Byer (Edward Norton) orders the assassination of all operatives before a Senate committee can learn more about the genetic testing the program did on its agents. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), a highly competent agent who needs pharmaceutical enhancement to maintain top killing form, is one of the targets. He picks up Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a geneticist, hoping that she can “viral him out” and thus permanently keeping his physical and mental performance without the daily use of “chems.”
There are a few action scenes that are worth watching, most notably, the one that takes place in a remote farmhouse where Dr. Shearing resides after a horrific shooting at her lab that left several of her coworkers dead. The action sequence is well-played, dramatic, and expertly coordinated, which cannot be said for the vast bulk of the movie’s action scenes. Naturally, Cross and Dr. Shearing will eventually team together to try to rebel against the American administration, or at least try to survive.
This movie wasn’t unfamiliar to the Bourne franchise. Even if Jason Bourne doesn’t appear, the film has the same shaky cinematography and extravagant action that we’ve seen before. The only thing that has changed is that, while having a good deal of CIA superspy jargon, the plot is very shallow. Aside from Cross fighting wolves and bad guys just to get his fix. The plot is quite straightforward for a film about the murkiest, most secret operations of secret government organizations.
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