Much speculation has gone into the new addition to the Bourne franchise, with a new star and a new direction, will it fit in or flop? Find out what we thought, after the break.
A friend and I went to the midnight release. I was saying that I was a little doubtful that this movie could live up to the first three.
First let me say that Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz did a good job of capturing the “on-the-run” kind of desperation that was so good from the originals.
Sad to say, the movie was still a let down.
The script had a lot to do with my unhappiness. It’s set to be simultaneous with The Bourne Ultimatum, so occasionally they’d show a blip of the London reporter getting shot, or play a news clip about Jason Bourne. And those always got me excited…
But the plot for this movie was so out there. Jeremy Renner plays this guy Kenneth Kitson who’s in a parallel program called Outcome, which deals with genetic modification. The operatives take virus with DNA enhancements, etc.
Not only was the whole DNA enhancement line poorly delivered, it had absolutely no bearing on the action. The characters fly to the Philippines to get more magic blue pills, but despite the fact that he was “modified” he gave no action to indicate that he was better than anyone else.
It was a poor choice, and half-heartedly delivered.
Another bad idea was saying, “Oh let’s make an action movie with cool action sequences but no character development whatsoever.” I mean part of the appeal of the Bourne movies was that he was trying to figure out who he was, and dealing with the fact that he was an assassin, morally. In this movie, the characters are presented and then pinballed from action to action so that they never grow further.
Those were my central complaints – the plot was bungled trying to fit in with the original trilogy, and the characters were hung out to dry.
As a summer action movie, it was alright. It wasn’t terrible, it just didn’t meet our expectations for the Bourne franchise. Better luck next time, producers.
It could’ve been so good too.
– JV out.
The Red Shirt Crew Blog and Podcast Network 
All of the action in the last 30 minutes really does make up for the slow start and that was one of the most thrilling aspects of this movie. Other than the fact that Aaron Cross wasn’t the type of character you messed with, regardless of whether or not his name was Jason Bourne. Great review JV.