The Bourne Legacy is too good to be true. Not only did writer-director Tony Gilroy (who also wrote the last three Bourne films) got rid of the wimpy Matt Damon, he’s replaced him with a much more brooding and disquiet hero in the form of Jeremy Renner, resulting in a masterful slow-burn of espionage, suspense and science —quite frankly the perfect Summer actioner.
Renner plays Aaron Cross, the other intelligence agent who is part of a secret government program called Outcome, which Jason Bourne (Damon in the last one) was determined to expose. Outcome’s head Eric Byer (Edward Norton, playing the rare baddie for once with suitably enhanced grey hair and wrinkles) decides to shut down the program to avoid further scandal and kill all its former members including Cross as well as Dr. Marta Searing (Rachel Weisz), one of the scientists who was directly involved Outcome’s pharmacology processes to enhance the secret agents’ brains and bodies. After escaping certain death in Nebraska (involving two missile attacks and a pack of hungry wolves), Cross tracks down Searing—the last surviving scientist who is able to provide an antibody to save his life—and they end up in a secret pharmaceutical factory in Manila. Hot on their heels is a dangerous contract killer—as if the tension wasn’t already high enough.
Which brings us to the film’s action sequences: Gilroy marshals the action impressively, particularly a 10-minute motorbike chase across Manila that’s as thrilling as the car chase scene in the classic The French Connection, with Renner coming across as a modern-day Steve McQueen. The always reliable Rachel Weisz is also flawless as the good doctor, a way more convincing counterpart to Bourne’s lame love interest (played by Franka Potente) in the last three films. The taut and tight script also leaves enough room for character development—even Oscar Isaac, in a brief role as a fellow disenchanted agent in the film’s first quarter, leaves an impression thanks to Gilroy’s impassioned and clever spin-off script. This is clearly the best action film this year with an immaculate handle on both form and substance.