Movie: The Bourne Legacy
Rating:

The trailer for The Bourne Legacy came out this week, and I must say it is full of pleasant surprises. The first is that there is nary a live shot of Matt Damon in sight, just a few photographic references to those three  whole movies devoted to him. I was ready to do copious amounts of exasperated sighing over another recycled, albeit gnarly, action slampiece about Jason Bourne running around some city; but then Jeremy Renner (The Avengers) swoops in as the new protagonist Aaron Cross in place of Damon, and my brain exploded and did a high kick all at once with the promise of some fresh action hero awesomeness. 

The Bourne series finally shaking things up. I was secretly hoping we’d seen the end of Jason Bourne after three epically Bournetastic movies, but I can roll with just this last one. Hopefully Renner does Matt Damon proud and upholds the Bourne legacy, so that the fourth movie doesn’t send the franchise out in a fiery blaze of Hollywood ughhh.

The trailer shows all the greatness of a Bourne movie that you’d expect: a man on the run, a hot science nerd (Rachel Weisz, Dream House) who Renner probably has to save one or more times and inevitably gets to french, and Renner getting blown up on a mountain. Also, there is a lot of wall climbing and building jumping.

And if that isn’t enticing enough, Edward Norton (Fight Club) is in it. He inherently makes everything he touches better. It also stars Albert Finney (The Bourne Ultimatum), Joan Allen (The Notebook), Oscar Isaac (Drive) and Stacy Keach (American History X).

So basically, if you are into action-thrillers, face punching, or the Bourne franchise, you should probably have a total Bourner right now.

Official Synopsis:

The narrative architect behind the Bourne film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: The Bourne Legacy. The writer/director expands the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum with an original story that introduces us to a new hero (Jeremy Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films. For The Bourne Legacy, Renner joins fellow series newcomers Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles. — (C) Official Site

The Bourne Legacy opens in theaters August 3.