Avis Metacritic

Renner's Cross is a conflicted hero built to take advantage of the "Hurt Locker" star's best qualities as an actor - his default intensity, the way he conveys that complicated mental calculations are taking place under cover of watchful stillness, even underwater.

Viscerally, The Bourne Legacy packs a punch. If you're looking for a traditional sequel though, you'll probably be disappointed, but if it's a whole new ride you're after, you've come to the right place. Bourne has indeed been reborn.

The new movie continues the "Bourne" tradition of exciting, reality-based thrillers, but when the series lost its star it lost most of is soul. [13 & 20 Aug. 2012, p.96]

One successful set piece in 135 minutes, and it involves very little running, no parkour, and no genetically enhanced superheroes from clandestine government projects.

The Bourne Legacy is always gripping in the moment. The problem is in getting the moments to add up.

Renner and scientist Rachel Weisz are sympathetic enough (although lacking in Matt Damon's all-American approachability), and the movie flies along briskly.

Now, we have Jeremy Renner as another Treadstone mega man (there were nine, apparently), and though he is a likable enough pug-nosed action figure, the Damonlessness is sorely felt.

The Bourne Legacy doesn't reach the heights of the previous three films, but a guns-blazing final act and strong performances from its entire cast might give it the juice to try for a fifth sequel.

The same tone and look are maintained, but the visceral excitement is muffled by familiarity, an insufficiently conceived lead character and the sheer weight of backstory and multiple layers of deception.

Subbing character actor Jeremy Renner into a franchise that requires Matt Damon-caliber magnetism, series scribe Tony Gilroy takes over the helming duties with an overlong sequel that features too little action and an unnecessarily complicated plot.