In the Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum action franchise, Jason Bourne — the loner, badass rogue spy played by Matt Damon — became one of America's most beloved anti-heroes. The franchise's latest installment, The Bourne Legacy, riskily goes Damon-less. Instead Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers) stars as Aaron Cross, another superspy/laboratory experiment fending off a government agency that's out to kill him. While the studio's promotion department has been hammering home the tagline, "There was never just one," to ease skeptical fans into the Bourne-Cross substitution, some critics say that a Bourne movie without Damon is like a table without legs. Can Renner possibly fill the void?
No. The whole movie feels ersatz and expedient: "When are solid action, good actors, and only a semi-idiotic plot not good enough for summer-movie escapism?" asks Peter Travers at Rolling Stone. When the producers have bashed on without an essential ingredient — Damon — just to make sure "a profitable series keeps laying golden box-office eggs." Renner plays a collection of "tics" capably enough, and shoot outs and car chases are thrillingly staged, but "it's all sound and fury signifying nothing except a desperate need to feed a franchise."
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