My peanut gallery view of "The Bourne Legacy" - the best Bourne is the natural-born Bourne

My first thought, on hearing that there was yet another Jason Bourne movie that had been released, was - why does the world need yet another adventure in the chronicles of Jason Bourne?  Also, after 'The Bourne Supremacy', I was really sure that nothing else could top that - I mean, when one talks about something being supreme - there is surely nothing else that can top it?

But no, apparently I was mistaken - "the state or condition of being superior to all others in authority power or status" (definition of 'supremacy' by the Merriam-Webster dictionary) was not the end of it all, because after the 'Supremacy', there came the 'Ultimatum'.  There should have been some sort of finality to all of this and, having watched 'The Bourne Legacy', something tells me that as soon as the producers find a word that can top all of the other powerful words that have been used so far (to recap: 'identity', 'supremacy', 'ultimatum' and 'legacy'), we will surely get another Bourne movie to watch! However, I guess the producers did in a way stay true to the 'supremacy', because even though Jason Bourne's name was often stated in this movie, and the picture of Jason Bourne himself (aka Matt Damon) did feature, the focus of this movie was Aaron Cross, who turned out to be as rebellious and difficult to catch as Bourne, I guess.

Well, what are my views on 'The Bourne Legacy'? I would say that the first half of the movie is a complete snorefest - with all these vague discussions in semi-obscured rooms between MIB-like characters - resulting in the set-up of a rather complicated-looking communications room (AFTER going back and re-watching the other 3 movies, which my daughter rather delightfully loaned from a friend in order to torment me, I suppose, I did get the gist of what the snorefest was all about, as they mentioned 'Blackbriar' and 'Treadstone' rather a lot).

I was tempted to walk out of the movie and go next door to watch 'Resident Evil' - except that in between all the muddled and sometimes heated debates between the suited characters,  there were a couple of scenes involving a laboratory and the production of some superhero tablet or something, and there were a few shots of Aaron Cross in Alaska (Jeremy Renner, not looking his usual delectable self at all in a rather straggly beard), and of Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz, who I have always liked).  From this confusing muddle a story did sort-of emerge, and finally there were lots of action shots and fast scenes, reminiscent of the previous 'Bourne' movies, including a most exciting road chase in Manila! I really had no clue that a motorbike could do all that stuff!

At the end of the saga, the pursuers found the words scrawled on a mirror - 'No more'.  I hope that this was a promise that there will be no more Bourne movies that fail to feature Jason Bourne himself, but not a chance of that, I suppose! In short, nothing can beat 'The Bourne Identity' featuring Matt Damon - I can still feel the thrill of it now and - oh darn it, my daughter has returned the DVD to her friend...

Watcheability: a decent 2.5  stars
Hunk-a-mania: 5 out of 5 stars whenever Aaron Cross has his shirt off :)
Acting ability: 5 out of 5 stars to Rachel Weisz for her usual stellar performance