Review: Jeremy Renner in The Bourne Legacy (aka: Watch me use the word "AWESOME" as many times as I can!)

First of all, Tanja will wake up to see that there's a blog post on the site. Surprise! Secondly, I LOVE JEREMY RENNER. You know me, you know my love for Jeremy Renner is limitless. How can you not love this man? Seriously?

When I first heard they were continuing the Bourne series, I was ECSTATIC! Then I heard Matt Damon would not reprise his role as Jason Bourne, I was like:

Who else would be able to surpass Matt Damon as the quintessential amnesiac secret CIA operative? WHO?! No one, that's who. Then I saw Damon in the previews for "I Bought a Zoo:"

Uhhh, ok, I get it now. Matt Damon no longer fit the profile for a secret agent and has since moved on to movies about...well, buying a zoo. Da fuq? So that left to question who or what the next Bourne movie was about. Imagine my utter delight to find out this hotness was filling in the vacated shoes of Damon:

Yes, please.

The premise for the movie at first almost seemed like a reboot of the first movie, The Bourne Identity, establishing Renner as Aaron Cross, a CIA operative from an uber secret organization sanctioned by our United States government to genetically alter humans to become super awesome. And by super awesome I definitely mean to be ass-kickingly hot and able to handle weapons with killer broodiness and unexpected compassion and vulnerability which was viewed as a "flaw" in their programming. Not much is known about Aaron Cross other than his greatest desire which is to not "revert" back to his original programming before the CIA and their program, Outcome (if you are a fan of the original three Bourne movies, Outcome is a branch of Treadstone and Blackbriar) found him as a young army survivor in Iran after an IED bombing. Yes, they were able to rebuild him. Literally.

Unlike the first set of operatives from Treadstone (not much is known about Blackbriar), the Outcome agents seem to have more advance cognitive skills and enhanced physical abilities that were programmed into their DNA by a purposefully introduced viral infection. To maintain these newly acquired attributes, operatives must dose themselves with pills that basically keep the virus working to continue enhancing them. These pills, or chems, as they call them, must be taken daily to avoid retrograde of the virus. Aaron Cross most certainly does not want to miss a dose.

In fact, he's so addicted to being awesome (and lets face it, you would be too if you looked like Renner) when Treadstone starts to go toe up during the whole Bourne Ultimatum debacle (remember when that reporter was threatening to go take a Treadstone expose public, Pam Landy was testifying during a Senate Committee hearing and Julia Stiles went rogue and cut her hair?)when he'd been out doing training exercises, the CIA decides to 86 the program his first priority is to find the drugs. And by 86 I mean to switch their pills from green and blue to the big bad triangle yellow ones. And by that I mean, they were offing the agents one by one. And by that I mean they were being killed by their creators.

And if you were in the theater with me and my friend Georgette at the 9:25pm showing Thursday night at Saratoga 14 you would have heard her say, "Oh No! What a WASTE! He was HOTTTT!!!" Yes Georgette, movies do not discriminate. Even the hot ones die. It's a tragedy, I know.

So without giving away the whole movie, Aaron meets up with, er, I mean he tracks down Dr. Marta Shearing, who was one of the doctors that engineered the viral compound to build the awesome operatives. This man needs the pills, lady. Long story short, he and Dr. Marta head to the Philippines because, quite honestly, what's a Bourne movie without international travel that brings on that tense scene of trying to get through airport security with your fake I.D.? And just like the first movie where you couldn't really understand why Jason and Marie would even like each other much less fall in love in the end, you really understand the potential liability and risk an operative like Aaron would encounter when he lets someone into his heart. (cue the awwws, now).

Don't get me wrong, there is no sappy love story here. What it is though, is a fundamental understanding of how we as humans need to behave. We are not meant to be lone wolves in life. Even wolves cannot survive on their own. We are made to be pack animals, we are stronger, faster, smarter and more awesome in groupings and pairs and this movie fully illustrates that point. There is an interesting parallel in the movie between Aaron and Marta running for their lives, each one only as strong as the weaker one and going up against another operative, you can guess who won that fight. What it shows is vulnerability and compassion do not make for a weaker human, because what's stronger than the desire of the human heart? Nothing, my friend, the answer is nothing.

In summary, I really think this movie held up to the high expectations the original Bourne movies set up. It's near perfect in my estimation, but there's hardly a thing Renner can do that I won't love, so take my comments with a grain of sea salt. I will say however, that I am not a fan of Rachael Weisz but after this movie, I may be convinced that Mrs. James Bond is herself, pretty awesome too.

Fans of the original Bourne movies: Go see this movie, you won't be disappointed.
Fans of Jeremy Renner: It would be considered criminal to NOT see this movie.
Never seen a Bourne movie before: Start with Bourne Identity, not this movie but then work your way to this movie.
Fans of awesome: Watching this movie will make you more awesome. Trust.