The fourth instalment in the Bourne franchise, this time however, without Jason Bourne. Jeremy Renner, whose star seems to be getting brighter, and his face appears in Multiplexes every once a week stands as Aaron Cross, an Outcome Agents who searches for enhancement pills called "Chems".The story itself is set somewhere within The Bourne Ultimatum timeline, Aaron Cross, a CIA Outcome Agent (yet another one of their divisions since Treadstone and Blackbriar apparently) is travelling through the woods and is addicted to his batch of "chem" pills which enhance his physical and intelligence capabilities.
Running out of options, Aaron travels to find the Doctor whom he thinks would be able to hand him the pills cold turkey. But alas, the pills are kept in Manila and they have to travel there first.
Directed by Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter for the first three, this Bourne outing is surprisingly dull. It started out too slow, and when things started to get interesting it ends.
However, I enjoy the gritty realism of the film, which is something every Bourne films was known for.
Despite being a Bourne film without Bourne in it, this film still stands pretty well on its own, but the utilisation of parallel timeline to the excellent Ultimatum made me couldn't help but missing Jason Bourne in action and Paul Greengrass's kinetic cinematography.
Also, there never seems to be any real face off between Cross and the villain Byer, and Cross also never feels like a proper protagonist and his journey is a bit lame compared to Jason (junkie in need of a fix vs man without memory), in the end aaron felt more like a side characters, because the protagonist, Jason Bourne is currently MIA.
2.5/5
