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"There Was Never Just One"
―Tagline

The Bourne Legacy is the fourth feature film in the Jason Bourne film series and was released on August 10, 2012. It's title is taken from the novel by Eric Van Lustbader. It is directed by Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the first three films, and stars Jeremy Renner as CIA agent Aaron Cross. Matt Damon did not return for the film, as a result only pictures of him as Bourne are seen.

Plot[]

Aaron Cross (Renner) is a member of Operation Outcome, a U.S. Defense Department black ops replacement program for Operation Blackbriar, which employs pills (referred to as "chems") that genetically enhance the physical and mental abilities of field operatives. The Chems' effects are temporary, and the program participants depend on them being given to them by the program. As punishment for going off the grid for four days, Cross is assigned to Alaska for a training exercise where he must survive certain activities and traverse rugged terrain in order to arrive at a remote cabin. The cabin is operated by an exiled Outcome operative, Number Three (Oscar Isaac), who informs Cross that he broke the mission record by two days. Cross is unsure if he is simply having his wrist slapped, or if he is to be assassinated for insubordination, and so is trying to acquire extra Chems (in case he has to escape) from Outcome 3, who lives at the cabin, and has a store of extra chems. He succeeds in getting an extra days supply.

Meanwhile, a British reporter who was writing on Operation Treadstone and Blackbriar, the programs preceding Outcome, is assassinated. Operation Blackbriar and Operation Treadstone are publicly exposed by Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) leading the FBI and the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate CIA Director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn), Deputy Director Pamela Landy, Operation Blackbriar supervisor Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), and Operation Treadstone clinical researcher Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney). Kramer requests help from Eric Byer (Edward Norton), a retired US Air Force colonel responsible for overseeing the CIA's clandestine operations. Byer discovers a potentially damaging videos on YouTube in which the lead researchers for Treadstone and Outcome appear together at professional functions in public. To prevent the Operation Treadstone investigation from spreading to Outcome, Byer decides to shut Outcome down and eliminate everyone in it, agents and scientists included. He sees the sacrifice as necessary because of Jason Bourne being loose in the United States, and because they have the science, and the government has separately initiated next-generation beta programs, including the super-soldier program LARX, which need to be kept safe.

Byer deploys a UAV to eliminate Number Three and Cross. Cross hears the drone's approach and asks Outcome Three about it. Outcome Three doesn't know, and they realize something is wrong. They decide to spread out, and Cross leaves moments before a missile destroys the cabin with Number Three inside. When the drone returns, he tapes a thermal blanket and metal bowl to his thigh, masking the signal from a tracking device beacon implanted in his thigh. He shoots the drone down with his sniper rifle. Cross removes the tracker and force feeds it to a wolf from a pack hunting him. When a second drone kills the wolf and destroys the transmitter, Byer assumes Cross is dead. Byer engineers the death of other Outcome agents with poisoned yellow Chems. Hirsch dies of an apparent heart attack before he can testify before the U.S. Senate. An indoctrinated Dr. Donald Foite (Željko Ivanek) kills all but one of his top-level colleagues. When security guards break into the lab, Donald Foite turns his gun on himself, leaving geneticist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) as the sole survivor.

When a crack team of CIA assassins attack Shearing at her isolated house, they are eliminated by Cross. He sees her as his likeliest link to the Chems so he can retain his enhanced capabilities, which is the only way he can survive, as without enhancement he has a very low IQ, and can not live independently, much less stay on the run. Shearing reveals that, without his knowledge, Cross has been genetically modified by a tailored virus to retain the physical benefits without needing to take the green Chems. He still requires regular doses of blue Chems to maintain his intelligence, but he is running out. To Explain why he needs to stay enhanced, Cross confides that he is Private First Class Kenneth J. Kitsom (reportedly killed by a roadside bomb in the Iraq War) and that his recruiter had to lie about his substandard IQ to satisfy the US Army's minimum requirements, which he missed by 12 IQ points. Furthermore, subjects who had been deprived of the blue chems were known to have their cognitive functions drop to an even lower level than their original prior to induction into the program, meaning Cross would suffer severely. Without his enhanced intelligence, they stand no chance of survival. Cross and Shearing travel to the Philippines, where the chems are manufactured, to infect him with another virus so he will not need the blue chems. Byer's team ascertains their intentions, and send LARX and the Manila police to find Cross and Shearing while he is ill with the virus.

In Manila, Cross and Shearing bluff their way into the factory producing the pills. Shearing injects Cross with live virus stems. Byer alerts the factory's security staff, but Cross and Shearing escape. Byer orders LARX-3 (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a chemically brainwashed supersoldier, to kill them. They shelter in a flophouse, where Cross recovers from the flu-like symptoms. Cross tells Shearing to leave with the money, but she refuses, instead opting to stay and take care of him. During the night, Cross dreams about his initiation into Outcome.

The next day, police surround the doss-house while Shearing is buying medicine. She manages to warn Cross, who rescues her from the officers. He steals a motorcycle, and they are pursued by both the police and LARX-3. After a lengthy chase through the streets and marketplaces, they lose the police. Both Cross and LARX-3 are shot. LARX-3 locates his quarry again, but is killed when Shearing causes his motorcycle to crash into a pillar. Shearing persuades a Filipino boatman to help them escape by sea. Byer's team has lost their trail, and has no other means to currently find them. As Cross checks their bearing on a map, Shearing tells him that she was hoping they were lost, at which Cross smiles and puts away the map.

Comparison with novel[]

The Bourne Legacy Novel vs. Movie Comparison

Cast[]

Additionally, Paz, portrayed by Edgar Ramirez, is briefly seen shooting and killing Simon Ross (portrayed by Paddy Considine) at Waterloo Station, the event which also takes place during The Bourne Ultimatum. Matt Damon has a photographic cameo, as his picture as Jason Bourne is seen at the beginning and end of the film.

Development[]

Originally the film was to be written by George Nolfi, and would star Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, and Joan Allen. However on November 30, 2009, Paul Greengrass stated he was not interested, and the project was canceled. Matt Damon said he wouldn't return to the Bourne franchise unless Greengrass directed again.

Gilroy said he did not get involved with the project "until the rules were that Matt [Damon] was gone, Matt and Paul [Greengrass] were gone, there was no Jason Bourne. That was the given when I had the first conversation about this. So it was very important to me, extremely important to me, that everything that had happened before be well preserved and be enhanced if possible by what we're doing now."[1] He also said, "you could never replace Matt [Damon] as Jason Bourne. This isn't James Bond. You can't do a prequel. You can't do any of those kinds of things because there was never any cynicism attached to the franchise, and that was the one thing they had to hang on to."[2]

Tony Gilroy was announced as writer and director on June 9, 2010. The film was set as a "sidequel", rather than a direct sequel or reboot of the franchise. Shooting began in January of 2012, in New York and Manila, Philippines.

Soundtrack[]

The Bourne Legacy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Bourne Legacy Soundtrack
Film score by James Newton Howard
Released August 7, 2012
Recorded 2012
Length 63:33
Label Varèse Sarabande
James Newton Howard chronology
The Bourne Ultimatum: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Bourne Legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
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Tracksounds 5/10 starsStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg

The soundtrack to The Bourne Legacy as composed by James Newton Howard was released digitally on August 7, 2012 by Varèse Sarabande Records.[3][4]

Track listing[]

No. TitleComposer Length
1. "Legacy"  James Newton Howard 2:40
2. "Drone"  James Newton Howard 4:15
3. "NRAG"  James Newton Howard 0:59
4. "You Fell in Love"  James Newton Howard 1:42
5. "Program Shutdown"  James Newton Howard 3:00
6. "Over the Mountain"  James Newton Howard 0:51
7. "High Powered Rifle"  James Newton Howard 2:50
8. "They're All Dead"  James Newton Howard 2:48
9. "Manila Lab"  James Newton Howard 2:40
10. "Wolves/Sic Ric"  James Newton Howard 2:19
11. "Doctor of What?"  James Newton Howard 4:28
12. "Aaron in Chicago"  James Newton Howard 1:32
13. "Wolf Attack"  James Newton Howard 2:57
14. "Chem Talk"  James Newton Howard 1:35
15. "Flight 167"  James Newton Howard 3:30
16. "Aaron Run!"  James Newton Howard 1:08
17. "You Belong Here"  James Newton Howard 1:17
18. "Cognitive Degrade"  James Newton Howard 2:49
19. "17 Hour Head Start"  James Newton Howard 3:51
20. "Viralled Out"  James Newton Howard 0:58
21. "You're Doing Fine"  James Newton Howard 1:18
22. "Simon Ross"  James Newton Howard 1:37
23. "LARX Tarmac"  James Newton Howard 1:45
24. "Magsaysay Suite"  James Newton Howard 3:04
25. "Aftermath"  James Newton Howard 2:49
26. "Extreme Ways (Bourne's Legacy)"  Moby 4:51
Total length:
63:33

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Film Stills[]

Promotional Gallery[]

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