The Bourne Legacy is the fourth feature film in the Jason Bourne film series, set for release on August 3, 2012. It is based on the novel by Robert Ludlum and 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.
Plot
Aaron Cross is a member of Operation Outcome, a U.S. Defense Department black ops program which is a replacement for Operation Blackbriar and which employs pills referred to as chems that enhance the physical and mental abilities of field operatives. 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, who informs Cross that he broke the mission record by two days.
Meanwhile, a British reporter who was writing on Treadstone and Blackbriar, the programs preceding Outcome, is assassinated. Blackbriar and Treadstone are publicly exposed, leading the FBI and the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate CIA Director Ezra Kramer, Deputy Director Pamela Landy, Operation Blackbriar supervisor Noah Vosen, and Treadstone clinical researcher Dr Albert Hirsch. Kramer requests help from Eric Byer, a retired US Air Force colonel responsible for overseeing the CIA's clandestine operations. Byer discovers a potentially damaging video on the internet in which the lead researchers for Treadstone and Outcome appear together at professional functions in public. To prevent the Treadstone investigation from finding out about Outcome, Byer decides to shut Outcome down and kill its agents. He sees the sacrifice as acceptable because the government has separately initiated next-generation beta programs, including the supersoldier program LARX.
Byer deploys a UAV (drone) to eliminate Number Three and Cross. Cross hears the drone's approach and 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 abdomen, masking the signal from a tracking device beacon implanted in his abdomen. 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 kills all but one of his top-level colleagues. When security guards break into the lab, Foite turns his gun on himself, leaving geneticist Dr Marta Shearing 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 last link to the chems so he can retain his enhanced capabilities and alleviate chem withdrawal. 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. 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. Without his enhanced intelligence, they stand no chance of survival. Cross and Shearing travel to the Philippines, where the chems are manufactured, to try to infect him with another virus so he will not need the blue chems. Too late, Byer ascertains their intention.
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-03, a chemically brainwashed supersoldier, to kill them. They shelter in a flophouse, where Cross recovers from the flu-like symptoms. During the night, he hallucinates 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-03. After a lengthy chase through the streets and marketplaces, they lose the police. Both Cross and LARX-03 are shot. LARX-03 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.
Comparison with novel
The Bourne Legacy Novel vs. Movie Comparison
Cast
- Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross
- Rachel Weisz as Marta Shearing
- Edward Norton as Eric Byer
- Joan Allen as Pamela Landy
- Albert Finney as Albert Hirsch
- Scott Glenn as Ezra Kramer
- Stacy Keach as Turso
- Louis Ozawa Changchien as LARX-03
- Oscar Isaac as Outcome-3
Additionally Paz, portrayed by Edgar Ramirez is briefly seen shooting and killing Simon Ross (portrayed by Paddy Considine) at Waterloo Station, event which also takes place during The Bourne Ultimatum.
Development
Originally the film was to be written by George Nolfi, and would star Matt Damon, Julia Stiles and Joan Allen. However on November 30th 2009 Paul Greengrass stated he was not interested, and the project was cancelled. 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 | ||||
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| Film score by James Newton Howard | ||||
| Released | August 7, 2012 | |||
| Recorded | 2012 | |||
| Length | 63:33 | |||
| Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
| James Newton Howard chronology | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
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| Empire |
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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. | Title | Composer | 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 | |||
Posters
Film Stills
Promotional Gallery
Trailers
Videos
External links
References
- ↑ Weintraub, Steve (August 12, 2012). "Writer/Director Tony Gilroy Talks THE BOURNE LEGACY, Deleted Scenes, the Franchise Going Forward, His Thoughts on IMAX and More". Collider. http://collider.com/tony-gilroy-the-bourne-legacy-interview/187798/. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
- ↑ Hornaday, Ann (August 10, 2012). "Tony Gilroy talks about the fractious, entertaining, lucrative ride of ‘Bourne’". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/tony-gilroy-talks-about-the-fractious-entertaining-lucrative-wild-ride-of-bourne/2012/08/09/b38f4af4-e0be-11e1-a19c-fcfa365396c8_story.html. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
- ↑ (November 14, 2011). "James Newton Howard to Score 'The Bourne Legacy'". FilmMusicReporter.com. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
- ↑ (June 12, 2012). "Varese Sarabande to Release 'The Bourne Legacy' Soundtrack". FilmMusicReporter.com. Retrieved July 27, 2012.