Blu-ray Review: Reboot of ‘The Bourne Legacy’ Deserves Wider Audience

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CHICAGO – I was surprised by some of the animosity that greeted the August release of Tony Gilroy’s “The Bourne Legacy,” recently released in a nicely-packed Blu-ray with interesting special features and a very strong HD video and audio transfer. Action films have always done well on Blu-ray and DVD and I hope audiences catch up with this solid genre pic, a movie that may not hold up to the best of Matt Damon’s installments as the Jason Bourne character but is a fun action adventure with a strong cast and a talented writer behind it.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

I think audiences expected a slam-bang action movie given the onslaught of ads for “The Bourne Legacy” and the film is undeniably slow for its first hour. It’s not slow on a plotting level as Gilroy throws audiences into his complex story without much of a road map to the code names or a “previously on” to catch them up but there’s not a lot of action for too long in “Legacy,” especially not for what people were expecting from a summer blockbuster. I think at home people can more likely appreciate the way Gilroy and his talented cast, including Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, and Ed Norton, build tension and how well the final act truly works. The end is a bit abrupt but I hope this team gets a chance to make more “Bourne” movies.

The Blu-ray release for “The Bourne Legacy” includes a typically-strong-for-Universal HD transfer along with a better-than-average collection of special features. Most of the behind-the-scenes featurettes are awfully brief but people like Renner and Gilroy make solid interview subjects and, cumulatively, they offer a solid look into how a high-profile film like this gets made.

The Bourne Legacy was released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 11, 2012
Photo credit: Universal

Synopsis:
The Bourne Legacy takes the action-packed Bourne series to an explosive new level. On the verge of having their conspiracy exposed, members of the government’s intelligence community will stop at nothing to erase all evidence of their top secret programs - even the agents involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) must use his genetically-engineered skills to survive the ultimate game of cat-and-mouse and finish what Jason Bourne started. Also starring Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz and Academy Award nominee Edward Norton, critics are calling this a “thrilling, edge-of-your-seat heart-pounder” (Meg Porter Berns, WSVN-TV (FOX), Miami).

Click here to buy “The Bourne Legacy”

Special Features:
o Enter Aaron Cross
o Crossing Continents: Legacy On Location
o Man Vs. Wolf
o Wolf Sequence Test
o Moving Targets: Aaron And Marta
o Deleted Scenes
o Re-Bourne
o Capturing Chaos: The Motorbike Chase
o Filmmaker Commentary

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com