Jason Bourne may be gone, but his presence continues to loom large and have dire consequences. That seems to be the running thread throughout the trailer for The Bourne Legacy, which has Jeremy Renner stepping in to lead the groundbreaking franchise Matt Damon built. After an excellent, 1970s style trailer was released awhile back, we're now getting a bigger look at the picture, and some of the story threads that had been kept under wraps are starting to be unveiled.
Series scribe Tony Gilroy takes over as director, and just as he promised, the film is firmly mired in the murky world where Jason Bourne still exists. Renner plays Aaron Cross, another shadow soldier under the employ of a dangerous government cabal. This one is Operation Outcome, described as Project Treadstone without the inconsistency, it too apparently has a problem keeping its operatives in line. Springboarding off of Jason Bourne's actions at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, all of their agents are appear to be regaining their memories in the field, and must be terminated before it escalates into a national security disaster.
Many of the same faces from the previous films emerge as integral pieces of this puzzle, including Joan Allen, David Straithairn, Scott Glenn, and Albert Finney, although it's unclear whether they have the same self serving motivations as before. Rachel Weisz's role seems pretty certain, though, looking more like a colleague of Cross's as he evades capture by racing through the city streets. In the Bourne world, the word "villain" is ambiguous at best, meaningless at worst, so it's nice to see that some of the mystery surrounding Edward Norton's character has been maintained.
While it lacks some of the grittiness of Paul Greengrass's previous films, Gilroy looks to have pumped up the action considerably, which should be just perfect for a physical actor like Renner. Check out the trailer for The Bourne Legacy below, then look for it to open on August 3rd....
