New Bourne Just Isn't the Same

The Bourne Legacy has its moments, and Jeremy Renner proves compelling in place of Matt Damon. But the latest in the superspy series lacks the emotional power of its predecessors, critics say:

• "Thanks to Renner’s smart, charismatic performance and a couple of elegant action sequences early on, The Bourne Legacy mostly holds its own as a late-summer thrill ride," writes Dana Stevens at Slate—"but only if you’re able to wipe your mind clean of the knowledge that it could have been something more."

• Manohla Dargis calls the film "less a thrilling franchise reboot than a solid salvage mission." Writing in the New York Times, she notes that "little feels at stake here," outside of director Tony Gilroy's "future as a Bourne director."
• In Newsday, Rafer Guzman isn't pleased. It's "a talky, draggy thriller, muddled by flashbacks and woefully low on action," he writes.
• The film is "surprisingly limp and even more incomprehensible" than the previous installments, notes the Toronto Star. It "demonstrates potential without ever kicking into high gear."

(More Jeremy Renner stories.)