Critic’s Choice: ‘The Bourne Legacy’

A film that was made because a studio was loathe to abandon a money-making franchise, a film made without the star that made that series so successful, a summer entertainment without a big box office name: If the movie business were ruled by logic, “The Bourne Legacy”wouldn’t have a chance. But the reality is that this brash and risky movie is one of the joys of the summer. Complex, unexpected and dazzling, alternating relentless tension with resonant emotional moments, this is an exemplary espionage thriller (impeccably cast from stars Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton on down) that has a faultless sense of what it wants to accomplish and how best to get there. Tony Gilroy, the man responsible for this accomplishment, is more than “Legacy’s” director and co-writer. Though this is his first time behind the “Bourne” camera, he has written on all four pictures, and is in effect the keeper of the franchise flame. Gilroy is easily as coolly efficient as the ruthless assassins he traffics in, and that is saying quite a lot.

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