In the wake of his sizzling performance in The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner gathered up movie projects like he was prepping for winter hibernation. Now, those movies are slowly starting to trickle out into theaters, with his co-starring turn in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol paving the way for his leading man role in the new installment of the Bourne saga. But can he pull it off?
The first trailer for The Bourne Legacy, which swaps Matt Damon out for Renner, has hit the net and provides the necessary slow burn to ease us into the new face of the franchise. Renner isn’t Bourne—he’s a new Treadstone super soldier who also happens to be on the run from the government (like returning favorites David Strathairn, Joan Allen and new baddie Edward Norton). I’m not sure Renner has the same inherent charisma and dramatic umph that Damon so elegantly provided in the first three Bourne movies, but he can certainly…run quickly. And shoot guns. And look frazzled. So maybe he has what it takes, after all.
Bourne Legacy is directed by Tony Gilroy, who wrote all three previous films and was nominated for an Oscar for his directorial debut Michael Clayton. The man knows how to pack weight into a scene, and from the few glimpses in the trailer, knows how to pull off an fight scene too. Not quite the stylistic ingenuity of Supremacy and Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass, but there’s excitement to be found, for sure. The movie hits theaters August 3, 2012. Will it stand up to the original movies?
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