The Bourne Legacy (2012)

“The Bourne Legacy” is an apology of a movie. After three films as the Robert Ludlum-created 007 agent on steroids Jason Bourne, unlikely bad-ass Matt Damon passed on a fourth film after his director of Parts 2 and 3, Paul Greengrass, sneered at another go-round. That did not stop the studio. The film’s tagline shouts “There Was Never Just One” in a faux shocker as, duh, we all knew that already. So, enter Jeremy Renner (“Hurt Locker”) as Aaron Cross, another super super-agent who finds himself, very Bourne like, hunted by the dastardly CIA suits out to cover their own asses for reasons to complex to explain. That’s the problem right there: It’s the same story, down to the terrified female pal (Rachel Weisz). Director/writer Tony Gilroy (he wrote the previous films) tosses in countless references to Damon/Bourne in CNN shots, photos, shouted oaths, and –- in a ridiculous scene -– a carved signature under a bunk bed, not much as a tissue connector, but regret. “We miss Matt, too!” Forget the tired chase plot and the blank ending, if the movie wants to hook back up with the ex, why care about the new guy? C-

Duplicity (2009)

In “Duplicity,” Clive Owen and Julia Roberts play operatives for, respectively, MI-6 and the CIA, who meet not-so-cute in the film’s opening, have sex, and years later end up involved on opposite sides of a multi-million dollar game of cat-and-mouse between two giant health care products companies. Or, so it all seems. Tony Gilroy’s film is a game a spry one-lines and one-uppers, quite the opposite from the burning-down-the-house drama “Michael Clayton” he made several years ago. The game here is on the varying characters and the audience. There’s a fractured time structure to this cute/funny film that’s not nearly as cute/funny as Gilroy thinks it is, and one never forgets that we’re watching actors play variations of countless past parts. The real fun must have been had off camera. Rome actually looks better here than it did in true life. B-