This is the fourth film in the Bourne series although it doesn’t actually feature Bourne except for one instance where they show a photo of him taken from the passport in the first film and a couple of mentiones of his name.
The film follows on pretty much from where the third left off and follows the after affects of Bourne’s happenings in the third film, The Bourne Ultimatum, with a few scenes cut directly from there.
Aaron Cross is our new main character who is almost complete in his training in a not too different program to Bourne. He suddenly finds all the other trainess are dead around him and, just like the first three films, he then spends most of the film trying to survive while the US government use every resource they’ve got in an attempt to have him killed. So nothing particularly new from the plot, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. At least it’s equally well done same plot.
This film does focus a little more on the training side of things however, showing Bourne’s name scratched into a bunk where Aaron rests during training and it also goes into the science a good bit more behind how they get these super assassins.
Our damsel in distress turns out to be more interesting too. She’s got a brain and while not a killer manages to handle herself with much more dignity and sense than a lot of damsel’s do. I found myself liking her even more than I liked him and usually damsel in distress grates on me.
It’s not really as good as the first three but I was still entertained and I’m really interested in what might follow. They’ve left it open for a Bourne + Cross fifth film and I confess, that I would love to see.