The official trailer for Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy arrived in 2012 and faced the real challenge of selling a franchise entry without its defining protagonist. The trailer presents the film's expansion of the Bourne universe with a confidence and visual energy that makes the case for Aaron Cross as a worthy successor to Jason Bourne, and Jeremy Renner's physical presence and screen authority give the trailer a credibility that the more expositionally dense film itself does not always sustain. It is a trailer that understood the difficulty of its task and addressed it with a directness and conviction that made The Bourne Legacy one of the more anticipated franchise extensions of its year, even if the film itself could not fully deliver on the promise of its marketing.
First Impressions
The trailer establishes Aaron Cross's physical capability and screen presence with enough confidence to make the case for his viability as a franchise protagonist, and Renner's authority gives the action sequences a credibility that distinguishes him from more generically capable action heroes. The franchise's established visual language is maintained with enough fidelity to signal the film's relationship to its predecessors, and the footage is honest about the fact that this is a different kind of Bourne film, making that difference feel like an asset rather than a concession. The new protagonist and the expanded mythology are presented as the primary selling points, and the trailer earns both.
What the Trailer Reveals
The trailer establishes the Outcome programme premise, conveys the CIA elimination threat, and glimpses the film's action sequences with enough detail to establish its physical ambition. Rachel Weisz's Marta Shearing is introduced with enough presence to establish her importance to the film's dramatic framework, and the Cross-Marta dynamic is presented as the element that gives the film's more spectacular passages their emotional grounding. The footage makes clear that the mythology has been expanded, even if the film itself struggles to make that expansion feel dramatically necessary.
Music and Sound
James Newton Howard's score gives the trailer a propulsive and atmospheric sonic energy that maintains the franchise's established register while giving the new entry enough distinctiveness to feel like a continuation rather than an imitation. The sound design on the action sequences is the trailer's most effective element, capturing the physical immediacy of the franchise's established visual language with a directness that makes the spectacle feel consequential.
Most Memorable Moment
The Manila motorcycle chase sequence, shown with enough detail to convey its kinetic energy and physical scale, is the trailer's most purely exciting image: a demonstration of practical filmmaking that establishes Cross's action credentials with a clarity and force that makes the case for his viability as a franchise protagonist more effectively than any amount of expositional mythology. Renner earns the sequence completely.
Trailer Verdict
A confident and visually effective trailer for a film that ultimately fails to deliver on the promise of its marketing. The Bourne Legacy is the franchise's most dramatically disappointing entry, but this trailer presents its ambitions with a directness and energy that makes it one of the more accomplished pieces of franchise extension marketing from its era. The trailer is better than the film. That is not a small achievement given how good the trailer is.