Norton Plays Ex-Colonel in New Bourne Movie

Columbia native, Jim Rouse's grandson and movie star, Edward Norton, will be in a new movie opening on Friday.

In The Bourne Legacy, Norton plays a former U.S. Air Force colonel named Eric Byer who is involved with an organization tasked with tracking down Jeremy Renner’s (Hurt Locker, The Avengers) Aaron Cross.

Pointedly, Jason Bourne, formely played by Matt Damon, is not in this movie, despite it being the fourth movie in the Bourne series. To deal with Damon’s absence, the movie’s creators have written a storyline about Norton's Byer who is tasked with disassembling specific CIA special ops programs across the world, according to the movie’s production notes.

In order to do so, he must track down and kill the agents involved in the programs, one of those being Renner’s Cross. 

On CBS News, Norton said, “In this film, you sort of go to the next level ... and realize that the story up to now has been nested within a larger reality of a department that's been running, not only the Bourne program, but the one that Jeremy's character is a part of. And it literally just picks up a level and lets you see the larger, the ramifications of what's taken place in the first film."

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a rating of 56 percent, with many critics lamenting the loss of Damon.

But what do the critics think of Norton’s performance? Here are some samples:

“The bad guys, from Norton on down, are terse, self-serving and ruthless 'just do it' types." – Todd McCarthy, Hollwood Reporter

“A new-model government super-assassin (Louis Ozawa Changchien) is abruptly introduced to chase down the heroes, and the film suddenly turns into Terminator 2. Norton’s character drops down the rabbit hole, Joan Allen and David Strathairn from the earlier movies suddenly reappear, and The Bourne Legacy folds its hand with a limp romantic fade-out and a cheesy pop song.” – Ty Burr, Boston Globe

“The Bourne Legacy is chockablock with busy character-actor casting, from Edward Norton’s nasally fed bulldog to fleeting cameos by David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney and Joan Allen.” – Michael Atkinson, LA Weekly

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