2. Misuse of Edward Norton
If you're going to cast an actor of Edward Norton's calibre in your film, you'd better have something interesting for him to do. In fact, one has to wonder what would entice Norton to take a role which would mostly see him standing in a brightly-lit room staring at surveillance footage and chewing out his subbordinates, other than perhaps an admiration for the franchise as a whole. Norton definitely gives his turn as antagonist Eric Byer a firm shot, but from the safety of his building, he's not a particularly threatening foe, and though Norton rinses the dialogue with his trademark cadence and inflexions, there's the feeling that he should have been given more to do, or the role should have been handed to a lesser actor. In fact, the character feels so minor in the scope of the story that it's not an immediate thought to label him the villain, and this is more Gilroy's fault than anything, as he has Cross spending most of the film searching for his precious pills. Though the likes of Noah Vosen rarely ventured beyond their offices in the previous films, they at least had an active engagement with the manhunt, whereas Byer seems to sit permanently in the sidelines.