In the year 2002, the spy genre was facing a bit of a crisis. It was the fortieth anniversary of the Bond franchise, with Die Another Day set to release that November. While this would go on to be one of the most ridiculous films on the planet, it only looked worse because of another spy film that opened a few months prior, one that would change the spy genre forever. This, of course, was The Bourne Identity, a gritty and more realistic spy thriller that traded ridiculous gadgets and quips for brutal action and gripping character drama. The last film to star Matt Damon as the titular spy was released in 2007 (let’s forget about the Jeremy Renner one), and now that the spy genre has been Bourne-ified, it seems like the appropriate time for the master of gritty spies to come back and show us how it’s done. But is it successful? Let’s find out.
A decade after the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is in hiding, trying to escape the memories of his dark past as an agent for Project Treadstone. He is pulled back into the world by old ally Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who has been stealing classified information from the CIA to release to the world. This puts Bourne in the crosshairs of the Agency once more, with CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and analyst Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) leading the charge. Unbeknownst to Lee, Dewey has also employed a former Treadstone agent with connections to Bourne called the Asset (Vincent Cassel) to handle things. Complicating matters is the relationship between the CIA and social media giant Deep Dream’s CEO Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), but we’ll hold off on that for now.
One thing you can say about Jason Bourne is that it is definitely a Bourne movie. Jason Bourne still has to remember something, he gets into car chases and fist fights, and he doesn’t really exude much of a personality. For what we’ve come to expect from a Bourne movie, this fits the bill quite well. The film delivers on these aspects kind of in spades, and Matt Damon still brings a lot to this role even though nothing much is demanded of him as an actor until near the end. The action is exciting and the actors all pull off their roles well, except for Julia Stiles, who acts like she would rather be anywhere else than this film. Thankfully, her role is fairly short and doesn’t drag the film down too much.
Special credit needs to be given to director Paul Greengrass (director of the last two Bourne films to star Damon), who proves to be the only director who can use shaky cam effectively for action sequences. You guys know what I’m talking about. It’s that thing in movies where, in fight scenes between two or more characters, the camera shakes like there’s an avalanche happening and obscures things a bit. While pretty much every other director that tries to use this technique fails miserably, Greengrass is able to make things clear enough and fluid enough to make the action scenes still exciting and fun to watch. His cinematographer, a guy named Barry Ackroyd who worked on the other Bourne films, also deserves a lot of credit for making these scenes work. Bottom line on the shaky cam is that if you didn’t like the action in Supremacy and Ultimatum, you won’t like it here, and vice versa.
While some have criticized the plot for being too repetitive, I actually quite enjoyed the storyline with Bourne discovering more about his past. It’s so obvious that this wasn’t supposed to be made, since Ultimatum pretty much established that he remembered everything, but I thought they did a good job bringing this back up as an issue and having other factors besides just what Bourne remembered play into the story. It’s a cheap way to set up more sequels, but I love this character and I love this world, so I didn’t mind it. I think Jason Bourne is a very unique character because of this plot point, setting him apart from the other super-spies with the initials J.B. (James Bond and Jack Bauer). I’d love to see this explored further down the line, but with some reservations.
I definitely enjoyed the Bourne storyline, but the plot with the Deep Dream social media stuff was just so unnecessary and very plot device-y, to the point where I started nodding off whenever it would pop up. The privacy debate is discussed in little fleeting moments here and there, but nothing is ever really made of it besides having Tommy Lee Jones growl about it some. It just seems like backdrop to make the film more timely, rather than something that actually matters to the story. It’s a shame because this debate is something that does really need to be discussed more, and I figured that after films like SPECTRE failed to do it justice that a more socially conscious director like Paul Greengrass would be able to address it properly. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
There’s a name missing from the list of returning folks to this film that I think pinpoints the main problem with this film. Sure, you’ve got Greengrass, you’ve got Matt Damon, and they even brought in the director of the first film, Doug Liman, to executive produce, but a key player is now gone: Tony Gilroy, the writer of the first three films. While those films all felt so fresh and new, with interesting dialogue and character moments, this one feels like such a retread. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, y’all: Jason Bourne can’t remember his past so he battles corrupt bureaucrats at the CIA and a nameless Treadstone agent to find the truth and destroy some greater conspiracy. Sounds like the original trilogy, right? The film just plays it so safe that it just feels like a retread rather than anything new or really refreshing, the way that the original three films did. There's nothing wrong with following a formula (hell, that's Marvel's business model now), but there has to be something there that sets it apart, and without the clever writing it just feels like another action movie. I just feel like if they were going to revive such an influential series, they needed to step up their game and try to reestablish what made those first three so great. They had all the potential to be the Mad Max: Fury Road of the spy genre, but it chose the safe route instead.
Jason Bourne is not as good as the first three Bourne movies by any observable metric, but I would be lying to myself if I said I didn’t enjoy watching it. Like a lot of movies this summer, it strives to entertain and check all the boxes rather than try anything new or interesting, and it does that. It's just disappointing that with all the talent behind this that they couldn't have made a better movie. There is still a lot of potential with this franchise, though, and I hope that it can build off of the positive elements of this film and deliver a truly original and awesome adventure the next time Jason Bourne comes to town.
My Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Jason Bourne is in theaters now.
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