Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne wants so hard to believe in its own supremacy, forces an ultimatum of thrills and spills, but ultimately lacks identity.

The original trilogy still stands out as one of the most intelligent post-Cold War spy action thrillers and it mostly succeeded in being the last word in the genre. Its huge success and relevance also gave the Bond franchise a big wake-up call. Amnesia-assassin Bourne is the real thang!

So 9 years later, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon decided it is opportune time to inject a dose of Bourne-adrenaline and his extreme ways into us. The only problem is that instead of innovation and reinvention, it serves up last night's fried rice paradise. One shouldn't mess with paradise! Greengrass regurgitates out plot points from the three predecessors. From Operation Threadstone to Operation Blackbriar, we get yet another black-ops organisation called Ironhand that wants to stay hidden and will whack anyone to Kingdom Come to prevent its knowledge from getting out. It once again exploits Bourne's amnesia as he glimpses yet another piece of his jigsaw mind-puzzle. We get the same old CIA foggies uttering "Where's Bourne?" and everyone wearing pained expressions as Bourne evades everyone in Athens, Berlin, London and Las Vegas. We get yet again a woman who thinks she know best but Alicia Vikander has none of the gravitas of Joan Allen because she is too young to be convincing.

The screenplay does offer up an promising post-Snowden scenario but it still feels a little too familiar. These issues aside the movie is still a pulsating ride. The pace is relentless and Damon's taciturn Bourne still represents a driving force of reckoning. The spycraft and action set-pieces ooze uber-coolness and you will want to see it again just to catch how they did it. However I have one major complaint - I absolutely abhor the schizophrenic editing and jumpy hand-held shots. The camera never stays still for more than two seconds for you to marvel at the fight choreography and the vehicle mayhem-chases. In my book, hand-held shots coupled with split-second cuts are the cheapest type of cheat codes in action thrillers. With these type of cinematic trickery anybody can be a martial arts exponent and a world-class spy. No class.

This is a good dish of leftovers. It may harken you back to the days of the original trilogy but it never truly pushes the character to a new frontier re-examining his psychological state. In the end, a dish of leftovers will still serve its purpose, especially when you are famished.

Jason Bourne makes a welcome return in the self titled Jason Bourne, although this movie is not in the same league as The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). The Bourne Legacy (2012) saw the movie go in another direction with Jeremy Renner in the lead instead of Matt Damon however this was met with disappointing results. Jason Bourne sees Matt Damon slip back into one of his famous roles albeit some time has since passed.

Following the events of The Bourne Ultimatum which saw Jason Bourne slipping away after successfully exposing Operation Blackbriar, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) lives off the grid and makes a living participating in illegal bare knuckle fighting rings. Bourne is still troubled by memories of his past as a CIA black ops operative. Meanwhile in Iceland, former CIA operative turned computer hacker Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) uncovers Bourne's recruitment into the Treadstone program and his father's role in the program while hacking into the CIA's mainframe systems to expose the CIA's black ops program. The intrusion is brought to the attention of the CIA's head of the Cyber Ops Division Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), and CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) who also seemingly has a shady agenda. When Nicky travels to Greece to find and inform Bourne, they find themselves hunted by CIA operatives, including a ruthless assassin known as the Asset (Vincent Cassel). Jason Bourne must revisit his old life and uncover another conspiracy which he thought was well and truly behind him.

It was fantastic to see Paul Greengrass return to the director's chair to revisit the Bourne universe as well as Matt Damon making a welcome return as Jason Bourne, the role that added another string to his bow as an excellent actor. While I couldn't fault Matt Damon, it was like I was revisiting old ground with this movie. Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed and Vincent Cassel round out the supporting cast just fine.

While there's plenty of action sequences which are a staple for the Bourne series, Jason Bourne seems to focus on the action and I felt that the spirit of the original trilogy was missed with the intelligent story lines which made all three of the original movies very memorable when first released and to this day all three movies have earned a spot in my list of favourite movies of all time. Jason Bourne seemed to be like a popcorn movie to appeal to the audiences to who like to suspend their disbelief and enjoy the non-stop action.

While I had a good time in the cinema watching Jason Bourne, I fear that another Jason Bourne movie may be one too many which could tarnish the fond memories of the original Bourne trilogy. Perhaps it may be time to leave Jason Bourne alone.

7/10.

This film is quite good to be honest.Despite many problems,and a regurgitated plot being one of them,I have found this film to be really enjoyable.Matt Damon returns in the titular role after 9 years,and this time he's embroiled in a cat and mouse game played out at international locations. The camera-work is quite blurry,and dizzying at times.The action scenes are the greatest pro,especially the car chase in Las Vegas.Damon delivers a good performance but Alicia Vikander steals the show.Tommy Lee Jones is good to see too,nice to see that he is undertaking action films even at such an old age.The locations were chosen quite wisely.

On the downside,character development is kept to a minimum.There is a half-hearted attempt to tackle the timely topic of government surveillance versus citizen privacy.No scene lingers for more than 5 seconds.

I give this film a 7.While it does not match up to the original trilogy,it succeeds as a fun time at the movies.

Lacklustre story line lacking intelligence, dialogue, and character development.

I am a big fan of the franchise and my expectations may have been too high for this sequel. Was hoping for same kind of substance and kept waiting for something impressively unexpected, like previous. Legacy was a better film. Even fight scenes and car chases from all previous had a different "feel" than typical action films, but formula made these redundant and confusing, not fun like others. The predictable plot had me thinking, hoping for intelligent twist that did not happen. It's a good rental I suppose.

This was a big letdown, I'd had been looking foreword to it for ages too but for the most part this was boring, the story line was... nothing... a same ole Bourne is trying to find out about his past, people in an office looking at computers trying to find him. Just flat, predictable and redundant.

Tommy Lee Jones, wow was he even present for filming? He was just going through the motions here and appeared to shoot most of his scenes from his living room as he's on his own, on the phone or seated at a desk, appearing grumpy (as per) and bored.

Even the synopsis is dull "The CIA's most dangerous former operative is drawn out of hiding to uncover more explosive truths about his past." Meh.

On the plus there are some decent fight scenes, car chases as expected, an exciting motorcycle chase and a great bad guy with Vincent Cassel but nothing stand out or special there, everyone is just going through the motions.

Maybe I should give this another try, did I miss something?