Jason Bourne (2016) | Film Review

It’s hard to believe that it’s been fourteen years since a baby-faced Matt Damon first introduced us to everyone’s favorite ass-kicking amnesiac in Doug Liman’s “The Bourne Identity”.  The super-charged and kinetic fight scenes, Looney Tunes paced chases, and Damon’s natural charisma drew world-wide audiences in and gave them one hell of an action show.  Two sequels – “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” – inevitably followed in 2004 and 2007, but with not much heard on the franchise for quite a few years – and after a 2012 reboot with Jeremy Renner as the new lead failed to set the box office afire – it pretty much seemed that the ultimate fate of Jason Bourne was destined to be left to our imaginations, or on some dusty shelf at the local book store.

Well, folks, you can rest easy.  Bourne is back.  The baby-face is gone – welcome to middle age, Jason – but the fire is still there.  It might not be burning as hot as it once did, but we all know it won’t be long before those flames come roaring back to life.

The movie launches with our hero in less than ideal circumstances.  That magical bag of money he used to be dragging around is long gone, and Bourne is now reduced to street-fighting to make ends meet.  Yeah, I guess that’ll happen if you’re in the habit of paying random strangers $20,000 for a lift to Paris.  Anyways, it isn’t long before an old CIA colleague from the past, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles reprising her role from the previous films), comes knocking at his door.  Seems like life hasn’t been too kind to her either, the events of “Ultimatum” having sent her on the run from their old bosses as well.  Since then, she’s hacked her ex-employers database and gotten tangled up with a Snowden-type character who wants to help her reveal the truth behind The Company’s nasty, behind-the-scenes shenanigans.  Of course, Bourne would rather not get back in the game, but when Nicky reveals that the files she has hacked hold secrets to Bourne’s still murky past, our boy can’t resist.

Wham! Bam!  Here we go again.

We’re treading pretty familiar ground here, my friends.  If you’ve seen the previous entries in the series, you pretty much know how things go down.  We start with Bourne in hiding, minding his own business.  He gets dragged back in.  The higher-ups see his face on a camera somewhere.  Someone goes “(Gasp!) That’s Jason Bourne”.  They quickly decide the best course of action is to put him down.  Assets are activated and, before you know it, half the cities in Europe are about to undergo urban renewal whether they like it or not.

Now, I know this might sound like I’m about to give this flick a right trouncing, but I’m not.  I had a really great time with “Jason Bourne”.  Sure, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but that is really not a bad thing.  Director Paul Greengrass, who took over the reins from Liman for parts 2 and 3, throws Damon back into the mix with much the same gusto he did previously.  The action scenes are still just as visceral, though they are noticeably less frantic.  Whereas the pace of the other movies barely left you a moment to take a breath, here the pauses between the action are a bit more drawn out, but not too much.  And you’ll notice Bourne seems to rely a bit more on motorized transport than his own two feet this time around.  Hey, people get older.  When you’re just a few years shy of 50, you can’t be expected to be parkouring your way across an entire city from rooftop-to-rooftop.  Better to blow a tire than a boot when you’re creeping up into that age bracket.  But again, don’t let my words lead you astray.  When it comes to the fisticuffs, booticuffs, kneeicuffs, and pretty much every other kind of cuffs, the Bourne we all know and love is still at the top of his game.  And when it comes to those motorized vehicles I just mentioned, his driving skills are just as mad as ever.  Not just mad, actually.  Damn near psychotic.

At no point did I feel Matt Damon was phoning it in or giving it anything less than his best.  Some actors these days seem to return to old characters with little if any enthusiasm, but this guy is the goods.  Having re-watched the entire trilogy just before seeing this, it really didn’t feel like 9 years had passed since we spent time with Bourne last.  There may be a few more frown lines on that face, but Jason Bourne – as a character – is certainly alive and well.  Good on ya, Matt.

Since this series treats a lot of its characters in pretty much the same way as last week’s episode of “Game of Thrones”, there are a few new faces this time around.  Tommy Lee Jones is the new Director of the CIA, Robert Dewey, and he does what Tommy Lee Jones does best these days; slinking around looking like he’s pissed off at the world.  And I really believe he is.  Thankfully, he’s very good at this and it serves his character well.  Acclaimed French actor Vincent Cassel spends much of the movie tight on Bourne’s behind as The Asset.  That’s it.  Just The Asset.  It’s even how he’s listed in the credits.  I think he gets much more screen time here than previous Assets – which have included such heavy hitters as Karl Urban and Clive Owen – and there’s something about the look of this guy that really intrigues me.  He is a force to be reckoned with in his own right, and even though I think they gave him a bit too much backstory here (I like my Assets to be a bit more on the mysterious side), he does earn his place as one of the best Bourne adversaries.  Riz Ahmed does a good job as the young, tech billionaire who may not be as righteous as he makes himself out to be, but I did get the feeling that most of his research into the character probably involved watching lots of TED Talk videos.  Seriously though, he was fine, even if we do tend to see a lot of that kind of character these days.  It’s nice to see Julia Stiles back again, but aside from being the kick in the butt Bourne needs to get on the move again, her character doesn’t bring much else to the proceedings.

Now, I need a nice new paragraph for what I’m about to address next, and that would be the portrayal of CIA computer expert Heather Lee – a young woman who has Bourne on the brain and an eye on moving up in The Agency – by the striking Alicia Vikander.  This character threw me for a loop.  In the early parts of the movie, I didn’t care that much for her.  She was essentially playing the same part vacated by Joan Allen, the pawn in the office being manoeuvered by both unscrupulous superiors and Bourne himself.  But as the story progressed, something started to become more and more apparent.  This lady is not who she appears to be.  Or is she?  When the final credits rolled, I still wasn’t sure, and I was glad.  I feel there will be a lot of discussion as to this character’s true motives, and what exactly was going on in that lovely head of hers during her last scene.  I’m sure many will say it’s pretty solidified what happens, but I disagree.  If it is that clear-cut, I think it will ultimately take away from the story.  If what’s really going on is what I think it is….oh boy.  Either way, it was a great performance, and she has one of the best poker faces I’ve seen in a while.  I can’t wait to see her as the new Lara Croft.

There are negatives.  As I said before, “Jason Bourne” doesn’t rewrite the book on action movies, and it is pretty much a retread of what we’ve seen before.  However, when you have this kind of talent in front of and behind the camera, a lot can be forgiven.  It does lack the emotional wallops of my favorite in the franchise, “The Bourne Supremacy”, where poor Jason started the movie with a huge personal loss and ended it with a gripping scene where he seeks to bring peace and closure to another who has experienced similar loss, but that movie is hard to top.  Still, it would have been nice to have Bourne a little more emotionally invested in his quest. There is a definite attempt early on, but it doesn’t have near the impact that I feel the filmmakers were hoping for.  Again, I think The Asset was given too much back story, even if it doesn’t mar that performance in any way.  It’s one of those situations where they end up giving us too much in an attempt to heighten the tension between these two characters.  It was unnecessary and comes off as a bit contrived.  And finally, if you’re not a fan of shaky-cam, you’d better brace yourself, because there is a whole lot of shakin’ going on.  Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much, but I know it was a popular complaint in the past, and not much has changed in the present.

All-in, “Jason Bourne” is a worthy addition to the franchise and an adrenaline shot to this summer’s box office.  It’s good old, rock ‘em-sock ‘em action with a character we are more than happy to get behind, and who makes brutality fun.  The fights and chases are still furious, if not as fast, and Alicia Vikander is a welcome addition who I can’t wait to discuss once others have seen the film.

Bourne is indeed back, and it was well worth the wait.