Jason Bourne: Review

Director: Paul Greengrass
Running time: 123 minutes


A decent if formulaic cat and mouse action thriller.

Due to the volatile world we live in, the topic of surveillance and security has moved on from what you might call the streets, to the world of cyber technology. This has happened at the same time that social media has expanded its role in the everyday world. Which makes for a great combination for a modern day action/thriller, Bond touched on it in Spectre, and now the Bourne series returns to do the same but with mixed results.

Set twelve years after the Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is now living as an illegal street fighter on the borders of Albania and Greece. When former agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the accounts of the CIA, she uncovers files that relate to Jason Bourne, so she goes to Greece to inform him. The two of them are then pursued by the CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and head of cyber ops division Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander).

From there the film is more or less a cat and mouse chase from one location and action set piece to the next. The action is raw and effective, the fight scenes are bone crushingly exciting and the car chases blend in well with the real life locations. But it's hampered by overly fast editing and constant close ups, which gets distracting after awhile.

While the plot is engaging it also straddles along rather predictably, as the characters just keep reacting from one plot device to the next. With little danger, Bourne overcomes everything in the most convenient and convoluted ways, which creates very little tension.

The hacked files eventually reveal more about Bourne's past, and through a series of flashbacks the story comes full circle. But there isn't any emotional attachment to the character to care enough, which isn't helped when Matt Damon couldn't have said much more than fifty lines in the whole film. It's odd how uninteresting the character has become compared to the first three films.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag, Tommy Lee Jones is suitable for the part of a superior minded CIA director. While Alicia Vikander seems a little out of place, not only is her character nothing much more than a overused plot device, she has the same stiff and charmless expression throughout.

Shoehorned into all of this is a rather underused and ineffective subplot about big corporate silicon valley tech companies and their ambiguous relationship with the government. In this case it's the fictional 'Deep Dream' headed by a smug Aaron Kaloor (Raz Ahmed). It's a subject matter that deserves more than just a side note in a film series that I'm not sure it even belongs in.

The first half of Jason Bourne is really promising, it begins interesting enough and the stakes are really high, and the action is thrilling. But it soon falters and plods along to a final car chase through Las Vegas that's overlong and exhausting. Before ending in a wholly nimble way.

Verdict: 3/5