REVIEW: Jason Bourne

Courtesy of Universal

Almost immediately after Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass appeared to wrap up the Jason Bourne saga with 2007’s excellent The Bourne Ultimatum, people started asking when they were making another sequel. Damon’s answer never changed. He said he refused to sign up without Greengrass and they wouldn’t do it unless they could think of great story.

Now, almost a decade later (we’ll pretend that Bourne Legacy spinoff with Jeremy Renner never happened), the collaborators have reunited for the highly anticipated Jason Bourne. Unfortunately, it appears that the “great story” co-writers Greengrass and Christopher Rouse concocted essentially boils down to “give us an armored car full of money and Matt Damon will come back.” As someone who loved the first three, it might be the most disappointing film I’ve seen all year. And I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The first installment, directed by Doug Liman, focused on action over intrigue. But the next two films – directed by Greengrass – played up the conspiracy thriller elements and established the visual style fans have come to associate with the series. Those movies also addressed current events, but they did it in a smart, subtle way and made sure to pepper the bureaucratic cloak-and-dagger stuff with plenty of tense, somewhat plausible fight and chase sequences.

Maybe Greengrass is a little rusty after nine years, because Jason Bourne punches smart and subtle to death and tosses them out a window. Instead, we’re subjected to tired family clichés stuffed inside vague moralizing about the lack of privacy on the internet. There are still plenty of great fights and car chases, but you have to sit through endless scenes of familiar exposition to get to them.

In the opening moments of Jason Bourne, we learn that the titular character is living off the grid in Greece. He’s earning money by fighting, which only reminds him of haunted past. Meanwhile, his former colleague (Julia Stiles) is now a disciple of a Julian Assange-style hacker who talks her into stealing a ton of classified CIA documents. In the process, she learns some important information about Bourne that she decides to give him.

If you’ve seen any of these movies, you know how well that plan goes. However, it does provide a new mission for Bourne, who’s now intent on learning more about his training while avoiding detection from both a fellow assassin (Vincent Cassel) and power-hungry bureaucrats (Tommy Lee Jones and Alicia Vikander). Oh, and there’s also an odd subplot about a social media billionaire (Riz Ahmed) that goes absolutely nowhere.

I didn’t hate Jason Bourne, but I was incredibly frustrated by the wasted potential. Damon, as always, fully commits to his performance. It’s just too bad he doesn’t have a strong script to back him up. The actor manages to convey emotion almost totally through body language and action. I’d be shocked if he had more than 30 lines in the entire movie.

Cassel is strong as well, although the most intriguing aspect of his character is mentioned once and then never addressed again. If the film had focused more on that idea, it would’ve gone a long way toward making him a three-dimensional character instead of a one-note villain.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast isn’t as lucky. On the surface, Jones seems perfectly cast as the director of the CIA; but then he sleepwalks through the role and you realize Greengrass probably could’ve gotten a more invested actor for much cheaper. Stiles and Vikander (a recent Oscar winner and one of my favorite actresses) are completely squandered, playing characters who only exist to be emotional baggage or exposition delivery systems.

From a visual perspective, Jason Bourne is terrific. There are plenty of moviegoers who loathe Greengrass’ “shakycam” aesthetic, but I maintain he’s one of the few filmmakers who understand how to use it in a way that allows viewers to keep up with the action. He moves the camera with a purpose: to heighten the tension and create a sense of realism others lack. This is particularly evident in an absolutely brutal fight scene between Damon and Cassel. It’s easily the best sequence in the film.

That’s why it’s a shame Greengrass the director is betrayed by Greengrass the screenwriter. This is the kind of “smart” spy thriller in which spies find USB drives with ‘ENCRYPTED” scrawled across them in giant letters. In which high-profile characters who shouldn’t be associating with one another have meetings in busy restaurants, even though either of them would be immediately recognized by anyone who watches the news. In which a “covert” assassin drives a stolen SWAT vehicle down the Vegas strip, crashing dozens of cars and probably killing hundreds of tourists.

In the screening I attended, those sequences prompted lots of chuckles from the audience – a reaction I’m sure Greengrass, Damon and the rest of the creative team weren’t looking for. There were also quite a few groans as it became increasingly obvious that all this ridiculousness was setting the table for a sequel we’re probably never going to see.

Granted, because of my previous faith in these films (again, not counting the studio-mandated The Bourne Legacy) I’d be willing to see another Bourne adventure if this one ends up being a way for Greengrass to shake off the cobwebs and get back to the style and smarts of the original. For now, however, I’m going to keep pretending that The Bourne Ultimatum marked the end of the series.

Jason Bourne is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.

Grade: C