Jason Bourne
Bourne’s return fails to land a knockout blow
Much has changed in the nine years since we last saw Matt Damon’s amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. James Bond got good, for one, while attempts to reboot the series with ill-fated spin-off The Bourne Legacy were as welcome as a blow to the head with a rolled-up magazine. The return of Damon and director Paul Greengrass should have been cause for celebration, then, but Bourne’s latest falls well short of earlier missions’ benchmark-setting standards.
Having spent the last decade bare-knuckle boxing off the grid, Bourne is coaxed out of hiding when an old acquaintance uncovers a fresh mystery from his top-secret past. This personal vendetta puts the super spy on a collision course with Tommy Lee Jones’ CIA director, Alicia Vikander’s ambitious cyber ops specialist and Vincent Cassel’s vicious asset.
Naturally the action is superb. The opening set-piece – a chaotic motorbike chase through the streets of Athens amidst an austerity riot – is so thrilling it threatens to bring on cardiac arrest, while later on a destruction derby down the Las Vegas Strip boasts Mad Max levels of carmaggeddon. Only the close-quarters combat disappoints action-wise, with scraps that fail to match the intensity and invention of the series’ best.
It’s the story that’s the major letdown. After almost a decade, Bourne’s return to the big screen should have felt more vital and relevant than it does here, lacking the smarts to make the most of its post-Snowden, 24/7 surveillance setting. It’s loads better than The Bourne Legacy, of course, but Jason Bourne never emerges from the shadow of its illustrious predecessors.