Review: ‘Jason Bourne’ a movie fans have already seen.
Matt Damon’ s memory-challenged assassin is back, with no new tricks in his bag
Until its final act, “Jason Bourne” is just another Jason Bourne movie. Producers seemingly couldn’t even think up another title.
Many things that made the first three Bourne movies fresh, fun and fascinating are still present, but to the point that it’s difficult to discern at times which Bourne film is on the screen. And that prompts the question: Why bother at all?
After a one-film hiatus with Jeremy Renner playing the protagonist — right, they made a Bourne movie without the title character — Matt Damon returns after nine years to play the mysterious former CIA killer trying to piece together his past.
The new movie finds the stoic, hardened protagonist living off-thegrid and surviving as an underground street fighter. With writers looking to freshen things up by playing off recent headlines, Bourne’s former colleague and gal-pal Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) steals secret files detailing CIA black-operative programs, including Treadstone, where Bourne was trained to be a killer. Parsons wants to go public, but she also wants Bourne to know the truth about his past.
Once our heroes reteam, director Paul Greengrass — who also skipped the most recent chapter, 2012’s “The Bourne Legacy” — goes heavy on the
action. But what starts out as a big, explosive (no, really) return to the action sequences that felt so fresh in previous films, becomes tedious and lengthy. The shaky hand-held camera work that effectively brought reality to previous Bourne films does the viewer no favors when a scene runs too long. The approach also makes it difficult to discern exactly who is doing what to whom. On the flip side, it’s fascinating to watch how the fictional CIA tracks its targets on the big screen, making one wonder how much was lifted from real life.
Tommy Lee Jones easily steps easily into the role of new Bourne nemesis, CIA Director Robert Dewey, a ruthless patriot obsessed with forwarding the agency’s agenda, which, of course, includes spying on Americans. Riz Ahmed plays Aaron Kalloor, a Silicon Valley tycoon who is secretly in bed with the CIA over informationsharing and who is being pressured by the agency to involve them in his new social media platform.
Greengrass takes us through familiar territory — Bourne racing around the world trying to figure out his past, with very killable CIA operatives on his tail, and a sympathetic woman at the agency, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), trying to figure out whose side she’s on. She turns out to be the film’s most complex character.
What’s not so familiar is how much of Bourne’s memory of his earlier life has finally come back to him including new twists involving his father, how Bourne was recruited, and his connection to “The Asset,” a top-notch CIA killer played by Vincent Cassel.
Until its last big action scene — which rivals “The Blues Brothers” in its joy of destroying cars — I kept hoping for something dif- ferent. Bourne leads a hard, sad life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the character should be absolutely humorless. And while he’s understood to be a multilayered guy who, despite the ease with which he kills, generally tries to do the right thing, I’d like to see a new aspect of his personality.
We do get a non-European climax, with the parties converging in Las Vegas, where a sequence occurs that defies even previous Bourne films for insane action. Greengrass and co-writer Christopher Rouse leave us hanging at the end, asking a question that could bring a muchneeded shift to the focus of the franchise, should it continue. Otherwise, while it’s been a fun ride with this franchise, retelling the same story is a waste of time.