Films > Film Reviews

Jason Bourne

22/08/16

Jason Bourne is a man who's been through some shit. In the first movie he lost his memory and with it his identity (Bourne again, you could say); in the next he got super pissed off when his new girlfriend was killed (Bourne to be wild); and then in the third movie he got revenge (Bourne to kill) as well as closure. There was another movie after that, but everyone just ignores that one as it doesn't even have JB in it (Bourne free) because by now, he's got his memory back and has come to terms with what he is and what he's done, so his story is pretty much wrapped up, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, it seems that Hollywood's not done with him yet, and that's a shame. Both for him, and for us.

Once again we find Bourne (Matt Damon, who is brilliant in this - this is not his fault) living 'off the grid' in Greece, where he's being paid cash in hand to knock people out. With one punch, obviously. We then move to ex-girlfriend/ex-CIA cohort Nicky (Julia Styles, also brilliant, also not her fault) who is in Iceland doing an Eddie Snowden, hacking away at government files, including the Treadstone project that created JB in the first place. Whilst she rifles through their back door, electronically speaking of course, she simultaneously tips off the men in black, and discovers some facts about Bourne's past that lead her to inexplicably blow Bourne's cover totally by contacting him so that she can give him the files in person - and this is where the film, and my problems with it, start.

The other movies were well written, engaging, and suspenseful. This one doesn't even make sense. Why did she contact him so covertly if she was going to leak all the info anyway? Surely he would've seen it at that point - along with the entire world? Then, why does she meet him at the highly secure, highly covert, highly illegal boxing match where he was surrounded by people watching out for the cops, just to arrange to meet him somewhere public in an hour to give him the info? Why not just give it to him there and then? I know that you can pick holes in any story, but this is just fucking lazy.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy of repeated history, all of which could've been mercifully avoided by simple inaction from anyone and everyone involved. Actually, I was talking about the plot to start with, but this statement actually goes for everyone responsible for the film as well.

If the first three Bourne films were all about regaining lost memory, then the fourth (or fifth depending on how you look at it) film is about deja vu. We have the shady European counter-agent sent to try to take out Bourne (played well by Vincent Cassell, in fairness); we've got the woman-in-a-man's-world agent in charge (Alicia Vikander), whose whole future depends on her success at catching Bourne; there's the obviously dodgy-as-fuck older agent (Tommy Lee Jones hamming it up. Seriously, he's hammy as fuck - Hammy Lee Jones) who, handily, has all his secrets stored on icloud; and then there's Bourne himself. Or should that be Jason Bored. A man who, by now, is so fed up with having no one chase him that he's willing to get himself beaten up just to feel anything at all. He embarks on this ridiculous quest to 'find the truth' with the same enthusiasm as a man who's walking his dog in the rain just to escape a visit from his in-laws.

The action scenes are cool, if familiar, and as far as fourth instalments go, it isn't as bad as Die Hard, but where the storyline of the previous three Bourne movies is like a winding, twisting path that could potentially lead anywhere, this feels like a straight road to the finish, with a paper thin plot serving only as a device for dishing out some more Bourne style ass-kickery. And Bourne films have previously always been better than that. Shame.

5/10 - Bourne under a bad sign