Jason Bourne (2016)

Review

123min

Genre:      Action, Thriller

Director:   Paul Greengrass

Cast:        Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones…and more

Writers:    Paul Greengrass, Christopher Rouse and Robert Ludlum

-Synopsis-

With the help of an old “friend”, a new one and his memory intact; everyone’s favourite amnesiac super-agent returns on a globe-trotting mission to find out the truth about his origins while haunting the CIA and revealing some dark secrets about the agency.

Nine years after his last “Bourne” collaboration with writer/director Paul Greengrass, and at the age of 45, we wouldn’t have predicted the return of Matt Damon to the series which made him an unlikely global action star.

But it seems no one is immune from the nostalgia outbreak in Hollywood, or the lure of the sequel dollar, so the highly capable rogue CIA agent is back!; older and wiser but more emotionally damaged, living off the grid, until an encounter with his past brings him back into the international espionage fold.

Sporting an impressive physique and typically brooding intensity; Damon seamlessly slips back into “Bourne” mode and reunites with co-star Julia Stiles, while Tommy Lee Jones joins the fray in typically solid form as the ruthless CIA director on a manhunt, along with Alicia Vikander as the conflicted cyber-division agent.

Perhaps as expected, ‘Jason Bourne’ is a tense thrill ride throughout, as the action and intrigue moves across Europe and finally settles in the United States. Greengrass and co-writer Rouse have systematically re-created the core elements which made the series so successfully and fused it with a contemporary narrative which bends over backwards  to reflect a changing world.

The story weaves in the ongoing struggle between freedom and privacy within democracies, plus the effect of social media and the “Wikileaks”/”Snowden” saga on the world, not to mention general civil unrest and political uncertainty.

But let’s be clear here, Greengrass & co. make no real attempt to re-invent that spy-thriller wheel which this series helped to revolutionise. If you’re looking for something fresh or new then you best go somewhere else. ‘Jason Bourne’ unabashedly recycles and updates plenty from the rest of the series, in both narrative and execution.

With a bigger budget, more elaborate stunts and glossier visuals; this was never going to feel like ‘The Bourne Identity’ original or have the same impact, but then what recent sequel or reboot does? ‘Jason Bourne’ however doesn’t rely as heavily on nostalgia as last year’s “Bond” outing ‘Spectre’, nor is it as dully derivative as more recent franchise sequels, and if you take an honest look back at the series, it’s easily as entertaining and enjoyable as any of the “Bourne” sequels.

The Bottom Line…

Although the novelty of a series which revolutionised the spy-thriller is gone, and ‘Jason Bourne’ offers little that’s fresh to the genre; it’s still a thoroughly entertaining, solidly acted and well-executed movie-going experience which brings the “Bourne” legacy full circle… and potentially takes a big “progressive” step into the future.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Spectre (2015)

Following the events of ‘Skyfall’, MI6 and its agents are under threat from the power of a new British government surveillance agency; while Bond scours the globe to uncover the terrible secrets of a mysterious and dangerous organization called “SPECTRE”, with wide-reaching tentacles that stretch all the way to his own past in the 24th Bond instalment, directed by Sam Mendes.

Directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz and Léa Seydoux among others.

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