Review: Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has gone off the grid and turned into an underground fighter in some Eastern European hellhole. He’s propelled back into action when contacted by his former CIA handler Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who has also left the fold. She contacts Bourne to give him vital information about his father (Gregg Henry) and specifically how he died. Meanwhile the CIA, under the direction of Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and his personal assassin known as ‘The Asset’ (Vincent Cassel) are on the lookout for Bourne, who in turn is coming straight for them anyway. Alicia Vikander plays Heather Lee, Dewey’s underling who tries to get Bourne back into the fold rather than having to rub him out. Riz Ahmed plays a tech tycoon who has developed a program useful in accessing people’s private information, which figures into the plot.

I don’t have much time for this franchise nor all that much knowledge of it or the Robert Ludlum novels. I didn’t sit all the way through the first film, a rarity for me. I skipped the second one entirely, and didn’t much like “The Bourne Ultimatum”, which I did indeed sit through. I didn’t even know they made a fourth one, with Jeremy Renner, so I haven’t seen it either. So clearly, I’m not a fan here. Now here’s this 2016 fifth entry from director Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Ultimatum”, “Green Zone”, “Captain Phillips”) and his co-writer Christopher Rouse (Normally an editor including this film. This is his first screenplay effort), which also didn’t do a whole lot for me.

The shake and zoom and pan of cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (“The Hurt Locker”, “Coriolanus”, “Green Zone”, “Captain Phillips”) are back, and although not as annoying as in other films it’s still a source of irritation for me. For starters, the shaky-cam is used in scenes that don’t require nor benefit from it, though unlike “The Bourne Ultimatum” at least it’s not during a coffee-drinking scene. On the plus side, the music score by David Buckley (“The Town”, “The Nice Guys”) and John Powell (“The Road to El Dorado”, “Happy Feet”) is exciting, and the action would’ve been exciting too had Greengrass and Ackroyd allowed me to properly lay my eyes on it.

I just think “24” did this sort of thing so much better than these films do, and even Matt Damon isn’t anywhere near as interesting in these films as he is elsewhere. I did however, find it amusing that he starts the film like “Rambo III” fighting people in a foreign country with his hands wrapped up in underground tournaments. What’s worse with this one is that it eventually heads into Snowden/Assange/data privacy bullshit that has always and forever will bore me to tears. A Big Brother surveillance deal? Really? We’re steal covering this shit? Ugh. Riz Ahmed is good in the role of the techie in league with some nefarious people, but because the basic plot is the same as always and the specifics of the plot bore me, I just couldn’t get into this. Add the filming style and the uninteresting lead character, and not very much fun was had by me. All of these  films are largely the same, with only a few minor changes. The only interesting character in the entire film is played by Vincent Cassel, so it’s a shame the film isn’t about him. Tommy Lee Jones is playing a less interesting and more shadowy version of his Oscar-winning role in “The Fugitive” and commits to it about as little as you’d expect. Julia Stiles continues to be a genuine and wasted talent, and Alicia Vikander isn’t very helpfully cast as a top CIA player. It’s just not her thing in any way at all, and her American accent is about as convincing as the rest of her performance. Then again, few can really survive in a ‘stare at computer intensely’ role, even the best could only do so much with that crap.

Why did the normally intelligent Matt Damon sign on for this one after presumably turning down the previous film? The big scheme is so eye-rolling and clichéd, and everything else is as it was in the previous films so as to make it pointless and unnecessary. Pretty tedious stuff, for series fans only.

Rating: C-