Remember when you believed that Matt Damon’s long-awaited return to author Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character was going to be one of the saving graces of the 2016 summer movie season? Yeah, so do I. Those were the days, my friends. And remember when you heard that Paul Greengrass, director of THE BOURCE SUPREMACY and THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, was also coming back to the franchise along with Damon (the pair also made GREEN ZONE together in the mean time), thus virtually assuring that JASON BOURNE would rule the big screen for the remainder of the summer? It almost physically pains me that I don’t have that good feeling in my heart any longer.
To be fair, I’m rather critical of people who allow their anticipation levels about an upcoming movie to get so high that there’s no possible way the actual film could live up to what they’ve built up in their minds. That wasn’t really the case for me, since all I was hoping for was something better than the Damon-less previous BOURNE film, THE BOURNE LEGACY. I wasn’t exactly shooting for the moon here, folks. In addition, my constant mantra to people is “Trailers lie all the time.” To those who dismiss films without seeing them because their trailers look bad, or, conversely, get pumped to see a movie because the trailers look good, you need to get out of the habit of relying on trailers to make up your mind for you. You’re grown up boys and girls now; please see a film before you start shit-talking it.
Still, it’s nearly impossible to look at a cast like that found in JASON BOURNE and not get excited for what you’re about to watch. Fresh of her Oscar win for THE DANISH GIRL, Alicia Vikander (EX MACHINA) takes a leading role here as CIA information specialist (she great with computers) Heather Lee, who has discovered that the agency’s Dark Operations computer files (filed conveniently in a folder marked “Dark Operations”) have been stolen by Bourne’s old friend and former agent/now hacker Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). She arranges to meet the off-the-grid Bourne in Athens to hand off the files, one of which has very telling details about how Bourne was recruited into the CIA in the first place—a piece of missing information in his still fuzzy memories.
Lee’s boss is Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), a shady creature who had some type of connection to Bourne’s father, a now-dead CIA analyst. She believes that the patriot in Bourne wants to be brought back into the CIA fold, but Dewey has an entirely different agenda and secretly wants Bourne dead, while agreeing to Lee’s plan. In his back pocket, Dewey has a truly nasty assassin known only as The Asset (Vincent Cassel), whom Lee thinks is helping to track Bourne down, when in fact he’s aiming to take him out. Turns out The Asset also had a hand in Bourne’s ever-growing, rather tedious origin story.
With such an unnecessarily dense and twisty plot, JASON BOURNE becomes bogged down in callbacks to the previous films and an overly complicated set of flashbacks and rejiggered backstory that you end up throwing your hands in the air and thinking “Wake me when the next car chase begins.” And, as if this weren’t enough plot, there’s a sub-threat involving Dewey’s sketchy dealings with young computer billionaire Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed, from NIGHTCRAWLER and current killing it on HBO’s “The Night Of”), involving the CIA being granted secret access to millions of computers using the company’s operating system in the name of better surveillance. Kalloor is having second thoughts about the arrangement; Dewey is making sure it stays in place. Admittedly, it’s tied into the Bourne story, but it also provides a type of on-the-nose social commentary (Edward Snowden’s name is dropped more than once) that feels ridiculously out of place here.
On the plus side, did I mention the car chases? JASON BOURNE is essentially bookended by incredible runs through major world cities. The first is through Athens, with the Asset (in a car) chasing Bourne and Parsons (on a motorcycle together). There also happens to be a riot happening, and Greengrass is one of the best filmmakers of chaos, from his years as a documentary filmmaker. The director uses the clashing protestors and police as part of the chase. Firebombs, tear gas, and protestors flipping over burning cars are all part of the framework of the pursuit, and it makes the action all the more gripping and authentic.
The closing chase is even better—right down the Vegas strip. This time the Asset is being chased while driving an armored SWAT vehicle that swat away any car in its path with alarming ease, while Bourne is behind him is a positively normal car just trying not to get hit by the flying debris. It’s just a good, old-fashioned, ultra-destructive car chase using various familiar hotel fronts as part of the overkill (I’m guessing Damon and Cassel, both stars in OCEAN’S TWELVE and THIRTEEN, have a few hotel-owner friends they can call for such purposes). Scripted by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse, JASON BOURNE may be a little stuffed on plot, but it spreads its wings when it comes to the action. The car craziness doesn’t save the film, but it counts for something.
It took me a while to realize that Bourne barely speaks in this movie. He looks pensive, angsty, even pissed off at times, but he broods silently nine times out of ten. Granted, for much of the film, he doesn’t have anyone to talk to, but I’m not sure a mostly silent Matt Damon is as effective as one that, you now, speaks. Fairing far better is Vikander, who puts on a cool, intelligent, professional demeanor in her pursuit of bringing Bourne in alive, but she reveals herself to be ruthless and far more cunning than she lets on later in the movie. This isn’t really a spoiler, since it’s almost impossible to believe that an actress of Vikander’s talent would be cast in a film simply to play the agreeable sidekick to Tommy Lee Jones, who’s in full bad-guy mode here, which is only a few small steps away from Jones as good guy.
Greengrass’s ever-present shaky camera is still very much in play, perhaps toned down a bit, but perhaps not. I clearly remember a sequence that literally involves someone looking at a text message on their phone, and the camera operator practically does a backflip before stabilizing on the phone enough to read the message. And then it happens a couple more times right in a row. Take your Dramamine is all I’m saying.
To simply credit the lack of substance in JASON BOURNE to the franchise running out of steam doesn’t quite capture the problem. Almost worse, the creative team have run out of ideas. The idea of seeing fifth film in this series (the fourth with Damon) in which Bourne is still rediscovering memory fragments feels tired and lacking in creativity. In a strange bit of irony, the way the film ends seems to indicate that if another Bourne movie was made, he might be given an entirely unrelated adventure to embark upon. That’s the movie I’d like to see. JASON BOURNE is an acceptable placeholder, but it is not a worthy successor to a host of much better films.
