'Jason Bourne' - Review

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Matt Damon has his own movie stolen from him by a powerhouse Alicia Vikander in this surprisingly jaunty continuation of the Bourne saga. When ex-CIA operative Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles all too briefly reprising her role) exposes a large chunk of agency secrets (a plot thread saddled with clunky references to Snowden), craggy-voiced Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) is faced with the possible resurgence of skeleton-in-the-closet Jason Bourne (Damon). When Parsons brings Bourne out of self-imposed isolation in the fighting rings of the Greek-Albanian border, Dewey fears exposure of the agencies link with up-and-coming app developer Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed) and his social media platform 'Deep Dream'.

While a little greyer around the edges, Damon slips back into his latchkey role with the same stone-faced ferocity, proudly restraining himself to ‘the silent type’ with barely 40 lines of dialogue to his name (something the popular press have been excitably headlining). To anyone familiar with the prior trilogy (where Bourne was never prone to waste words), why has this come as a shock?

The real unexpected pleasure of the film is Vikander as Heather Lee, Dewey’s ambitious second-in-command, a female character not once lambasted by her male colleagues for anything besides her questionable commitment to the cause, but is always two or three steps ahead of them, and has the know-how to slide into Bourne’s slipstream. With Damon resigned largely to silence, it’s Vikander who gives us a way into proceedings.

Leading man aside, the strength of the Bourne series has always been a tight and level focus, on one man and his mission, so why this sudden need to elevate what has been a mostly subtle subtext of surveillance into a fully-fledged theme by itself? Perhaps in an attempt to bring the series bang up to date with modern milieu and the smartphone generation, Greengrass and co-writer Christopher Rouse feel it is appropriate to show how the world has changed in Bourne’s absence, and that it’s not just the life and privacy of one man that matters anymore.  

Regardless of (quite likely admirable) intent, this decision is misguided. A stylistic rather than thematic change would have been a far more interesting route to take without upsetting the established formula. In the near-decade since The Bourne Ultimatum, action cinema has developed almost as considerably as technology (with the two often hand-in-hand). In a world in which the dance-like combat of The Raid and the long, unbroken takes of The Revenant are subverting the usual action composition, Greengrass’ trademark shaky-cam and choppy editing have not only become the norm, but wearisomely over utilised. 

Despite the constant exposure of their form to blockbuster audiences, the key chase sequences of Jason Bourne are still masterfully executed, and keep the pace of the film at such a rush that you barely have time to notice that how refreshingly CGI-free it is: a car versus bike romp amidst an anti-austerity protest is nail-chewingly physical. John Powell and David Buckley’s score is also simultaneously sly but essential, ramping up the adrenaline with the speed of a drum solo, but none of the obnoxiousness.

This rollercoaster of frenetic energy is still as pleasing as the series’ best entries (forgoing Tony Gilroy’s astonishingly forgettable The Bourne Legacy), but it’s only when stepping off the ride that we realise we’ve paid for another of Hollywood’s nostalgia trips. Stop me if this plot structure sounds familiar: wandering around back alleys and airports lead to a motor chase, some suspicious people watch everything on big screens in a dark room, there’s some shady interior politics, [SPOILER REDACTED], another chase, a grimy punch-up, [SPOILER REDACTED], play Moby’s Extreme Ways, roll credits. This is Greengrass, Damon and co. shrugging “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” even as noticeable cracks begin to form, and one can only hope that the next instalment can smuggle some insurgent originality through those gaps.