Review - Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne

Director: Paul Greengrass

Staring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed and many more.

Writers: Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse.

Rating: 8/10

Plot: A contact from Jason Bourne’s past goes digging and finds something he needs to see. A piece from his Treadstone days, a lie that he needs to know about. The agency doesn’t want Bourne back in play though, and as they try to contain the situation they yet again find themselves head to head in a deadly game…

     That is the basic outline and with all reviews here there will be no spoliers or indepth plot breakdowns, why? Because you want to see the film. Hell, even if you don’t I still don’t want to tell you. I think the joy of film is in the experience of seeing it, not being told about it.

     When the Bourne films first came along they offered us something different from Bond and the other hard drinking, co-star shagging, male spies that always won and had all the kit. It was a bleached, stripped back animal that had a tough edge and an explosive violence that hit hard. The first one really impressed, the second built on that and the third finished the loop. It was glorious, but when it was over it felt like a good ending. They had delivered something that would stand as a truly great trilogy.

     Bourne Legacy didn’t hit the high mark that was set by the original films and so Renner was out and Damon was back in. Jason Bourne delivers the same level of fights, car chases and street chases as the original three. It is in places brutal and dark and captivating and the spies and their inability to keep their word, to anyone, ever, make for a great film, but I have to say, this should be the last one.

     I think Jason Bourne is a really good film with, as I said, all the right elements from the previous films, but there isn’t a sense that we haven’t seen it all before in some way shape or form. There isn’t anything new, or a pressure to Bourne that we haven’t already felt previously. And though I think they could have opened a new book with the ending of this one and given themselves a new direction, sadly they don’t.

     I liked Jason Bourne, but I don’t think I can muster excitement at the prospect of another one. Still, this is all that the other ones were, and so worth seeing.

     As to the cast, Tommy Lee Jones isn’t given much to do other than be dastardly, though Vikander, Cassel and Ahmed are excellent and bring the depth that was needed to make the film really work. Always a joy to see Julia Stiles and, of course, Damon owns the deadly super spy Bourne, but the weight of the plot doesn’t match previous outings so even he had to work pretty hard to make it work.