Its been 12 years since ‘The Bourne Identity’ gave a shot in the arm to the action film genre. Pacy, gritty and less outlandish than the formulaic efforts produced by Stallone, Schwarzenegger et al., as well as the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, it seemed like a revelation at the time, and still stands up today. Paul Greengrass took over the franchise for the next instalment, and, thanks to his trademark directorial style, made a better film with ‘The Bourne Supremacy’, and then even topped that with ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. The Jeremy Renner fronted ‘The Bourne Legacy’ was decent enough but not up to the standard of the previous films, so it was with much anticipation that I watched ‘Jason Bourne’, re-uniting Greengrass with star Matt Damon.
Whist admittedly it doesn’t stand out as different from other action films these days, and it lacks the sheer kinetic energy of Ultimatum it didn’t disappoint. Once again, an off the grid Jason Bourne is brought back into the sights of the CIA as he tries to help old friend, Nicky (Julia Stiles) as she tries to deliver secrets to a Snowden style whistle-blower. A battered and weary Damon is even more perfect for the role these days and it is great to see Stiles with a more central role, albeit fairly briefly. Tommy Lee Jones is the latest senior CIA official tracking Bourne but the most interesting casting is of Alicia Vikander as his systems expert, Heather Lee, with her own agenda. Lee is the most intriguing character, other than Jason himself, to have appeared in the film series and I hope she returns for the next instalment.
The action scenes are expertly delivered by Greengrass and there is the usual improvisation with every day objects by Bourne as he gets into a scrap. As unrealistic as they may be, I loved the scenes of the spooks tracking the action on the wall of extremely high-tech screens, seemingly able to identify people in a crowd of thousands in seconds. The climatic chase and fight sequence is very satisfying and I particularly liked the downbeat ending. There definitely seems to be legs left in the franchise, and I’m already looking forward to the next one!
Rating: 8 out of 10