By Brett Blake Looking at it as objectively as possible, JASON BOURNE is not a very good movie, and it’s even worse when viewed as a continuation of the trilogy that Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass completed (or so we thought) back in 2007. This movie is the very definition of unnecessary, and the ways in which it strains to be relevant - both thematically and narratively - threaten to literally rip the film apart. It is slight, grasping to feel important even as we reach the finale and realize that the movie has been, basically, about nothing at all. And to think... Matt Damon came back for this? A full plot synopsis would be incredibly redundant for anybody who’s seen any of Damon’s three previous outings, as very little new is brought to the table here. Once again, Jason Bourne is on the run from sinister government assassins as he tracks down pieces of information about his past. Once again, Bourne’s discoveries pose a threat to corrupt individuals in the United States intelligence apparatus. Once again, vehicular chases and violent fisticuffs ensue. The plot is paper-thin this time around, existing only as the flimsiest of excuses to generate suspense and action scenes. The things that made the first three BOURNE films so engaging - inventive, visceral action sequences and a heaping helping of post-9/11 anxiety - feel positively trite over a decade later. There are faint attempts to make this film feel relevant to the privacy concerns of this new decade, but these attempts feel wholly inorganic, in contrast to the ways contemporary themes and concerns were seamlessly woven into the earlier movies. Edward Snowden is name-checked, and a subplot involving a Facebook-type web company helping the CIA datamine the habits of its users feels shoehorned into the proceedings and never pays off in a satisfying way. This is all filler material, existing awkwardly on the margins of yet another personal odyssey for Jason Bourne. The BOURNE films (particularly Greengrass’ second and third entries in the trilogy) gave the fights and chases an injection of immediacy and vitality (through a technique that has come to be referred to as “shaky cam”) that hadn’t been seen in big budget films up to that point, and it was an exciting stylistic choice, one which influenced action cinema of the late 2000s in a big way. However, in the years since, the appeal and uniqueness of shaky cam aesthetics have totally worn off; there’s nothing special about the technique anymore, which makes much of JASON BOURNE’s action feel like a throwback to 2004, and not in a good way. That said, the action here is pulled off competently, and the final sequence - an extended climax in Las Vegas - does have a bit of vitality to it that is welcome. By that point, though, it’s too little, too late. The chief sin of the movie is a huge one, and it’s the way the story bends over backwards to motivate the Bourne character this time out. His journey in the previous three films was completed in THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM - he found what he was looking for (the truth about his real identity). Now, the filmmakers have concocted a truly insulting and infuriating extra layer: it turns out Bourne actually didn’t find out everything about his past life, and he now discovers an even more immediate and deep personal connection to the circumstances which led him to join the shadowy Treadstone program and become an assassin. This new revelation - which one could call a “twist,” and which Bourne spends much of the movie pursuing - is, frankly, lame as hell, and is contrived to such a degree that it made me angry. It smacks of the filmmakers not trusting the audience to just go along with a new, self-contained story, and the end result is that they’ve made a total hash of Jason Bourne’s already labyrinthine backstory and elevated it to improbable, nearly fantastical levels. Whatever the rest of the movie’s flaws may be, Matt Damon’s return to the title role does herald good work on his part, even as the script manipulates the character into the same general arc as the previous movies. Nevertheless, Damon sells Bourne’s complicated psyche quite well, and he’s perhaps even more of a physically imposing presence this time than he was in the past. Surrounding Damon are a handful of very fine actors - Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Julia Stiles - but all are extraordinarily underserved by a script which paints all of them with the broadest strokes possible. Vikander is particularly wasted, and that’s truly upsetting considering she’s coming off one of 2015’s finest performances in her role from EX MACHINA. At the end of the day, JASON BOURNE is a massive waste of time and talent. Though not bad on a technical level, it’s a movie that has nothing in it to justify its existence. It’s a limp, reheated attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle. This is not a character or a franchise that should have been resurrected, and JASON BOURNE is one of 2016’s biggest disappointments.
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