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#312 - Jason Bourne
Paul Greengrass, 2016
A rogue government agent is forced out of hiding when a former associate of his contacts him with new information about his past.
I don't have any great love for the Bourne series, but I don't necessarily hate it either. I think they all make for passable pieces of entertainment that are never too dull to be truly terrible, yet I don't think that their strengths do enough to make them into genuinely great movies. As a result, there was no telling how I'd feel about Jason Bourne, which brings Matt Damon's eponymous ex-spy back to the silver screen for the first time in almost a decade. While it was entirely possible that it might very well fail to meet my already-low expectations, it could always just maintain what has always struck me as a rather stagnant but inoffensive status quo. The premise didn't exactly make the best argument for Bourne's return either; having already completed the search for his true identity in Ultimatum, his return to the fray is based around a former associate (Julia Stiles) stealing information that points to the creation of a new sleeper-agent program similar to the one that created Bourne himself. There's a few other elements in the mix - a mystery surrounding Bourne's father (Gregg Henry), a CIA agent (Alicia Vikander) with her own nebulous agenda, a vindictive assassin (Vincent Cassel) with a vendetta against Bourne - and, while they don't guarantee that much in the way of cohesion, they at least try to fill out any gaps that may appear along the way.
Despite its generally unimpressive exterior, I actually didn't mind Jason Bourne too much. The story isn't overly engaging, but it moves along at a decent pace and even the parts where it loses momentum are buoyed by a solid cast (the most obvious instance of this being the entire sub-plot with Riz Ahmed's tech-genius CEO). With Greengrass returning to the series, the film's action definitely demonstrates the same sort of controlled chaos that came to define the series for the better. However, in Jason it's never terrible so much as...there. The usual jittery camerawork and sharp editing are on display and tend to result in coherence more often than not, but the impact is significantly lessened in places. I'd argue that the chases tend to leave more of an impression than the fights, for example. Though I'd understandably be more justified in disliking this installment than any of the others, I don't feel any especially ill will towards it. Like its predecessors, it delivers a digestible slice of spy action that's fun enough for one watch, though I will admit that it feels a bit more disposable than the others. If the powers that be reconvene for another installment, I hope that they can make it stick better than this one.
Paul Greengrass, 2016
A rogue government agent is forced out of hiding when a former associate of his contacts him with new information about his past.
I don't have any great love for the Bourne series, but I don't necessarily hate it either. I think they all make for passable pieces of entertainment that are never too dull to be truly terrible, yet I don't think that their strengths do enough to make them into genuinely great movies. As a result, there was no telling how I'd feel about Jason Bourne, which brings Matt Damon's eponymous ex-spy back to the silver screen for the first time in almost a decade. While it was entirely possible that it might very well fail to meet my already-low expectations, it could always just maintain what has always struck me as a rather stagnant but inoffensive status quo. The premise didn't exactly make the best argument for Bourne's return either; having already completed the search for his true identity in Ultimatum, his return to the fray is based around a former associate (Julia Stiles) stealing information that points to the creation of a new sleeper-agent program similar to the one that created Bourne himself. There's a few other elements in the mix - a mystery surrounding Bourne's father (Gregg Henry), a CIA agent (Alicia Vikander) with her own nebulous agenda, a vindictive assassin (Vincent Cassel) with a vendetta against Bourne - and, while they don't guarantee that much in the way of cohesion, they at least try to fill out any gaps that may appear along the way.
Despite its generally unimpressive exterior, I actually didn't mind Jason Bourne too much. The story isn't overly engaging, but it moves along at a decent pace and even the parts where it loses momentum are buoyed by a solid cast (the most obvious instance of this being the entire sub-plot with Riz Ahmed's tech-genius CEO). With Greengrass returning to the series, the film's action definitely demonstrates the same sort of controlled chaos that came to define the series for the better. However, in Jason it's never terrible so much as...there. The usual jittery camerawork and sharp editing are on display and tend to result in coherence more often than not, but the impact is significantly lessened in places. I'd argue that the chases tend to leave more of an impression than the fights, for example. Though I'd understandably be more justified in disliking this installment than any of the others, I don't feel any especially ill will towards it. Like its predecessors, it delivers a digestible slice of spy action that's fun enough for one watch, though I will admit that it feels a bit more disposable than the others. If the powers that be reconvene for another installment, I hope that they can make it stick better than this one.