Jason Bourne has returned.
After three genre-defining films and one hilariously bad spin off (The Bourne Misfire, I think was the
title) that stunk of cash-cow milking by the studio, Paul Greengrass and Matt
Damon have revived their amnesiac anti-Bond for one more bout. Regular readers (if I have such a thing) will
have guessed how I feel about reboots, rehashes and remakes of successful and
beloved characters and series (for the benefit of non-regular readers, I’m
pretty cynical about them) so the announcement of a further instalment didn’t
exactly fill me with excitement. But
with Greengrass and Damon on board following their excellent work on Supremacy and Ultimatum, there was at least some potential.
Stylistically at least, there are no surprises here. This is not a criticism; Greengrass’ kinetic
direction suits Bourne like a hotwired car.
His work on films like United 93
and Captain Phillips has established
him as one of Hollywood’s foremost purveyors of nerve-shredding tension. Jason
Bourne sees him employ his hand held documentary style pretty much
throughout the whole thing creating a sense of paranoia that suits both the
post-Snowden state surveillance themes and the frenetic action scenes. He knows when and where the reign it in,
though, allowing the calmer scenes to tip toe before breaking into a sprint for
the set pieces.
These, too are impressive.
One of the best things about Ultimatum
in particular is that the set pieces were not simply there for the sake of meeting
genre requirements; they served and told the story. The same is true here almost all the time. An
impressive cat-and-mouse sequence set during a Greek austerity
demonstration/riot both establishes and kills characters while getting Bourne
back in the game. There’s a London-set
sequence that manages to not repeat Ultimatum’s
Waterloo station set piece or feel like a rehash; it’s tense, well
choreographed and drives the plot forwards.
The Las Vegas sequence, while sometimes hard to follow, is as good as
anything the series has offered until a what should have been a climactic confrontation
leads to a car chase which, while impressive, feels tacked on after what precedes
it. It’s Bourne becoming an assassin
again after almost 4 films of resistance and doesn’t quite fit.
The Bourne films always cast strongly with the likes of
Brian Cox, Clive Owen, Albert Finney, Joan Allen and Chris Cooper all giving
strong service. Here, Tommy Lee Jones’ experienced
CIA chief makes you wonder why he’s never featured before and Vincent Cassel is
so perfect a fit as the nameless ‘Asset’ it again makes you wonder whether he
was in one of the previous films; not necessarily a good thing as this their
characters feel a bit like archetypes. It’s Alicia Vikander’s resolute CIA cyber
security officer (and Riz Ahmed’s compromised social media guru) who offers
something new: she is driven ambition rather than just by-the-numbers spy games;
she makes a genuine attempt to see
Bourne’s point of view, and adds a contemporary twist. Her character’s expertise adds an interesting
new layer to the premise: how does one hide when facial recognition software
and any CCTV camera in the world could be used to find you? It’s a fresh new challenge
for a spy who can beat anyone at fisticuffs, gunplay or driving.
Jason Bourne
retains the unrefined, rebellious edge that drove the Bond producers to up their
game in the Daniel Craig era, turning their suave secret agent into a cold,
insubordinate killer. Bourne, in
Greengrass’ eyes anyway represents a reaction to Bond’s ‘Queen and Country’
ethos. Seen as an enemy by the very people
who trained him, he’s on his own side rather than America’s, with loyalty
earned rather by sworn. Here, the
Treadstone program that created Bourne has been replaced by the distinctly
fascist sounding Iron Hand. It’s probably
not deliberate, more of a zeitgeist-y consideration, that the CIA’s devious
plan (spying on everyone in the world via their online habits), is almost
identical to that of Blofeld in latest Bond adventure Spectre. Evil, it seems, is
a matter of perspective when it comes to spies and while I’m one of many people
who hope that Bond is reinvented again, I would be happy if this turned out to
be Bourne’s noisy, exciting, subversive but kind of slight swansong.
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