Jason Bourne is this week’s designated tentpole offering in what has been a summer with basically one “biggie” every week. The good news is that this one only cost around $120 million to produce, so it doesn’t have to go nuts to make a profit. Back in 2002, The Bourne Identity was something of a sleeper hit, overcoming bad buzz and a troubled production to earn $214m worldwide off a $60m budget and basically save Matt Damon’s career after a handful of post-Good Will Hunting flops.
The franchise revolutionized the modern action movie arguably as significantly as Die Hard and arguably cemented the “anyone can be an action hero” concept first popularized by Die Hard and Batman. If The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum were big hits because they were timely post-9/11 espionage stories in a world where the conventional 007 mold didn’t quite fit, the question is whether the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon template is still relevant nine years after the last official film.
Yes, it has been four years since Jeremy Renner’s The Bourne Legacy, but really this is a “nine years later” sequel to the initial trilogy. As I’ve noted before, it is a testament to “everything old is new again” Hollywood thinking that while The Bourne Identity broke out in 2002 because it was “new,” we now have the return of Jason Bourne precisely because it is an old and once popular franchise. But in this era of yesterday’s battles being retrofitted for today’s audiences, will the next Jason Bourne just be more Jason Bourne?
The Review:
You’ve seen this movie before. You saw it in 2004 when it was called The Bourne Supremacy, and you saw it in 2007 when it was called The Bourne Ultimatum. As is now apparently custom for Paul Greengrass-directed Bourne sequels, the filmmaker steals wholesale from his previous movies to the point where it feels not like a formula but a glorified remake. This fifth Bourne film (and fourth Matt Damon entry) plays like a greatest hits album of a popular franchise, with an emphasis on the two sequels that Greengrass himself directed. On one hand, you will roll your eyes at the ways in which this picture goes through the motions. On the other hand, if you wanted a new Matt Damon Bourne movie, you’ll get exactly what you want/deserve.
This is usually the part where I give you just a token amount of plot. But, let’s be honest, all I have to say is “Oh, it’s like the second one and the third one,” and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Nefarious doings bring Jason Bourne/David Webb (Matt Damon) out of hiding, various government desk jockeys express concern that Bourne is back on the grid and that he will expose government wrongdoing. There are chases, close-corners combat scenes, a shadowy assassin (Vincent Cassel) who supplies most of the body count, and at least one agent who isn’t quite sure if Bourne is an enemy or an asset. You know this song by heart, and this is one franchise where I recommend you not watch the prior entries if you haven’t seen them in a while.
I won’t explicitly divulge any secrets (avoid the TV spots), but suffice to say that this film adds mythology to the Bourne lore than makes David Webb’s arc more “Chosen One”-ish and more narratively claustrophobic. Once again, by grafting on additional backstory a franchise manages to make its lead less relatable and less human-scale plausible. It’s not as aggressively self-defeating as the last entry of that other superspy franchise, but it is amusing to see what used to be the would-be heir apparent to 007 double-down on that franchise’s moronic storytelling choices. This isn’t organic character development, but rather grafted-on mythology that threatens to turn David Webb into something of a conventional superhero while somewhat letting him off the moral hook for his misdeeds. It’s retconning which turns Jason Bourne into a more conventionally moral hero for franchise purposes.
This is a franchise that peaked with The Bourne Supremacy (although I would argue Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity is about as good) and now keeps remaking that film in a way that removes more and more of the moral rot. Bourne’s reunion with Julia Stiles, a scene which contains some of the worst acting and stilted dialogue I’ve seen in a major motion picture in a very long time. Yes, there is indeed another super evil government assassination/spy program and “It’s worse than before.” You’ll roll your eyes as Bourne’s arbitrary quest to “learn the truth” merely put innocents lives (and not-so-culpable field agents) in mortal peril. You’ll sigh when the film comes to a natural climax only to have Bourne jump back into it because the movie needs a slam-bang finale.
I’m still waiting for “Bald Eagle” which turns would-be recruits into cyborg assassin or animal/human hybrid killing machines, but at least no one requires a bowl of delicious, delicious "chems" this time out. By the way, guess what movie doesn’t get referenced at all in this one? That this fifth version is arguably a better picture than the two previous entries doesn’t necessarily make it a triumph. As bad as The Bourne Legacy was, it at least told a different story that didn’t run through as many of the motions. But this is a more entertaining and less cruel concoction. At no point does Bourne heartlessly murder a security guard to procure drugs, although there is a moment of vehicle mayhem which presumably kills several bystanders for the sake of a trailer-friendly action beat.
It also mostly forsakes Greengrass’s shaky cam aesthetic except during the action scenes, so that’s a plus. Alicia Vikander is a welcome addition to the series, even if the film can’t decide how sympathetic she should be to Bourne’s plight (and, slight spoiler, I wish she wasn't the only major female character in the film). Tommy Lee Jones is fine as the new Chris Cooper/Brian Cox/ David Strathairn/Edward Norton, but he is given shockingly little to do and no shading whatsoever. Like The Bourne Ultimatum, this plays out like a dumbed-down, more crowd-pleasing, and post-test screening/studio notes remake of The Bourne Supremacy. That I enjoyed it more may merely be because it’s a mix-and-match remix instead of a straight Bourne Supremacy remake, Bourne is a bit more competent (and proactive) this time out, and the film doesn’t invalidate the moral triumphs of its immediate predecessor.
For those who want to spend two hours on a comfortable old couch, it is crisply plotted and entertaining. Matt Damon is fine per usual even as he goes through the motions (the talk about him only having twenty-five lines feels like an exaggeration as this is not a silent performance). If I am bending over backward to be fair to a film that entertained me and annoyed me in equal doses, it is because the last nine years have turned this kind of big-budget star-driven “ground level” thriller into something of an endangered species. I didn’t miss the Bourne series, but I missed this kind of movie. But it is so beholden to the formula that it often cheats itself out of storytelling potential for the sake of not going too far off course.
Warts and all, this is a well-made Bourne movie, and I appreciated that the film didn’t try to make much hay about its would-be politics (since people who steal and leak classified info aren’t looking very patriotic these days). Although, once again, I wonder in this 24-hour news cycle/outrage cycle era how much it would matter if all the bad stuff that the government is trying to cover up actually became public record. Would there really be that much outrage beyond a few days of shared Facebook links about the government employing specially trained assassins for black ops? But that’s a conversation for another time, and (again) it helps that this movie quickly becomes less about exposing the truth and more about preventing present day misdeeds, which gives it an urgency that the last two lacked.
You know his name (David Webb), and you presumably know what you’re getting into. But I would much rather see an actual “new” Bourne movie. The writing is on the wall for this remake-quel. This franchise needs to find another way to die if it wants to die another day.
Spoiler Note
I found the film's final scene absolutely fascinating. No details, but it very much resembles a shot-and-scrapped final scene for The Bourne Identity, one that was shot after 9/11 when the filmmakers were worried that audiences wouldn't necessarily embrace that film's cynical and pessimistic implications. That we are now back at that point shows how far we haven't come (or how much we've come full circle) over the last fifteen years.
