The end of Bourne ... he should have died. This is a decrepit 'last chance' to rehash more of the same. Not utterly devoid of believability except in 90% of the movie.
Note to Matt Damon: Paul Greengrass cannot direct film. His trademark in-your-face shaky camera shots ruin every movie he’s ever been involved with. As shot by henchman cinemaphotographer Barry Ackroyd, the camera judders uncontrollably. Snap-editing further fractures the image into mash-up cinema.
The two culprits both come from a British TV documentary background and they should have stayed there. They couldn’t film a visually coherent sequence if they tried. We know Paul is your friend, Matt, but he’s ruined what could have become a franchise to rival Mission Impossible. Instead of opening out the action, as Doug Liman did so memorably in the original Bourne Ultimatum, Greengrass closes it down.
He also had a hand in the banal script. The plot is irrelevant. Treadstone nonsense for the fourth time. The dialogue is dire. Sample (After Bourne has escaped yet again): ‘We’ve lost him. Sir.’ Lost Bourne? Who’d have thought? Motor cycle chase? Check. Car chase that involves weaving against traffic on the wrong side of the road? Check. Assassination attempt in a crowded hall (screaming crowds, confusion etc.)? Check. Yawn and pass the popcorn. And someone stop that relentless staccato muzak, please!
Talents such as Alicia Vikander and Vincent Cassel are wasted. Alicia spends most of the film in a room or a van peering at computer screens. Vincent, such a charismatic villain in superior films such as Mesrine, has little to do but wander around with a determined look on his face shooting extras as he passes. His climactic fist fight with Damon is a damp squib.
Only once the end-titles roll is there relief, when Moby’s ‘Extreme Ways’ returns to rekindle fond memories of Doug Liman’s original film and remind us how well the Bourne franchise began before Greengrass ruined it.
I've always been a fan of the original three films in this series and even the fourth without Damon was quite good, but one wonders why this fifth film in the series was ever made? The script is dire, limp, full of holes and mega cliches. The directing is awful and the storyline is so paper thin and transparent as to almost not be there! Whilst this could have been a really good film, because some of the action sequences are actually quite good and well thought out, with lots of detail, such as the car chases and riots in Greece, the way they are filmed, with the camera constantly shaking all over the place and the editing being so choppy as to not see anything. This is actually quite a difficult and boring film watch, in part due to the camera being all over the place and the editing being so choppy, not the smoothness of a Bond film , or even the slick styling of the originals, just a real hash of ideas all thrown into the pot, with no coherency! The ending is quite predictable and leaves t open for yet more films to follow, but of they do, they need a new director, strong scriptwriters and new ideas which move the theme forwards instead of simply treading the same ground all the time! This has got to be one of the biggest disappointments this year in the film genre. Very disappointing indeed!
Matt Damon returns to the role of Jason Bourne. Paul Greengrass returns to direct Jason Bourne. The old cat-and-mouse game of Bourne versus the CIA returns to the franchise. Together, they’re all a reminder of why these people and plot elements left the series in the first place.
Once again we find rogue agent Jason Bourne on the run as he is once again tracked by the CIA while he once again discovers more secrets of his past. One would think that after all this time that Greengrass could return to this series with something fresh and timely. He certainly attempts to the way he weaves in the protests of Greece, the fear privacy in the mobile age and the increased threat of terrorism. Instead of crafting an intriguing spy movie from those topical subjects, Greengrass uses them as little more than window dressing for his Bourne-centric story.
But what’s so hot about Bourne this time around? His old pal Nicky (Julia Stiles) has uncovered documents of Bourne’s recruitment into the old program as well as a new program. The surprise reveal of Jason’s pathos is nothing all that clever and the new CIA program is so bland even the movie doesn’t want to address this ill-thought McGuffin. The movie mostly zips past this contrived setup to get to its own action sequences, but you still have to put up with some amazingly forced plot elements. There’s no reason for Jason Bourne to get involved with Nicky’s findings, but he does so anyway out of unspoken closure. He goes through the motions of escaping hitmen, questioning pawns (that are killed upon spilling information, of course) and eventually having a showdown with the CIA orchestrator. What I found most perplexing is how the CIA has been aware of Bourne and his tactics for years and yet they still fall for every trick he pulls. Wouldn’t they notice the old baseball cap and looking down as his disguise by now?
The cast is strong, but never used past base roles of a spy-thriller plot. There’s a new CIA leader played by Tommy Lee Jones who is familiar with Bourne, but only in the sense that he keeps babbling about him being unstoppable. Alicia Vikander plays a rookie CIA agent that secretly helps Bourne, merely acting as the next female sidekick after taking the baton. The only interesting character is a CIA hitman played by Vincent Cassel which, despite a personal vendetta against Bourne, is painfully underdeveloped as more of a goon than a developed assassin. As for Matt Damon, he looks as though he doesn’t want to be here. With little dialogue, few fight scenes and a grimace constantly on his face, he’s dreadful to watch in how he slogs his way through this by-the-numbers spy movie.
The action scenes could have been exciting if only they were shot properly. The sequence where Bourne attempts to escape the CIA by dashing through the protests in the streets of Athens is a great idea. It’s just too bad the constantly shaking camera and frenetic editing doesn’t allow you to experience much of the chaos. There were so many details with police swarming the streets, protesters chucking molotov cocktails, motorcycles whizzing by, gunfire in the distance and all you get to see of it is blurs. The editing becomes less horrific as the movie goes on and a more expensive car chase forces the camera to remain semi-still.
After nearly a decade of being distant from Damon and Greengrass, Jason Bourne isn’t just out of energy - it’s running on the fumes of the fumes. The action is no fun when it is all blurs, the characters are not engaging when they’re all dreary and the story isn’t entertaining when it’s the same old bit built as a retread. The ending leaves the door wide open for a sequel as though a new trilogy of pictures will follow. But as Damon sleepwalks through this movie with the most bored of expressions, I had to wonder why he didn’t just end the series here. He’s tired of this, we’re tired of this - put Bourne to bed.