‘Jason Bourne’ (Film) reviewed…

It’s a film franchise that helped change the action template – so why does it feel as if the latest, derivative chapter was just ‘Bourne’ yesterday?

When government analyst turned hacker Nicky (Julia Stiles) uncovers a secret stash of files that indicate a hidden agenda: the program that created Jason Bourne’s  fractured memory is being relaunched and that Bourne’s father was originally involved long before he joined the program, she decides to find Jason Bourne to give him the information. But her electronic fingerprints have already been recognised by CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and rising protégé and intelligence expert Heather Lee (recent Oscar nominee Alicia Vikander) and the security forces are determined to put an end to both Nicky and Bourne.

But as a global chase begins will Lee’s efforts to possibly force the ex-agent back into the fold clash with Dewey’s attempts to simply silence him once and for all?

If Matt Damon, as one of Hollywood’s most reliable A-List actors, gets paid by the word, then there’s an argument that his latest release is the counter-espionage counter-balance to his last notable project, the Oscar-nominated The Martian. For the latter he shouldered most of the dialogue-heavy story, talking to camera as he tried to survive being left behind on the Red Planet. On the other hand, anyone counting the words in the latest chapter of the Jason Bourne franchise – handily entitled the same  – may find it’s a part-time mission… the title character spends more time punching and kicking than talking. One website actually counted the lines he has. It amounts to less than 50.

And perhaps the biggest problem with the film is just that: it really doesn’t have anything much to say, or at least nothing it hasn’t said or displayed in better form in previous outings.

When the first film, The Bourne Identity, arrived it wasn’t only a relative breath of fresh air for the action industry, it had wider, lingering effects. Its down-and-dirty tone, with in-your-face handheld camera-work and complex plot was an antidote to some of the ‘simpler’ template tent-poles and is largely credited with making the James Bond franchise swerve into more nuanced territory in an effort to compete. Even when director Paul Greengrass and Damon bowed out, with Jeremy Renner and director Tony Gilroy creating a ‘Legacy’ spin-off, the tone continued.  But Jason Bourne does the opposite, skewing back towards 007 shenanigans requiring a larger suspension of disbelief. (‘You know his Name’ says the film poster, ironically echoing the Brosnan era Bond’s ‘You know the Number‘ tag-line…)

Though there are some effective hand-to-hand combat scenes that bookend the feature, far too much of the intervening minutes are based around unlikely, over-the-top chases and the kind of surveillance that would make ‘Q’ go ‘squee‘.  While hand-held camerawork remains a key feature, the plot casually speed-dates us through a bullet-list of global hot-zones to form its backdrop… from street level to satellite. We go from bare-knuckle slug-fests in the Middle East to street-riots in Greece, on to London and then Las Vegas… the government cameras scouring the crowds for their prey and miraculously finding them with ease in a sea of faces. But they are interchangeable locations, no more than anecdotal scenery and the thinnest of lip-service to headlines.

Mixed with an additional paper-thin thread about a compromised social-media whizzkid, those set-pieces mount up like the body-count… and the final car-chase, barreling down the Vegas strip, is demonstrably silly with the amount of overt carnage and collateral damage that ensues. With guns blazing and tyres squealing like a Fast and Furious homage ,it also feels somewhat uncomfortable and at odds with real-life urban shoot-outs that have littered the real-life news.

Damon is fine with what he’s given but the slim story gives him little to do but dodge cookie-cutter adversaries and jump through very familiar looking hoops – each echoing previous and better moments from the films to date. Tommy Lee Jones, looking, it has to be said, more weathered than even his normal Rushmoresque features usually display, frowns and apathetically snarls with all the conviction of someone who knows he could do this in his sleep. Franchise mainstay Julia Stiles exits just as Alicia Vikander enters, with all the cynical narrative battle-plan of a car showroom rolling out the slimmer, newer model with a similar set of features but a more fancy moniker.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Jason Bourne – it’s an adequate, average tentpole action outing with the previously winning-ingredients back in position but mixed with less gusto than you expect given Greengrass and Damon’s initial reluctance to come back unless there was something new and worthwhile to offer. And unlike the character himself, it’s easy to remember past exploits that were far more impressive.

7/10

Jason Bourne (12A), distributed by Universal Pictures UK is now on general release…