Step 1: Expect the expected. As the fifth installment in the franchise – and fourth starring Matt Damon – Jason Bourne incorporates all the highly charged action sequences you’ve come to expect, but it seems to lack a bit in the narrative.
Step 2: Feel the retread, to be honest. It starts out with Bourne living off the grid, making cash by street fighting across the globe – and he’s still haunted by his assassin past. He can’t shake it, no matter how many times he fights or tries to disassociate himself from the world. And just when he thinks he’s out, he, of course, gets pulled back in, this time by his former colleague/ally Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). She seeks him out to tell him the CIA baddies are still pushing through the same programs (worse even) that turned him into an assassin monster – and they should be stopped. He doesn’t really want to get involved anymore, he’s done his part (as in exposing Treadstone in Bourne Ultimatum) – but Nicky tells him she knows even more about his past, especially about his father, which ties into it all.
Step 3: Move on. Gaining more insight into his past lures him back into the spotlight – and into the cross hairs of CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and his lackey, the ambitious Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who may actually be on Bourne’s side (at least it seems that way). Does this sound in any way familiar? That’s the problem. This is territory already covered in the Bourne trilogy, and covered well. The first Bourne Identity still stands as the best of the three because it brilliantly introduces us to Bourne, a man who doesn’t remember he is a trained assassin until he is forced to use his skills to combat those trying to eliminate him. That scene in which he fights and then kills a guy with a pen is just one of the best fight sequences ever. In Jason Bourne, Damon portrays his reluctant anti-hero with the same steely determination and keen street sense as before, now a little older but wiser, but the tortured part is getting tired. It just seems like with the fourth movie, it’s time to move past the issues and explore a new Bourne.
Step 4: Embrace the action, though. That being said, veteran Bourne director Paul Greengrass has outdone himself in the action-chase sequence department. There are three major set pieces in Jason Bourne, with the third one set in Las Vegas being one of the most thrilling, cover-your-eyes car chases we’ve ever seen. This is one of the main reasons to see a Bourne movie, and Jason does not disappoint in any way.
Step 5: Rank the movie. Even with some spectacular action, if we were to rank Jason Bourne in the franchise, we probably put it second to last. The first three – Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum – remain at top, in that order, with the fifth, The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner, at the bottom. Legacy is actually a well-done addition to the franchise, giving us a different perspective of these “programs” and what they do to the men in them, but it doesn’t have Damon – and he’s really the glue in these films. If they do move forward with the franchise (and every indication says they will), it would be cool to see a Renner/Damon hybrid movie. Let’s see if that happens.
