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Jason Bourne (2016) - Movie Review


Jason Bourne is a sequel to The Bourne Ultimatum and is set some years after the last film. Bourne is forced once again to come out of hiding and face the CIA, as well as uncover things about his past.

Now, I'm a huge fan of this franchise. I love The original Bourne trilogy to death, and I even enjoyed Legacy. So naturally, I was extremely excited to finally watch this film considering Matt Damon is teaming up again with director Paul Greengrass (Supremacy, Ultimatum). Unfortunately, 2016 being a year of disappointments (Big or small), this followed the same suit. 

Now, not all of the movie was disappointing. There were some things I liked. I enjoyed Matt Damon reprising his role, he was great again. Some action sequences were exciting and thrilling, like the finale, even if a bit more on the over-the-top side as compared to previous parts. Hearing the score from the previous parts again was so satisfying. The story, while being mostly uninteresting, did have some aspects I liked, especially seeing the movie universe evolved with the times and containing dilemmas in our current world. The ending was great in a Bourne fashion, and of course hearing Extreme Ways again at the end just put a huge smile on the face, and actually helped lower the level of disappointment to a bit.

On the flip side, the story for the most part wasn't interesting and a lot of it just felt like a rehash of previous films, particularly Bourne Supremacy as this movie had a lot of the same story beats. And there was this unnecessary focus on a subplot that brought the movie down even more. Also, Bourne's new past issues felt like something thrown in instead of properly planned. The CIA side wasn't that good either. Tommy Lee Jones was OK, nothing special. Hell, he seemed bored at times. And Alicia Vikander was hugely miscast. It was pretty apparent she was struggling with the accent, and many a times felt like she wasn't much into this role. I can't tell you how much I missed Joan Allen as Pamela Landy.

And to keep the disappointment train going, the pacing and editing felt off mostly throughout the film, I don't know what happened as Greengrass has shown he's a master with the handheld cam technique via the previous two films, but here it felt like an inexperienced director (for this style) was at the helm. It just covered the movie in a bland coating. 

It's shocking for a Bourne film that I was actually waiting for it to pick up and actually hook me in, like the previous films have, for most of its run-time. It finally did that but only at the finale. This felt like a complete Cash Grab, and was totally unnecessary. Bummed me out so much.

Maybe I would have liked the film more if I wasn't such a huge fan of the franchise and maybe if I look at it from a standalone point, it isn't bad per say. Could act as a decent spy/agent thriller, but since I am a huge fan, this was a plain and simple mega disappointment. So even though with all that said and done, I will say that give it a try.  

6.5/10
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