Jason Bourne (2016)

Matt Damon takes on the role of Jason Bourne for the fourth time. In this new film, we dive deeper into the backstory of Jason Bourne. In the previous movie starring Matt Damon, The Bourne Ultimatum, we found out that Jason's real name was David Webb and he signed up for the Treadstone Program to help protect his country, and in turn gave up his name and everything he used to be to become the perfect weapon. In the movie, Jason Bourne, we start to get some more of the puzzle pieces that is David Webb's life, but in turn, Jason is pulled out of the shadows and directly in the cross hairs of CIA director, Robert Dewey played by Tommy Lee Jones. Once again Jason is forced in the middle of a bitter conflict that he now must take part in and maybe answer a couple questions about himself.

Thoughts:

Overall this movie might have been one too many in the series for me. I really enjoyed where they left off after Bourne Ultimatum, Jason finally found out who he was and could maybe work on putting his shattered life back together. Did that movie answer all the questions about Jason Bourne/David Webb? No! but maybe the mystery would have been better than trying to squeeze one last movie from this expired idea. It is hard to look at this movie and not compare it to previous ones, and while you are enjoying the film you might start to take notice of some large differences. In this most recent film, we find Jason not as experienced as he was in previous movies. He will make countless mistakes and in turn, puts him in a position I doubt Jason Bourne would normally do. Also, in previous ones, there was a good balance of action, chase, conversation, and personal struggle. In Jason Bourne, I found that if there wasn't a chase happening, I would be getting motion sick watching flashbacks or trying to read text messages over the shoulder of Matt Damon with a very shaky cam. With the previous Bourne films there was usually one or two big chase scenes, but for the most part, this whole movie was a chase scene or just shots of people walking/standing in the streets of different cities.

As I said in the beginning of this section, Jason Bourne might have been one too many movies. This character does have a lot of awesome qualities, but when the audience can start guessing the plot, it might be time to move on. There were some good action scenes, some of the characters were good, but over all this movie was just the last nail in the coffin for Jason Bourne.

Saw Legacy last week and I'm surprised how much I liked it. Then I saw the new one the other day and I was kind of underwhelmed. It just felt unnecessary, and his motivation just didn't seem strong enough to go murder the CIA director.

Identity was still the best in the series for me. Was looking forward to seeing what Bourne's been up to, but turns out that just wasn't too exciting. Some cool stuff, but I liked Legacy more than this so I don't know what that says.

@csl316: I am glad I am not the only person that felt the movie missed its mark.

The movie lost me when the CIA used "enhance" on a security cam picture to magically make pixels appear. That the screenwriters thought they could get away with such an overused cliche was representative of how tired and uninspired Jason Bourne ended up being. And I say this as someone who thinks The Bourne Identity is one of the best action movies of the millennium.

I liked it but it was unnecessary which is ok since I felt the same about the 2nd and 3rd movies to a lesser degree. I always felt that the first movie by itself, was a great, self-contained movie with Bourne living his life out with Run Lola Run.

I thought Legacy was alright up until the end where the story gets a little ridiculous, but I thought Jeremy Renner was a fine new lead. This new movie had me excited because I had heard rumors that Renners characters would be incorporated into Damon's "Bourne world" in a sort of oldschool meets newschool kind of way. Personally I haven't seen the newest flick but my mom who is weirdly enough a huge fan came away disappointed. In her words it had way too much action and not enough of the more methodical storytelling from the previous entries. She thought they went a little over the top. I'll see it eventually.

Lets see who is Jason now. Wanna atmospheric film like first part

I think the Tom Lee Jones character is totally comical because his motivations for doing anything are screwed.

First of all, everything Dir Dewey is doing by working with the "tech company" is quasi-legal and approved over his pay grade. The Head of Home Land security know, the FBI knows, the National Security Adviser, and the President knows. It is just they the administration don't want the public to figure it out right away even if they are told in a ULA. So, why is he trying to kill everyone again? ALL NONSENSE.

Second, if they want to say Tom Lee Jones is off the rails, well they do a bad job giving him any motivation to be off the rails. No flashback of his sister dying or his kids dying because they could tape a cellphone. Basically, his stance on why they NEED this back door and what it has to be secrete very poorly. They portray Dewey as if anyone in his position woudl do this, which I think is insane. In the past the main protagonists of Jason Bourne do what they do because their hand will be caught in the cookie jar if they don't "tie off' lose ends. Dewey has the blessing of EVERYONE above him to get this "technical back door" installed, he is not hiding anything from superiors, this plan is legal (or could be interpreted that way under current law). The Treadstone managers of the earlier films had embezzled money and they had done UN-approved black-bag jobs, and THAT is why they were willing to kill to hide it. Also, the Treadstones team screwed up they were told to make some assassinations quietly and they failed. They told everyone Bourne was dead, but they only guessed which was a lied. When they tried to fix things quietly they screwed up more, because they were trying to tie off their theft and personal operations. So killing their own and getting Bourne at all costs made sense to them.

@humanity: I think that originally, the new Bourne was supposed to feature Renner's character. I don't know if they started again after Damon decided to come back, but I kept waiting for Renner to show up in some capacity. Would've been interesting despite minimal story reasons to do so.

@csl316: I believe there was some reference to the Matt Damon Jason Bourne during Bourne Legacy, I think Renner's character is not an active agent cause they were testing out the chemical compound

I liked Alicia Vikander, I think she played the roles she was given very well. In fact she was the highlight of the film both as a character, but also her look and portrayal felt like the proper fit for a Bourne movie. I think Tommy Lee Jones seem to think he was in a Marvel Avengers movie.


I though her character was great, I though she played the role of a women playing a game withing a game double crossing to get ahead very well. But the intonation of her accent trying to mimic American Mid-West flatness was distracting. I want to see Alicia Vikander in the next Bourne movie, but drop the flat American accent....the actress is too good to be saddled with asking her to speak that way.

I tuned out of the Bourne movies after Ultimatum. If we ever get a film set in the 70's where Bourne goes up against the Jackal maybe I'll be back on board.

I enjoyed the movie, though I agree there wasn't anything really different in there.

The riot at the start proves that Paul Greengrass really can direct chaos like no-one else.

Has there been a Bourne video game at all?

@humanity: I agree, the story was minimal and the action was high. Normally that wouldnt be a problem for me, but I think with the way everything was put together it made it seem as if the film had no substance in terms of story. I enjoyed the first half because that really is where Paul Greengrass shined in terms of the rights. But I remember walking out of the film feeling cheated. I felt like it lacked depth, I even got bored of the action sequences in the film later on, which is a shame because those are the best parts of the previous films.

To make it worse, for me, they left the ending open for another film.