Review of Jason Bourne (2016) by Dustin D — 07 Nov 2018

The Jason Bourne movies all require some suspension of disbelief to enjoy them, but this one requires suspending disbelief off a 12-storey building and then dropping it into an Olympic-sized swimming pool below. You try to shut your brain off, but it just keeps kicking on to tell you how stupid all this is.

It starts with a "here we go again" setup, and Bourne goes through the motions, beating up and outsmarting everyone, nothing feels like it is at stake. In the real world one spy gets killed on the streets in London and it becomes an international incident. In Jason Bourne, the CIA kills dozens of its own people in broad daylight, and no one takes notice. We are supposed to believe the CIA will keep repeating its mistakes ad nauseam in each sequel. Alicia Vikander's character arc is obvious the moment we see her.

As always Paul Greengrass's action is too jolty and difficult to follow at times. The action set pieces are good at times, and I occasionally got invested in Bourne's plight, despite myself. It makes you miss the originality of the first film, however. No more of these need to be made.