Review of Jason Bourne (2016) by Yorkman — 18 Dec 2016

Jason Bourne is the fourth outing of Robert Ludlum's amnesiac ex-assassin and it's by far the weakest in the (now) ongoing franchise.

Matt Damon reprises his role, but is in effect playing a completely different character. Everything we've come to discover about him in the original 'trilogy' is jettisoned in favour of some completely unattached tale involving a whole new group of CIA spooks out to stop him.

It's very 'by the book' writing, and suffers immensely by not having any defined references back to the man we know.

OK the character of Nicky Parsons returns, but her role is solely to offer up this new character angle (and subsequent memories that weren't mentioned or referenced previously) regarding Bourne's father and his involvement in the original Treadstone Program that created the assassin Bourne would become.

There's oblique references to Bourne's (aka David Webb) rationale for joining up due to his father's death and him wanting to be a patriot... But it's merely offered up as filler inbetween the two narratives that flow as the film bumbles along.

It wouldn't be so bad if the acting/direction were good, but they're not. We're in shaky-cam nirvana, not a single shot in the move seems to be captured using a fixed camera. As for the acting, Damon's on auto-pilot, as are Tommy Lee Jones and recent Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (a bad piece of casting, as she's FAR too attractive to be an ambitious, young CIA uber-tech nerd!!), it seems to be nothing more than a guaranteed paycheque and I suspect in Damon's case... As he's also a producer... He's picking up a substantial financial reward for that too!!

Throw in some terrible CGI effects on the long distance shots (nothing in the background looks real in those cityscapes) and a woeful score.... And you're left with merely another generic action/spy/cyber thriller.

One to watch if it pops up on Netflix and you've run out of episodes of Westworld.