Jason Bourne

Dir: Paul Greengrass

2016

**

Jason Bourne? Jason Bored more like! Matt Damon said back in 2007 after The Bourne Ultimatum that he was done with the franchise stating that "We have ridden that horse as far as we can". So why he decided to get back in the saddle and run that horse into the ground for a fourth time is beyond me. He's doing alright isn't he? I'm sure the money was good but seriously, I can't see the script being any more exciting than the final result, surely he must have read a thousand and one scripts just like it and rejected them all? Paul Greengrass knows better too, doesn't he? I'm in the minority but I quite liked The Bourne Legacy, mainly due to Jeremy Renner's performance but also because it embellished on the original film's idea, it expanded it and opened up the franchise to many different possibilities. It's completely lazy that all that was scrapped and they set about reusing the original plot in many respects and forgot that the last film ever happened. If Bourne was brought back into the story following on from The Bourne Legacy then I think they would have been on to something but as it is this film is indistinguishable from all the other Bourne films and twice as boring. It begins with a fight, which is followed by a car chase, which is followed by nonsensical computer speak, followed by another car chase and then another fight. The car chases are uninteresting and the fight scenes are long, drawn-out and relentlessly dull - not to mention unnecessary. Everything that should be exciting about the film is incredibly un-enthralling and largely forgettable. It desperately needed that 'one scene' to be remembered for but no scene comes close, the action is simply filmed using shaky-cam techniques to try and make up for the fact that nothing of much interest is really happening. There are a couple of scenes where you can actually see people in the background pointing at the film crew and taking pictures of the filming, and even they look bored. There's no writing here, no real plot, Bourne knew all he really needed to know at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, he had it all sussed, there was no need to bring in a ridiculous story about his father and how he was recruited. There really isn't much I liked about the film if I'm being honest, it has two of my favourite rising stars in it, the brilliant Alicia Vikander and my boy Riz Ahmed - who are very convincing as an ambitious CIA agent and Mark Zuckerberg-like Social Media CEO respectively. I love Tommy Lee Jones and Vincent Cassel but both play tired characters, a double-crossing CIA director and a menacing assassin, neither bring anything new to their roles but then there is nothing new in how they are written. I was never a huge fan of the series but I imagine this must be the mother of all anti-climaxes for hard-core Bourne fans? I was looking forward to another Bourne following on from The Bourne Legacy but I've lost all interest now. The horse is dead, time to get of it and bury the poor thing.