Jason Bourne

"Remembering everything doesn't mean you know everything."

Filmology Rating: 2.67 out of 4

It’s been 10 years since Ultimatum and Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has remained off the grid during this span. He is away from the “game” now and seems to have left that life completely behind, that is until Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the CIA and steals Black Op files. She discovers that there are even newer and more sinister programs than that of Blackbriar or Treadstone and also more information about Bourne's past. Knowing that the CIA has been hacked, CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) places hacker and analyst Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) in charge of tracking down Nicky Parsons. Bourne, getting roped into all of this really against his will, is back once again to kick some ass.

It has been almost 10 years since the last Jason Bourne movie has come out and I couldn’t be more excited for it! As I stated in my previous Bourne trilogy review, this has been one of my favorite trilogies to date. They have fantastic action, great acting, brilliant directing and writing, suspense, and much more. While this movie had a lot of these characteristics, it doesn’t quite meet the level that it should, especially after having almost 10 years to make a fantastic movie.

For me, the biggest issue with Jason Bourne is that is lacks the fantastic plot that the other movies had. The other movies had such suspense and intriguing plots and this one…. Well it just didn’t have it. There are two plots in this movie, one of which I liked. The first is Bourne looking into the new information that Nicky Parsons discovered about his past and the other is about a new program the CIA is implementing through a social media outlet. The Bourne movies are all about discovery so I very much liked the idea of him finding out more information about his past and why exactly he was chosen in the first place. This was good! I wanted them to stay on this!...... and then the other plot kept coming back. I feel the other plot was there to set up future movies. While I would love to see them keep making Bourne movies (and they could base off this side plot), this plot felt really dull and boring for the film at hand. Also, even though we get to look more into Jason’s past and discover new things, it never reached the emotion level that the others did. It tried to but it just didn’t reach it completely. So overall, the plot could have both been more up to the standards that we have come to expect and also more emotionally engaging.

Now that being said, this does have a lot of the previous Bourne qualities that made the series great. The action is very fast paced once again and done very well with the shaky camera work and directing of Paul Greengrass. He really has mastered this style. His shaky camera has always made the action more intense and also made you feel like you are there in the mix. Once again there are some epic car chases and games of cat and mouse, hunter and prey. These qualities were all just as good and up to the Bourne standard. Bringing back Matt Damon and Julie Stiles and also adding a great and talented new cast, the acting was once again fantastic. Damon even though he is a man of very few words, was once again great. We see a very emotional tortured man in this movie. Someone who upon remembering everything that he has done is very conflicted. Then Alicia Vikander (She and Brie Larson are rapidly becoming some of my favorite actresses and Hollywood’s greatest talents) was great in this movie as well along with Tommy Lee Jones as well.

Now was this a bad movie? No, no it wasn’t. It’s just that after 10 years it could have and should have been better. The other Bourne movies have all been fantastic and this movie was just good. I still had a lot of fun with it but it just didn’t have that wow factor that the others brought.

Rating: See It 

-Nick