Matt Damon reprises his role as Jason Bourne in reunion with Paul Greengrass
JASON BOURNE (Paul Greengrass, 2016)
Opens Friday, July 29
www.jasonbournemovie.com
Perhaps Universal named the fifth Jason Bourne film Jason Bourne because The Bourne Idiocy would probably not have made for very good box office. The fifth entry in the action-espionage series based on the Robert Ludlum character is a lackluster, repetitive bore. Oh, there are plenty of chases, fistfights, and shootouts in locations around the world, but there is rarely any legitimate drama to fill in the gaping plot holes. After skipping The Bourne Legacy, Matt Damon is back as the mysterious government killing machine, still on the run from the CIA, which is now headed by Robert Dewey (an incredibly craggy-faced Tommy Lee Jones). Dewey has hired the Asset (Vincent Cassel) to take out Bourne, who is digging into his past, trying to uncover his father’s (Gregg Henry) role in the top- secret Treadstone program in order to find out more about himself.
CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and agent Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) hunt for Jason Bourne in latest franchise flick
A wooden Julia Stiles is back as Nicky Parsons, while Alicia Vikander is new as CIA agent Heather Lee. Every character is one note, lacking any depth, wearing the same pout, frown, or scowl through the whole film. Written by Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, Captain Phillips) and editor Christopher Rouse, the film tries to be clever by including subplots that directly and indirectly reference Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Apple’s fight with the FBI over gaining access into locked iPhones, as social media tech guru Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed) questions his dealings with Dewey, and Bourne meets Christian Dassault (Vinzenz Kiefer), a cyberterrorist hacking into any information he can get his hands on. As the film travels to Greece, London, Berlin, Washington, DC, and, ultimately, Las Vegas, the story grows more convoluted and ridiculous. At one point we thought that maybe it was a parody and we were misreading it, but alas, it seems to be serious, which is a shame, because Damon is a riveting screen presence but has nowhere to go in this disappointing mess of a film.