Jason
Bourne
(2016)
(SPOILERS) The Bourne Jasonity, as it is also
known, makes one wonder a bit. Did the added luxury of time, notably absent
from the pressure-cooker production schedule of the previous Greengrass-Damon Bourne efforts, ultimately have a
negative effect on the end result? Does Bourne
need conflict and up-against-it difficulties to make something special (there
were copious reshoots on Identity
too, of course)? Because Jason Bourne
isn’t anything special. It’s a serviceable thriller, but as a Bourne movie, and the high standards by
which the series is rightly judged, it’s something of a disappointment.
Which leads
one to doubly question the wisdom of blowing the cobwebs off Damon’s most
iconic role, and leading the faulty-memory man, greying of temples but even
more relentless of physique, back into the fray. I haven’t rewatched it since,
so I may come up with a different response when I do, but on first impressions
the much maligned The Bourne Legacy
is a more interesting picture than this one, for all the derided greens and
blues and the failure of Jeremy Renner (not really his fault) to fashion Aaron
Cross into an effective replacement black ops operative.
Perhaps the
greatest failure of Jason Bourne (and
that title, so utterly lacking in creativity or enthusiasm, sadly reflects the
final product) is its inability to exert a relentless pace, a driving plot that
keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat, compelled to push on to whatever
may happen next. While there are individually superior set pieces, up to the
standards of the series’ past achievements, there is little sense of
cumulative, wholer vitality running through the this third/fourth sequel. This
is most clear in the piecemeal fashion by which Greengrass and Christopher
Rouse have failed to fashion a narrative justifying the re-emergence of the
former David Webb.
To wit, he
has now been retrofitted with a father in charge of the project, to give Bourne
a measure of personal investment, the kind of unnecessary retooling we have also
(bizarre to draw this comparison, but symptomatic of studios struggling to feign
validation for milking every penny out of a potential or moribund franchise) seen
this summer in Finding Dory. More
damaging is the dogged desire to be topical, since it is manifested in an
almost out-of-touch, dodderingly parental fashion, contrasting to the manner in
which such material appeared germane, vital and congruent when addressed in
previous pictures.
Greengrass
and Damon want to address the surveillance state, but do they have anything to
say about it? Not when they come out and say
it, no. When they show it, in terms
of the added weight that can be brought to bear on tracking Bourne at every turn,
it’s incredibly potent (not just watching him, but wiping his secrets-laden
laptop simply by hacking a nearby cell phone). When they say it, or overtly
plot it, all resonance crumbles. Snowden is name-checked, but if feels like weak
bandwagon jumping rather than keen understanding.
There’s the
Google-type head of Deep Dream (Riz Ahmed as Aaron Kalloor), whose
software/platform has been compromised from the get-go, but is now having
qualms about further prospective intrusiveness, which frankly seems like a limp
plotline set in motion after the horse has bolted. Bourne should be cynically assuming any and all means of access are
already in place, whatever protests service provides offer in the media, and
that a head of company doesn’t need to be on board for the intelligence
services to have all the access they want. It’s a problem when you get a
conspiracy-minded movie that is too
level-headed for its audience, that ought to push the conspiratorial aspect
further because it isn’t credulous enough. No one would be surprised any more.
It’s also there
in the balanced-but-unenticing debate over the push-pull of state surveillance in
aid of fighting the forces of darkness (the results are no more than the
average media think piece comes up with in terms of rigour). How much is the construct of the argument justified and
how much is it manufactured, might be a more provocative place to come from, rather
than the lightly poised indifference of Bourne or the judiciously dismissive
riposte of Tommy Lee Jones’ CIA Director Dewey, responding to Kalloor’s qualms.
It doesn’t
help matters that this plotline barely intersects with Bourne’s mission, at
least until the Vegas-set finale, further reinforcing the sense that the movie
has been awkwardly built upon a shopping list of elements the makers are
seeking to address (or pay lip service to) in order to demonstrate their passionate
social consciences, rather than in the service of a clearly defined tale that
“needs” to be told.
Greengrass
is on firmer ground when referencing the financial crisis obliquely, setting
Bourne’s flight from the limelight against a backdrop of Greek unrest (it can
be no coincidence either that Nicky Parsons is pulling off her Snowden hack
from Iceland, the country that most instantly and overtly suffered fallout from
the crisis, and also seen to be one of the few willing to actually prosecute
anyone over it). Really, though, this is symptomatic of a movie casting a wide
net and coming up short of even a light haul. There’s a would-be assassination
at the climax, the blame to rest on a lone Iraqi gunman, and the old corrupt CIA
regime is replaced by a new corrupt CIA regime, but Greengrass is unable to
summon any drama, urgency or immediacy from the intrigues.
Of Bourne
himself, Matt is dependably grim-faced and taciturn, but the attempts to
motivate the character don’t entirely convince. Bourne doesn’t, it appears, now
remember everything (like Dory, it comes back to him in carefully apportioned
chunks, as the plot demands). There’s an attempt to seed the idea that he might
return to the agency, to come home, right up to the point where he pulls a
Pamela Landy-esque reveal on new head of operations Heather Lee (Alicia
Vikander), but we’re not really falling for it.
The more powerful
motivating force, never really picked up on, is the pointless, perfunctory
killing off of Julia Stiles’ Nicky (I expected this, as that’s just the sort of
thing they would do, and the trailers
seemed to be very sequential about her involvement), but it gives him no
impetus whatsoever (perhaps they thought it would be too much of a rehearsal of
Supremacy, or Lethal Weapon 2 before it, but it’s much worse that Bourne seems
entirely unaffected). Nicky is dispatched with kind of incidental disregard reserved
for Paddy Considine’s journalist in Ultimatum,
ignoring that she had survived as the only other constant in the series besides
the title role. It’s not a case of not killing off beloved characters, but at
least make it matter.
So Bourne
is left doing stuff because he’s Bourne, pretty much, thrown the spectre of a
persuasive parental force (Gregg Henry, a good fit facially) and an antagonist
who is… laughable. Not that Vincent Cassel doesn’t play him with commendable
conviction (if ever they want someone to play Rod Hull in an Emu biopic, he’s a
shoe-in), but anyone alarmed at the suspension of disbelief required for Legacy’s lead’s drugs of choice will
have a field day with a character who makes it his mission to create as much
collateral damage as unfeasibly possible on any given assignment. Most risibly
– the kind of thing you worried Star Trek
Beyond was angling towards with its crashed starship but recovered from by
making it integral – Cassel’s Asset is not only bent on revenge against Bourne
for exposing him (and in so doing getting him tortured) as a result of the info
dump in Ultimatum (Bourne’s like
Snowden see, traitor or hero, depending on your perspective; not so clever that), he’s also the guy who
put paid to pappy all those years back.
This is the
kind of rudimentary plotting that makes you rather wish they’d made things up
on the fly; under a show of hands they’d all surely have gone “Nah, no one
would buy that, too convenient” rather than going through a drawn-out discussion
where they convinced themselves it was not only acceptable but even a good
idea. Also aboard with the pervading sense of unwelcomely familiar tropes is
Tommy Lee Jones playing Tommy Lee Jones for the umpteenth time in a Tommy Lee
Jones-through-and-through hard-ass authority figure role. There’s precious
little point clearing the decks of previous characters if you then go and
replenish stocks with ones even more stock.
On the plus
side, Alicia Vikander is really good as Lee, striking an impenetrably
ambivalent tone that turns out to be all about climbing the career ladder and
nothing to do with what’s best for her country (or Bourne). Scott Shepherd, who
made a lot from a little in last year’s Bridge
of Spies, is unable to repeat the miracle as National Intelligence Director
Russell, while Riz Ahmed is also defeated by slipshod characterisation (the
last we see of him is a face palm moment where he informs the media he will not
further divulge the cancer at the heart of Deep Dream, as if the most
elementary guesswork couldn’t reach a conclusion).
And what of
the action? Bourne indulging bare knuckle boxing, taking out opponents in a
single punch, is what we want to see, the instinctive machine mind that knows
what to do in any given scenario, and the early conflagration in Greece, as he appropriates
a police motorcycle and avoids protesters, police, CIA personnel and the Asset
is thrillingly coordinated. Later in London, his subterfuges enabling a meeting
with a surveillance operative (Bill Camp) are also the stuff of classic Bourne
lateral thinking.
Unfortunately,
the final car chase along the Vegas strip fails to live up to Diamonds Are Forever. The preceding
piece of Bourne play, as he bursts into the convention hall (holding a debate
on privacy rights) and distracts the Asset, is far superior. Whose bright idea
was it to have a SWAT vehicle up against a Dodge Charger, as the altercation
never feel other than silly? It’s partially saved by a superlatively brutal
fight in a tunnel between the two veteran operatives, but Bourne isn’t a series
that satisfies through being glass half full.
The picture
I most came away thinking off was not prior Bournes
but the previous damp squib collaboration between Damon and Greengrass, Green Zone, a movie with many commendable
elements, but ultimately stymied by its desire to be pertinent, relevant and
laudable, and which arrived virtually obsolete as a result of such misconceived
diligence. For all that Greengrass can be fired up and propulsive in his political
conscience (Bloody Sunday) he can
equally come across as slickly superficial (Captain
Phillips). I’d have taken slickly superficial in Jason Bourne, or just plain slick. Honestly, it might have been
more interesting, all told, to have seen that second Aaron Cross movie, with
the promise of Justin Lin at the helm (particularly given Lin’s work on the
recent Star Trek movie). I know, I
know, I’ll just keep popping those Greens and Blues.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.