As I was watching this, I couldn't help but hearken back to summers at my grandmother's house. Why's that, you ask? Well, she did not have cable and got limited channels through her antenna in the room my sister and I stayed in. We would spend all day watching infomercials on that television and then would run out and beg our mother to order whatever product they were schilling. The Ronco Food Dehydrator? Had to have it! The hand mixer?? Please! Please! Please! And so on and so forth... Why am I talking about infomercials when I should be reviewing Jason Bourne? I'll tell you... You know that point in the infomercial when they've laid out their sales pitch? "Get xxx product for three easy payments of $39.99! We'll throw in this and that and this... all for the same low price!" Great deal, right? This is where they throw in their world famous line... "But wait, there's more!" No way!!! I want more! But it's usually nothing special and doesn't add to the value of the original product.
That's where Jason Bourne fits into the Bourne series of films. It's the "More" in that world famous line. We don't need it. It doesn't add anything of value to the original product. But it's still nice to be offered as an add-on.
To me, the original three films in this series tell a perfect story. The Bourne Identity starts with a total amnesiac Jason Bourne floating in the water. By the time The Bourne Ultimatum is finished, Jason Bourne has returned to the water... this time with all his memories in tact. His journey is complete and he's fully at peace. Or so we thought...
Jason Bourne picks up nine years after the last film and Damon's character is still struggling with PTSD flashbacks. He's still piecing together bits from his past. And, as it appears, he's living his life as a traveling street fighter. Before you know it, the CIA is on his tail and we're off on another whirlwind adventure across multiple contents.
Much has been made about Matt Damon's limited dialogue in this film, but I was actually OK with it. What I had a problem with was the rest of the cast (with the exception of an acerbic Tommy Lee Jones chewing scenery like a boss!). To call them wooden would be an insult to trees. It's almost as if they just recorded rehearsals and filled in the scenes with action.
Speaking of action, director Paul Greengrass stages some pretty exciting scenes (though the shakiness of the camerawork was almost unbearable to watch during certain chases). A chase through a demonstration in Greece was quite fun (wooden performance from Julia Stiles aside), and the final sequence through Las Vegas was on par with previous films. However, Greengrass isn't reinventing the wheel here, which is probably the film's biggest problem. It doesn't take the series in any new directions, which in my opinion, it desprately needed to.
I hope in future installments (and the box office numbers justify them) they get rid of this amnesia storyline and allow Jason Bourne to go in new directions.
I'm giving this film 2 out of 4 stars. It wasn't a bad movie... it wasn't a good movie. It was just a movie. I enjoyed it, but wasn't as riveted to the material as in the previous trilogy.
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