It's been nearly 10 years since Matt Damon thundered around as Jason Bourne. He even said that The Bourne Ultimatum was his last outing as the character. And so did director Paul Greengrass. But shit happens and trucks full of money back up to houses. Whatever happened, Greengrass and Damon have teamed up again for Jason Bourne. So the band is back together, granted it's missing writer Tony Gilroy who was so pivotal in the other Bourne movies.
Instead, Greengrass is teaming up with his long time EDITOR, Christopher Rouse. Which seems a bit bizarre, especially when you consider that this is Rouse's first writing gig. But before you go looking for flammable pitchforks, Rouse has been the editor on the last two Bourne movies as well. So, he knows the character and knows him quite well. As does Greengrass and of course Damon does too. So why am I waffling on about all of the above? Simply put, Jason Bourne is a complete head scratcher of a movie. In the sense of "How the fuck did they fuck this up?" when all involved know the character backwards.
If it's not the "Use SQL to corrupt their databases" or "Real time processing" buzz words patronisingly hurled around a mile a minute in the opening 20 minutes, it's the constant rapid fire editing of scene after scene that assaults your eyeballs. At times, scenes just appear on screen and disappear in the blink of an eye and they have zero relevance to whats going on. I accept Greengrass has a great fast and hand held style, and the rapid fire editing has worked great in the past. But now, it's an absolute mind melting experience, for the first hour or so.
Whether or not two different movies were haphazardly spliced together here or not, we'll never know. It's the latter half, however, which is rather brilliant. If you like your movies loud, fast and full of action, then Jason Bourne delivers in the last 45 minutes and then some. Some of what they shot in Las Vegas is jaw droppingly phenomenal.
Performance wise, it's hard to imagine anyone else playing the role of Bourne. Damon, envelops the character at this stage and is incredible shape and certainly brings the fight to the screen. The supporting cast leave alot to be desired though. Tommy Lee Jones looks like someone held a gun to his head to do this movie. It's one of the worst performances of his career. He has no screen presence and just genuinely looks fed up. Vincent Cassel and Alicia Vikander fare a little better, but neither are breaking a sweat in their completely underdeveloped roles.
If you make it through the disastrous first hour or so, you'll be rewarded with a spectacular, fast, fun, frantic and tense finale which is actually worth the price of admission. Definitely worth a punt, but could have been so much better.
Instead, Greengrass is teaming up with his long time EDITOR, Christopher Rouse. Which seems a bit bizarre, especially when you consider that this is Rouse's first writing gig. But before you go looking for flammable pitchforks, Rouse has been the editor on the last two Bourne movies as well. So, he knows the character and knows him quite well. As does Greengrass and of course Damon does too. So why am I waffling on about all of the above? Simply put, Jason Bourne is a complete head scratcher of a movie. In the sense of "How the fuck did they fuck this up?" when all involved know the character backwards.
If it's not the "Use SQL to corrupt their databases" or "Real time processing" buzz words patronisingly hurled around a mile a minute in the opening 20 minutes, it's the constant rapid fire editing of scene after scene that assaults your eyeballs. At times, scenes just appear on screen and disappear in the blink of an eye and they have zero relevance to whats going on. I accept Greengrass has a great fast and hand held style, and the rapid fire editing has worked great in the past. But now, it's an absolute mind melting experience, for the first hour or so.
Whether or not two different movies were haphazardly spliced together here or not, we'll never know. It's the latter half, however, which is rather brilliant. If you like your movies loud, fast and full of action, then Jason Bourne delivers in the last 45 minutes and then some. Some of what they shot in Las Vegas is jaw droppingly phenomenal.
Performance wise, it's hard to imagine anyone else playing the role of Bourne. Damon, envelops the character at this stage and is incredible shape and certainly brings the fight to the screen. The supporting cast leave alot to be desired though. Tommy Lee Jones looks like someone held a gun to his head to do this movie. It's one of the worst performances of his career. He has no screen presence and just genuinely looks fed up. Vincent Cassel and Alicia Vikander fare a little better, but neither are breaking a sweat in their completely underdeveloped roles.
If you make it through the disastrous first hour or so, you'll be rewarded with a spectacular, fast, fun, frantic and tense finale which is actually worth the price of admission. Definitely worth a punt, but could have been so much better.
