"Jesus Christ, that's Jason Bourne!"
Hello everyone!
After the blockbuster review from last week which had to do with Star Trek and everything beyond the final frontier, I'm back to slightly more realistic waters.
Well, realistic is a subjective term, either way.
However, I have always been and probably always will be a huge fan of stories which focus on intelligence agencies and their agents around the globe, which is probaby why I haven't yet given up on this Jason Bourne ship, although to be perfectly honest I have never and will never be a complete fan of the movies.
My reasons?
See, I've read the books. And as complex as they are (obviously impossible to bring to the big screen in any kind of coherent way in just a few movies) they are SO much better than the movies could ever be.
But I digress. I said I haven't given up on the Bourne ship yet.
The reason for this is mostly that I enjoy watching Matt Damon act.
Alright, alright, I will fess up and say that before seeing the first Bourne movie, I hadn't been that much of a Damon fan, but this is a role that defined him and launched him into orbit for everything else that happened to him afterwards.
Although, I was, however, right in my assessment of things: when I first saw the trailer for the fifth Bourne movie, my thought was
Oh, God. Not again.
And this isn't because I dislike the movies - I don't even actually dislike them. Compared to the books, they simply fall woefully short, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate them, which I do. But I would have also thought that, after pretty much telling the story in three of them (and the fourth which was a sort of outcast I suppose), they wouldn't have any material left for number five.
Because let's be real, what COULD they have conceivably done with a character that's an amnesiac? Or, was.
My theory: Jason Bourne somehow gets sighted again. The CIA still wants to take him out. They end up killing someone he cares about. Bourne retaliates instead of rolling over for them. Everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
Turns out, I pretty much nailed the plotline on the head! In fact, I cemented the beast.
We catch up with Jason Bourne in Greece where he's fighting in these illegal street fighting rings, while his friend Nikki (if you remember, in movie three she helped him in the end and they ran off into the sunset) hacks into the CIA database to steal the black ops files.
Unfortunately, she's not careful enough and the Agency is alerted, and as they manage to lift her digital print, so to speak, they identify her and realise Bourne might be sourfacing again.
Which, in CIA slang, means GRAB YOUR RELATIVES AND RUN.
Ahem.
Of course they don't do that. What they do is grab their Asset (another agent) and send him after Bourne and Nikki.
Bourne uses rioting in Athens to cover his escape, but Nikki unfortunately gets killed by the Asset on their way out, which simply triggers Bourne's pissed-off skills. And I still sit here and face-palm when some of the CIA personnel think this will bring Bourne back into the fold, because he's all alone now.
Has no one learned anything? Like, if you kill someone a highly trained assassin cares about, you're just getting onto his hit list?
Nope.
A word on the Asset: he has a personal grudge against Bourne (and Vincent Cassel plays him to perfection) because, when the files for the original program were leaked, he was compromised, caught and tortured.
Yeahhhh okay now.
Bourne travels to Berlin to track down the guy Nikki was working for, having him open the files which she insisted Bourne needs to see to learn about his past, and because there's a new program in the works, even worse than the original one. This triggers the bug which was planted on the files so the CIA are hot footing it over in a race against the clock as Bourne learns that his father (honorary appearance by Gregg Henry who looks so weird as not Hollis Doyle from Scandal) had originally suggested him for Treadstone, thinking it was to protect the country, but after learning the truth he repented and tried to set things right. Unfortunately, all he got himself was killed (by the Asset, natch, while Bourne thought it was terrorists) in front of his son's eyes.
Hopping to London then, because, why not? Bourne is once again trying to outgun everyone who's after him, looking for an agent who used to be a handler for the CIA.
It's at this point that Lee, a young agent (played by Alicia Vikander) who is leading the op against Bourne, realises she's being played, and instead of doing what her superiors want, she turns and ends up helping Bourne escape.
This includes, but is not limited to, multiple shootings and jumping off ledges high off the ground to survive.
Lee tells Bourne about a conference that the CIA Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) is attending in Las Vegas to speak with this man, Kalloor, who is doing a deal with the CIA in the background (being blackmailed ...) about pretty much spying on anyone who signs onto the internet anywhere, virtually killing any privacy we may have.
Dewey is going to have Kalloor assassinated for his own machinations, an old dog trying to cover up his tracks, but Bourne intervenes and in the subsequent fight, Lee ends up shooting Dewey while Bourne dispatches the Asset, being one step ahead.
Lee then meets with the NSA Director, promising to either bring Bourne in or kill him, and that she'll manage Kalloor from now on so he doesn't squeak.
Hot from this meeting, she hitchikes and goes to see Bourne in the park, where she gives him a cast of his father's star from the memorial wall at Langley, asking him to come in with her, that the old ways are over and that all the old players are now gone. They could, theoretically, work together.
Bourne promises to think about it, and they part ways, but once in her car, Lee finds a recording which reveals that Bourne never completely trusted her and listened to the entire conversation she had with the NSA director, telling her without words that he is two steps ahead in this game, that he knows coming in will probably kill him just as much as staying out of the Agency, and that she can't hope to outmatch him in any way.
Basically, it's a big, fat, middle finger to her and the Agency both.
And that's the end!
I don't know if there will be any more films after this one, but it's kind of fun to watch all the new people trying to catch up to the machine that Bourne is, which is probably the only lasting testament to the books from it all, aside from the general story. But it WAS entertaining, and I have to admit that I will always cheer Bourne on.
He's the guy you have to watch out for, after all.
xx
*images and video not mine
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