There’s not much to Jason Bourne, the fifth entry in
Universal Pictures’ spy franchise. To be
sure, it resembles a movie and passes as an action film by today’s standards,
which is pretty low indeed. There’s
little in the way of story, nothing resembling character development and were
it in cahoots with the company that makes Aleve or other pain medications, I
wouldn’t be surprised – this thing generates nothing but headaches.
The paper-thin plot is kicked off by former CIA analyst
Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) when she hacks into the U.S. Government’s database
and steals files pertaining to the various programs they’ve used to make
killing machines like Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). Turns out, she stumbles across an interesting
factoid concerning Bourne’s past and contacts him about it. Of course, the CIA
has sent their agents to track her down and get that info, which sets off a
movie-long chase to get Bourne and this sensitive information.
Yep, it’s just one long chase across two continents that
features four very long action set pieces intercut with a glowering Tommy Lee
Jones as CIA Director Robert Dewey and Alicia Vikander as scheming government
computer analyst Heather Lee. There’s also a minor subplot involving a Bill
Gates-like tech guru striving for everyone having personal privacy on the
Internet. This is there to give the story a bit of weight and it just doesn’t
fly.
Director Paul Greengrass’ approach to action films is an
acquired taste for old fogies like me but is probably an acceptable approach
for today’s audiences. The filmmaker’s
aesthetic is one that suggests action, rather than show it. All of the four bloated set pieces are a
flurry of images featuring hurtling cars, tumbling people or thrown objects,
captured by Greengrass’ ever-moving camera and cut together at a rate resulting
in some shots lasting less than a second on screen. We rarely see complete follow-through on any
one crash, punch or gouge. That these
sequences run on far too long doesn’t help and the ultimate effect is tedium
with a pinch of eyestrain and nausea for good measure.
As I say, this is filmmaking for a new generation, one that
would probably consider the seminal car chases from Bullet and The French
Connection as dull because they commit the cardinal sin of starting slowly and
building towards a rousing climax, our sight of the cars shown in complete,
unbroken takes. And heaven forbid a
fight be filmed like the old Jackie Chan sequences in which the camera didn’t
move so as to capture all that the actor – a special effect unto himself –
could do. No, this old school stuff is considered passé by today’s young
filmgoers and that’s too bad. They just don’t know what they’re missing.
This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 3, 2016.
