JASON BOURNE : Monday 1st August 2016.

'JASON BOURNE' which I saw earlier in the week is based on the action spy thriller books and the character created by Robert Ludlum who first burst onto our screens in 2002 in 'The Bourne Identity' with Matt Damon playing the title character of a CIA assassin suffering extreme memory loss who chases across the world to uncover the secrets of his past, and claim back his identity. The first film was Directed by Doug Liman, with the second and third instalments - 'The Bourne Supremacy' in 2004 and 'The Bourne Ultimatum' in 2007 both Directed by Paul Greengrass. In 2012 'The Bourne Legacy' was Directed by Tony Gilroy with Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross on the run as a result of Bourne's actions in 'Ultimatum', and although Damon declined to return as our titular hero, he does appear in archival photographs and dialogue as the storylines overlap. Those first four films were made for a combined US$370M and grossed worldwide US$1,222B and collectively were hailed as both critical and commercial successes. Now almost ten years after last playing the character, Matt Damon is back and reunited with Paul Greengrass in this further instalment - made for US$120M with the screenplay written by Greengrass and both Damon and Greengrass acting as Co-Producers. The film has so far grossed US$128M since its release.

After ten years of laying low following the events at the conclusion of 'Ultimatum', we find Bourne (Matt Damon looking all the more grizzled and world weary) scraping together a meagre living by engaging in illegal fist fights for money somewhere on the Turkish/Bulgarian border. Meanwhile in Reykjavik, Iceland, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is collaborating with a computer hacker, whistleblower and privacy activist to hack into the CIA mainframe and expose their black op's programmes. Whilst doing so, Parsons finds documents relating to Bourne's past and in particular his entry into the Treadstone project and the part his father, Richard Webb, played in it, which ultimately cost him his life back in 1999. Armed with this extensive new found data Parsons travels to Greece to track down Bourne and alert him, convinced that while his memory has returned, these files will contain revealing new information that he will not be aware of.

Whilst Parsons is hacking into the CIA main frame, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) who heads up the CIA's cyber operations team is alerted that their system has been compromised, and so a trace is put on Parson's with suspicions that she is linked to Bourne. Let the chase begin! Lee works for Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) the Director of the CIA who gives the go ahead to put full resources behind tracking Parsons and in turn Bourne - mobilising 'The Asset' (Vincent Cassel) to take them out in a search and destroy mission - ask no questions. Soon enough Parsons meets up with Bourne in a anti-government riot stricken Athens with CIA operatives and The Asset hot on their heels.

What follows is an intense action set piece around the back streets of Athens as Parsons and Bourne separate on foot and then meet up at Syntagma Square and commandeer a motorcycle tearing off down the side streets and alleyways chased by The Asset, the local Police and the CIA. They successfully manage to evade and by-pass rioting hordes, riot police, motorcycle police, the CIA in hot pursuit in the obligatory black trucks and The Asset chasing them down at high speed and then on foot. But The Asset comes good in the end with the help of drone surveillance from above, and a link to Lee in his ear, and with a single well aimed shot takes down Bourne and Parsons sending the former slamming into a parked car and the latter with a bullet in her back. Muttering her dying words she passes a luggage locker key to Bourne, containing a hand written notebook and an encrypted USB stick.

Moving to Berlin, Bourne locates the hacker that Parsons was dealing with back in Reykjavik, and has him decrypt the USB files. Looking through these he learns more truths about his father and how he was the originator of the Treadstone project that ultimately got him killed. However, Lee is able to trace the location of Bourne through malware implanted in the files which he has now accessed, and so a team is sent to take him out. By now however, Lee is beginning to form her own opinions of Bourne based on the information that she is seeing unfold in front of her own eyes. She alerts Bourne to the onset of the raid and that his cover is blown, just as he makes off, and the computer files are erased remotely. 

Using the data he recovered from these files the action moves to London, where Bourne tracks down a Malcolm Smith (Bill Camp), a former Treadstone Surveillance Agent now working at his own security firm. Smith is instantly nervous that Bourne wants to see him and alerts Dewey and in turn Lee that a rendezvous has been arranged. Lee meanwhile persuades Dewey to allow her one attempt to bring Bourne in having studied his files further. Dewey agrees to her plan but secretly mobilises The Asset to take down Lee's team and eliminate Bourne once and for all. Sensing that the CIA will be watching his every move, Bourne sets up some diversion and distraction tactics of his own in the very public gathering place he is to meet with Smith. He whisks Smith away long enough to question him on a roof top, not knowing that Dewey is in Smith's ear ordering him not to divulge anything to Bourne. However, Bourne is growing increasingly impatient threatening to launch Smith off the edge five storey's up. Smith relents and advises that Richard Webb created Treadstone, but tried to prevent his son's entry into the programme. Smith also advises that under orders from Dewey, he had The Asset kill Bourne's father but stage the death to look like a terrorist attack, so giving the young David Webb the impetus to join Treadstone. The Asset takes out Smith before any more beans can be spilled, and Bourne jumps to safety from five floors up!

Bourne meanwhile meets up with Lee who is left scratching her head wondering what the hell just happened to her team. She confesses that she is questioning Dewey's motives, and advises him that Dewey is due to speak at a Las Vegas convention with Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the CEO of a social media application with 1.5 billion subscribers - called 'Deep Dream'. Kalloor has a huge following being the face of corporate social responsibility in the internet age, but his company is being secretly funded by Dewey, who wants to use his technology as a backdoor entry for unhindered surveillance of the masses in a project now known as 'Iron Hand'. Kalloor has an attack of his conscience and intends to come clean at the convention in front of a gathered audience and the worldwide media. But Dewey has other thoughts and orders The Asset to take out both Kalloor and Lee whilst they sit on the speakers panel, but this attempt is thwarted by Bourne just in time. In the frenzy afterwards Bourne makes it to Dewey's suite to confront him with what he knows with both the CIA and Lee closing in. In the ensuing fracas Dewey is shot by Lee, and Bourne sustains a bullet wound from Craig Jeffers (Ato Essandoh), Deweys right hand guy, but not before Bourne puts a bullet in him.

This only leaves The Asset on the run having sustained a bullet wound from Bourne at the convention assassination attempt. The Asset commandeers a SWAT truck to make his getaway, leaving Bourne to do likewise with a car through the streets of uptown Las Vegas in what is a lengthy and well choreographed chase sequence. When both vehicles come to rest in a casino amidst much carnage, destruction and collateral damage, a foot chase leads to a sewer where its close quarter hand to hand combat between Bourne and The Asset. Needless to say, the latter buys the farm!

In the aftermath when the dust has settled and Bourne has gone back underground, he meets in a park with Lee who attempts to persuade him to come back in, promising him that the CIA is changing with the times and can be the organisation he thought it was when he first signed up. He walks away saying he'll think about it, but does not respond when she calls after him 'how will I reach you'? The film closes as Lee sits back in her car with a recording device planted earlier by Bourne that has audio visual evidence that she cannot be trusted.

I liked 'Jason Bourne' but it delivers exactly what you have come to expect from this franchise. It is well delivered but fairly formulaic and predictable. The action set pieces look good at the hands of Director Paul Greengrass who has proven his ability to stage intense close up fist fights and epic multiple vehicle city centre chases on foot, on motorcycle and by car. Bourne has proven as indestructible and indefatigable as ever surviving bullet wounds, near strangulation, countless body blows, falling off a roof five storeys high with nothing but an industrial strength washing line to break his fall, careering off a motorcycle at high speed and into a parked car, and driving his car into a SWAT truck that pins him under the roof of the porte cochere to a casino. And that is just in this film! Their are some confusing elements to this film, questions left unanswered and plot holes that includes what has Bourne been doing for the last ten years as we see him engaging in various underground illegal fist fights - for what purpose exactly I wonder? It is worth seeing for sure, but you can wait for the DVD/Bluray release, and while this film sets up a possible further instalment, I do wonder if this franchise has now run its course and its time for Bourne to ease himself into retirement once and for all, and concentrate on his future rather than his past.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-