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Jason Bourne (2016)

Matt Damon returns to play Jason Bourne after wrapping up the trilogy in 2007. The studio thought they could get along without Damon and what we got was a very boring Bourne Legacy. Thankfully Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass have returned and it was always going to be interesting to see how Jason Bourne would be nine years after the last film. 

Damon’s first scene sees him arrive in the middle of a fight, take one punch at someone and then leaves. It pretty much shows that Jason Bourne is back within five minutes. Then we meet Julia Stiles’ Nicky who I was never a big fan of. I don't think she’s a bad actress but I just dont think there is much to her. It seems that they only bought her in so they could kill her off. Despite having very little dialogue, he does his acting by just using his face and at times his fists. He can still do the fight scenes well enough and the film is far more interesting when he is on screen.

Riz Ahmed plays Aaron Kalloor who is a Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg type figure who has this technology. He appears like he wants to do the right thing but is being forced to put his morals to one side for the sake of national security. It’s a different way of portraying a rich tech guy but it never feels like it works despite Ahmed’s best efforts. Alicia Vikander is the one that is tasked with tracking down Bourne along with her boss Tommy Lee Jones who spends the entire movie looking like he would want to be anywhere but in this movie. Vikander is very good and does a better job of working with Matt Damon’s Bourne than Nicky ever did. 

The entire Athens scene was great and shows that Paul Greengrass still knows how to put together action scenes. In fact there are a lot of scenes that show how good Paul Greengrass is and if I was being harsh then I would say that the main issues with this film is that you have seen this film before. The great scenes are worth the price of admission but when the story moves to Las Vegas then it does become generic action film. I remember when Bourne was effectively responsible for revitalising James Bond and the reason why we got Daniel Craig instead of more Pierce Brosnan.

It won't be a shock to say that this is way better than The Bourne Legacy in every way imaginable but it isn't as good as any of the original trilogy. You have seen this sort of thing done better in the previous film but if this turns out to be the last time that we get a Bourne film then at least it will have ended on a good if not great note. It does seem to end with the possibility of another one but to be honest I think that this should be it. We now live in a world where The Bourne Legacy isnt the last Bourne film and we should be grateful for that.

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