Movie Review: Dipping into the well one too many times with “Jason Bourne”

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Grade C – Totally forgettable

Overview:

From the very first, I’ve loved the Bourne movies. How can you go wrong with a bad-ass being hunted by the big bad government? The previous movies had realistic chase scenes, logical actions; and while not entirely realistic fight scenes, at least fun ones. Jason Bourne dips right back into the same deep well but this time without any of the realism that has been the hallmark of the series. Nikki is now working to discredit the government by using her skills as a hacker to get at even more information to expose even more deep dark secrets beyond Black Briar. The new information she exposes draws doubts regarding previous reveals that Jason entered Treadstone of his own accord. And now Jason’s father seems to have something to do with things.

My short answer is: Conspiracy movies which go to the well one too many times end up boring the audience. They need to grow. Jason Bourne didn’t.

Good:

Same thing that has been great in other Bourne movies – great fights, epic chases, and with a new antagonist that seems to be Jason’s equal and has a grudge against him.

It’s Jason Bourne as a bad-ass again. Need I say more?

Bad:

The redundancy of what is the next layer of the onion beyond Treadstone is getting tired. Why can’t we reach into a new bag of writing tricks and come up with a new plot?

And how many times do we have to suffer with the “he is a good guy, no a bad guy, no a good guy, no…” The unwoven plot in the end is as ridiculous as the chase scene.

The worst failure of the entire movie is the chase scene. Once a mainstay of the franchise and on the whole reasonable and possible. Not so here… First, lets up the ante by having the bad guy being chased by the hero. The bad guy in a stolen SWAT van. Our hero in a new Mustang. All of this takes place down the Vegas strip. Anyone who has ever been to the strip knows it is never empty enough to allow a high speed chase to take place down. Wait… There’s more. The Mustang is able to push around the big SWAT van BUT the van has enough force to literally plow a furrow between two lanes of cars, flipping at least 10 cars out of its way without slowing or taking any real damage. But wait there is even MORE!  This same said van later (after it gains momentum) crashes into the front door of a casino (I think it is supposed to be the Riviera) where this unstoppable behemoth is stopped by a single row of slot machines. AND not a single guard nor camera sees the bad guy calmly exiting the vehicle with his assault rifle. Give me a break.
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This review is by Thomas Gondolfi, Author of Toy Wars Series the CorpGov Chronicle and numerous pieces of short fiction in the genres of science fiction and cyberpunk. He is also the owner of TANSTAAFL Press (How do you like your SciFi? ). For more bio information go to  www.tanstaaflpress.com/authors/biographies/tomgondolfi/

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