Jason Bourne (2016)

Over the course of the past fourteen years, we’re five movies deep into the Bourne franchise, four of which have starred Matt Damon, with three of those directed by Paul Greengrass. I give you the numbers because Jason Bourne paints very close to them, tampering very little with what has worked in the past. Ultimately it’s a very enjoyable fifth outing, but at the same time it is the fifth time we’ve been down this road.

Once more a hidden secret emerges about the mysterious past of Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), sending him on a quest for answers. Placed in the crosshairs of the CIA director (Tommy Lee Jones) and his ambitious assistant (Alicia Vikander), Bourne crosses continents in order to uncover the truth about one last mystery surrounding the shadowy Treadstone project that gave birth to Bourne.

Both Damon and Greengrass took a film off, allowing Jeremy Renner to fill in for The Bourne Legacy, and so there’s an atmosphere of “back to your regularly scheduled programming” at play in Jason Bourne, right down to the back-to-basics title. I had said that the fourth one “may be my favorite of the Bourne films,” but to be perfectly honest I’m not certain I can distinguish among them in the mind palace of my memory. To be fair, I’ve seen a lot of movies in my day, but the Bourne movies have a way of running together for me.

They all seem to rely on a pretty transparent formula – Jason Bourne comes out of the cold, discovers a secret from his past, jet-sets across continents following leads gleaned from snippets of classified documents (one of which always takes him into a dense crowd where he has to duck surveillance), and confronts the gatekeeper of secrets at gunpoint, only to demonstrate he’s still not at peace, slinking off into the sunset. It’s theme and variation at its most reliable; I can’t say that I’ve been disappointed in the execution of a Bourne movie yet, this one included, but there’s also something to be said for the fact that it’s exactly the film promised by the trailers.

The action sequences are precisely as compelling as before, more so the further we get into the film. It gets better once the audience has a better handle on the mysteries of the film and as the direction of the plot becomes clearer. That is, once we know the stakes, Jason Bourne is about as good as a Bourne movie’s ever been. Damon is credible as ever in the role, a welcome return in spite of the ever-reliable Renner filling in last time around. Tommy Lee Jones is inspired as the craggy-faced CIA director; no one does dialogue about morality and greater-goods than Jones. And Vikander, in a role that’s probably built to extend into sequels (about which, more in a bit), is a credit, just suspicious enough for us to wish for a bigger role for her.

For two more hours of exciting action and espionage, Jason Bourne is about as good as it gets, competently presented but never too taxing. Throughout the film, though, nearly everyone tells Jason Bourne some version of, “You can’t keep doing this forever. You’ve got to do something else with your life,” and to that I’d have to say I agree wholeheartedly. If there’s going to be a sixth Bourne film, it’s got to move forward (perhaps bringing in Renner as Aaron Cross?) and show us something we haven’t seen from Bourne. It’s a bit like hearing Paul McCartney play “Hey Jude” for the fifth time in a row – we know it’s a great song and we know he plays the heck out of it, but what about “Get Back”?

Jason Bourne is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.” Car chases, explosions, gunfire, and stabbings comprise the violence, with some degree of blood.

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

As the summer blockbuster season winds to a close, The Bourne Legacy revisits a familiar franchise with a new angle – one of the first “midquels” I’ve ever seen – and a common twist – “Put Jeremy Renner in it.”  Both end up being profitable decisions, as The Bourne Legacy is perhaps more enjoyable than its forerunners, “Bourne again” anew.

Taking place sometime during the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, Legacy wisely sets most of the original trilogy aside and allows filmgoers to focus not on unraveling a nebulous conspiracy but on following one man – Aaron Cross (Renner) – and his attempts to stay one step ahead of government officials (led by an extremely dedicated Edward Norton) who want him dead.  Along the way he meets up with Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a scientist coming to terms with her own involvement in the supserspy program that birthed Cross – and Jason Bourne.

After stepping into Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and representing the common-ish man in The Avengers, Jeremy Renner is wasting none of his post-Hurt Locker inertia by stepping into yet another big-league franchise.  The decision to focus entirely on Renner is a daring one, since the Bourne name is synonymous with Matt Damon, but Damon’s absence here is barely noticeable, in part because Renner’s performance as an edgy superspy is extremely compelling.  His Aaron Cross is a man forced into a difficult situation, and Renner is a master of switching between lethal force and a killer sense of humor; the transition never feels out of character.

But more importantly, the film crafts an interesting narrative around him that renders superfluous any appearance by Jason Bourne.  Director Tony Gilroy performs an almost impossible feat by making this film virtually stand-alone, never relying on what’s come before but instead guiding us through a new corner of a shared universe.  The film expands on the science behind the secret project that “created” Jason Bourne and goes deeper into the human cost of such a large-scale initiative, but it focuses more on the attempts of the government to roll up the project and obscure its existence – with Cross in the middle.

The highlight of the Bourne films has always been their intense action sequences.  Quantitatively, The Bourne Legacy contains fewer, opting for a slow burn rather than a relentless string of big moments.  When the film does explode, it does so with a few very well-directed sequences.  I won’t spoil any by describing in too great of detail, but there’s a first-rate shoot-out and a breathtaking motorcycle chase that are as well-crafted as anything else in the franchise.

While The Bourne Legacy probably won’t be the greatest movie you’ll have seen all summer, it’s an exceptionally compelling film with thrilling action sequences and a great star who knows how to get the audience on his side.  Although I can’t say for certain without rewatching the original trilogy, this may be my favorite of the Bourne films.

The Bourne Legacy is rated PG-13 for “violence and action sequences.”  That kind of says it all right there.