Jason Bourne (2016)

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I don't think I remember any other year during which the critics and audience have disagreed with each other to the extent that has been the case this year. Hail Caesar, BvS, Apocalypse, Warcraft, Tarzan, 13 Hours, Me Before You, Ghostbusters and now this.£

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Flat as a tack and ersatz as fuck. Ya know, Greengrass and Damon might have reformed a lot of those original two sequels, but they clearly needed to work from something because this is the opposite of inspired.

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As an action movie, I'd say it's largely functional. I'm pretty sure government intelligence agencies don't have a folder named 'Black Ops' and I'm pretty sure they don't distribute spyware for shits and giggles at tech conventions and I'm pretty sure nobody put that much effort into the screenplay. And that sucks, because in terms of direction, Greengrass nails all the action scenes. If he'd written a good script, I'm pretty sure this movie would be up there with the first three, maybe even surpassing a few of them. And when I say good script, I mean a script with actual character moments and arcs. Look at Supremacy and Ultimatum. They both have something this movie lacks - actual character work for...you know...the title character. They "tried" with
flashbacks about Bourne's father's death in this film
but it didn't work nearly as well. In fact, I'd argue it barely worked at all.
That sounds a lot harsher now that I've written it, so let me restate something: the movie is fine. But apart from the main action set pieces - including a truly great sequence at a riot - it just isn't good enough or bad enough to be anything memorable.
7/10
Last edited by GeneMod on July 30th, 2016, 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Haven't seen it yet but it sounds like they missed Gilroy.

Then again Gilroy wrote and directed Legacy (I actually like it).

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Well, it's disheartening reading all these mixed reviews, this and Suicide Squad are about the only two films I was really looking forward to this summer. Please, please, don't disappoint Suicide Squad.

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Allstar wrote:Haven't seen it yet but it sounds like they missed Gilroy.

Then again Gilroy wrote and directed Legacy (I actually like it).
Image

£

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Man I'm sick of leaving theaters with this empty feeling. It's like they forgot what makes Bourne tick. The characters are unmotivated, the action is all wrong (wrong rhythm, wrong compositions, really basic/generic), and for some reason everybody acts like an idiot. Just about every major character behaves in a way that should have led to their death due to their stupidity, but luckily everybody else is stupid too. The riot scene was a really great concept and there's moments throughout that are amazing but its' just filmed so awkwardly. The camera/editing stuff is all off. Why'd Greengrass forget how to direct? The rest of the action is boring, generic nonsense.

The annoying weird thing is I totally get what the movie was going for and the movie, in concept, isn't a bad idea. Minus the
pappa Bourne
stuff, that should be deleted.

BUT, the overall concept is cool. I like the idea of
the gov using social media and surveillance and that being the next program. Would have been way more interesting, I think, to see a movie where they pick their next targets through social media/online stuff and Bourne after finding out about this goes on a mission to 1.) save targets 2.) leak everything and become the next Snowden and have multiple national powers try to recruit him. THAT would have been a ballsier and more interesting approach than whatever we got here. Maybe have the movie end with the Gov assassinating the movie's mark zuckerberg and watching the fallout. Everything seemed so surface-y and streamlined. This would've been a better/more believable motivation than Bourne randomly suddenly having daddy issues for the dad we never met.
C- at best. Oh and Allstar, Vik = sleeps through the movie. So does everybody else too. Worth mentioning it my theater seemed to think it was great. A- cinemascore.


-Vader

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What is staggering is that of all things, the circle is now complete, and we have a Bourne film that is cribbing from Bond, i.e. Skyfall insofar as its direct acknowledgement at the character is at heart a patriot and will revert no matter what abuse he has suffered.

This is particularly incredible given that Bourne has previously been the most honourable of traitors. He is not a patriot by any stretch of the imagination if Greengrass respects his own quasi-masterpiece in Ultimatum, which apart from being wildly superior to this, is all about Bourne scorning the government and system that produced him and bringing the entire thing crashing down to its knees.

Perhaps it's appropriate; just as having Bond emulate Bourne by questioning the motives of Western intelligence and running rampant was an idiotic and incongruous concept (Quantum of Solace), having Bourne suddenly become someone duty bound to serve the CIA because there is no other option is bizarre, wrongheaded, and in this case even worse because it's the authors forgetting what their own work was about.

I mean I get that they are trying to say something about the world as it is and that's great, but if Greengrass wants to make commentary on social media and its relation to intelligence I'm not entirely sure that Jason Bourne is the best conveyance.

It fell apart. It fell apart.

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Tommy Lee Jones looked soooo bored

Vikander wasn't anything great either, but her character was shit. Like I said compare these characters to Vosen/Landy and you have a big reason why this isn't good.

FFS, even Damon felt bored. He had something like 10 lines and had absolutely no arc. It was just a rehash wall to wall

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Does he remember everything?

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