Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Jason Bourne

 

Jason Bourne is the fifth, and likely final, movie in the Bourne franchise. It saw the return of Matt Damon as the titular Jason Bourne and Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons, after the Bourne Legacy with Jeremey Renner and Rachel Weisz underperformed.

The style of the movie is much like the others in the franchise with Bourne seeking answers about the Treadstone program and trying to evade government agents sent this time by Tommy Lee Jones' character Robert Dewey, the current director of the CIA, who is another in the long cavalcade of agents who have tried to take down Bourne. As is the case with all of the other movies, there is a ton of good action, and the requisite chase sequence, which is again the highlight of the action.

For those who get the blu-ray set, the A/V quality is very good and there are a decent amount of extras. Those include seven making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes ranging from about four and a half minutes to just under nine minutes.

Overall, the movie is good, but really nothing all that different from what we have seen in the other movies. It would have been very nice had there been a team-up between Bourne and Renner's character Aaron Cross, but unfortunately, because of Renner's MCU commitments, that was not meant to be. This movie feels like it could be the final movie in the series, but it ends in a way that another movie could be made at some point. The supporting cast in this movie is very good and, besides Jones, includes Alicia Vikander as Heather Lee, head of the CIA Cyber Ops Division, and Vincent Cassel as an assassin sent after Bourne. I would say, in general, if you have enjoyed the other movies, you will probably like this one, especially with Damon reprising the Bourne character. If, however, you did not like the earlier movies or felt they were getting stale, this one is not likely to change your mind.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

 

This movie was a mostly failed attempt to expand the Bourne universe beyond Matt Damon's character when Damon did not want to return for another movie. Of course, Damon eventually came back to the character and the spin-off was pretty much relegated to the dust bin of history.

The Bourne Legacy takes place at the same time as the previous film, The Bourne Ultimatum. Jeremey Renner stars as Aaron Cross who is a member of a black ops program called Operation Outcome whose subjects are genetically enhanced. Cross is stationed in a remote outpost in Alaska, and after the Treadstone operation is burned by Bourne, the government starts eliminating all traces of it and Operation Outcome, which means trying to take Cross out. Of course, that does not go to plan and what follows from there is pretty similar to the prior installments of the franchise.

Opinions on the quality of the movie seem to vary a lot. I think it was pretty good, but not great. It kept faithful to the original movies, yet was not totally derivative. That said, the chases and the whole feel of the government trying to track down a rogue agent were very much the same as the prior movies. It did have a great cast including Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, and Oscar Isaac, and had clips of Damon, Albert Finney, and Joan Allen.

The movie looks and sounds very good in the HD format and there are a lot of extras. Those include a commentary track on the movies by the directors and members of the production crew. Then there are deleted scenes and several featurettes that run from just under two minutes to almost eight minutes. All in all, about an hour's worth of extras (give or take) separate from the commentary track.

Overall, the movie was a good attempt at expanding the Bourne Universe. I think Renner, Weisz, and Norton did a good job as the leads and would have liked to have seen additional movies with their involvement, even with Cross and Bourne teaming up. Chances are, that is not going to come to pass and this is going to be a one-off movie, even if Damon decides to do another movie after "Jason Bourne" which is becoming more unlikely as time goes by.