Matt Damon (Universal Pictures)
Is social media a CIA plot to control a distracted populace? Jason Bourne, the latest installment of the spy franchise, pits one man’s quest for his identity with a social media subplot that may give you pause—and eventually, thrills.
The movie begins with a voice-over from former CIA agent Bourne (Matt Damon): “I remember.” Flashbacks reveal for those (like me) unfamiliar with the series, exactly what he remembers: his father was a high-ranking CIA official killed in a terrorist attack right after he confessed to his son that he did something in the line of duty that he’d have to pay for.
Flashbacks are distorted with faded colors and vertical banding that gives memory the look of a glitchy low resolution YouTube video. But the current action is distorted too by the handheld camera that has become a visual tic for Greengrass. The shakiness may be an apt metaphor for a volatile world manipulated by government machinations in the guise of social media (cough Pokémon Go /cough), but with nothing to ground the action, frenetic chases and fight scenes become disorienting, and not in a good way.
Today, Bourne is on the trail of computer files downloaded by Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles); as Parsons does her handiwork in some far-flung internet café, huge graphics helpfully note, like an ACME delivery in a Road Runner cartoon, “BLACK OPERATIONS FILES BEING COPIED TO USB DRIVE.”
Back at headquarters, CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) is chasing down the rogue spook and his old cohort with the help of new recruit Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) and the vengeful agent simply known as Asset (the great villain Vincent Cassel). Meanwhile, Dewey arranges a clandestine meeting (at the Capital Grille on Pennsylvania Avenue, where nobody would ever see them!) with social media mogul Aaron Kaloor (Riz Ahmed), whose Deep Dream app is used by over a billion people.
It’s a complicated trail that hardly seems worth following, and the cat-and-mouse game that ensues generates little tension. How many audiences would get invested in a plot that turns on the potential misuse of metadata? (You can ask Edward Snowden.) The movie finally gains steam in its final act with a long and ridiculous chase scene that at least delivers some visceral excitement, if again on a Wil E. Coyote-level of absurd destruction. With a title that suggests crisis of identity, or an assertion of it, Jason Bourne is finally unmemorable.
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Jason Bourne
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Written by Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse
With Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.
Opens today at a multiplex near you.
