AFTER a nine-year hiatus, Matt Damon resurfaces as the world's most famous amnesiac agent. "Jason Bourne" is the fifth film in the Bourne franchise and Damon was in four of them, skipping only the "Bourne Legacy," which was filmed mainly in the Philippines and starred Jeremy Renner.
Returning with Damon is Paul Greengrass, who directed "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum." For "Jason Bourne," Greengrass brings back the staccato pace and spectacular car chases and crashes that were the hallmarks of his two other films.
In his latest reappearance, Bourne makes a living as a street fighter somewhere in Eastern Europe, a profession that puts his lethal skills as a top assassin to good use. This time, however, he is only required to beat his opponent to a pulp, not terminate him with extreme prejudice. There is no trail of bodies and the mayhem is done in front of an audience.
Bourne could have made a small fortune bashing heads, but once again the past catches up with him. His old contact (from "Ultimatum"), Nicky Parsons, who now works for a celebrated hacktivist, breaks into the CIA mainframe and discovers highly confidential records that reveal Bourne's real identity. The records also document the extent of involvement of Bourne's father in Treadstone, the CIA's program that created super agent Jason Bourne.
Nicky seeks out Bourne, who is very much interested in finding out who planted the car bomb that killed his father. The two rendezvous in Athens, Greece, in the middle of a violent anti-government demonstration.
At this point, the action really picks up. The CIA, who is investigating the hacking, has Nicky under surveillance, and through her the agency tracks Bourne. It sends out a team to apprehend the two.
But the CIA is not the only one interested in Bourne. A professional killer, also resurrected from "Ultimatum" and who goes by the code name The Asset, is also after Bourne, on a mission of personal vendetta. The hunt is on.
Greengrass applies the same techniques from his previous Bournes -- short, choppy, even blurry scenes, an almost laconic dialogue, lengthy car chases -- to rev up the film, and is successful at it. But the story takes the same predictable path -- Bourne confronting the CIA's top echelon to find out who he really is. He unravels the truth as if it were in a box within a box. Each box leaves him more confused, dejected, unsure of himself.
As in previous sequels, there is someone in the agency (a woman definitely) who appears to be sympathetic to Bourne's plight. This time she is Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who heads the CIA Cyber Ops Division. Lee works hard at winning Bourne's trust, but he has grown wary of deception.
Greengrass, who co-wrote the script, injects a fresh perspective by bringing in Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the CEO of a vast social media enterprise who once worked on a mass surveillance project for CIA. Conscience-stricken, Kalloor decides to turn whistleblower, which doesn't sit well with CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), who also holds the pieces of the Treadstone puzzle that Bourne is trying to solve.
Don't expect any intellectual gravitas from "Jason Bourne," just loads of cinematic excitement.