This movie gets off to a strong start with an engaging, rich-action, rich-plot set of inital scenes, and the return of Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne). We’re also treated to the return of an aging Julia Stiles (as Nicky Parsons) although she’s killed quite early, on top being treated to the additions of an aged Tommy Lee Jones (from Men In Black, acting here as Robert Dewey, CIA boss) and Alicia Vikander (star of Ex Machina 2014, joining us here as Heather Lee, CIA team leader – responsible for tracking down Bourne & Parsons).
Having said that, once the strong first 10 minutes are out of the way, the next 10 minutes are little more than messy irritating noise and moodfest. But this builds into a decent action scene around half an hour in.
In the end, with its mix of strong-ish bits and extended weak patches, with a strong-ish cast and decent genre, I’m going to rate this movie just Above Average.
Much like the previous movie in the series, this one has some cool bits and a lot of grit between times, with some very dark low-contrast scenes, a lot of flicking camerawork, and a lot of messy fussy suspense-style action-drama with irritating persistent musical effects. So it deserves a similar rating to the last one: just Below Average.
This movie gets off to a slower, more boring start than the original. Obviously there’s no cool new creative plot to get going with, since the cat’s out the bag, but good sequels usually manage to come up with some originality — this one is lacking.
The fight scene around 40 minutes in is quite memorable for how bad it is. If there were an award for worst fight scene, it would be that. The camera literally doesn’t stay still for half a second, much of the time. It’s clear from the previous movie that Matt Damon can’t fight, and clear from early on in this movie that he’s a plodding flat-footed runner, but if this fight scene really magnifies the problem by being so terribly coordinated and filmed with the worst kind of constant flickering possible in order to mask the lack of substance — a common fight choreography tactic but this is really the worst case example of it. Immediately after that fight scene though, the quick trick Bourne does to lose his tail and mash up the crime scene is tactically on point and well executed — there’s life in the old dog yet (the Bourne saga).
There’s a very cool bit from about 45 minutes in, when Jason cleverly tracks down the agent in charge of tracking him down. It only lasts a few minutes before the mood dampens again, but worked very well while it lasted — it had great momentum and an impressive climax.
In the end due to its long dull parts and the real excitement being rare, I’d say gritty drama lovers might like it — especially the kind of people who like political TV shows — but personally, as someone who prefers smooth vibes and plenty of rich action, I have to rate this particular movie Below Average although you may feel it deserves a slightly better rating to the success of the original Bourne movie which complements this one since this is a smooth continuation. As a standalone movie though, I think it warrants a rating of just Below Average although the odd piece of it is very good.
The action scene near the end is particularly long and hollow – lots of action, but all virtue-signally — it’s messy and momentumless and goes on far too long without significant change of pace or spirit.
This is not a bad movie, it’s consistently entertaining, but the highs are never very high, so I can’t rate it any higher than slightly Above Average considering the many movies reviewed thus far and how they’ve been rated, including many classics rated Bang Average and just Above Average already.
If you enjoyed this movie and wish to see more, you’re in luck, since Bourne Identity is only the first of a 5-movie saga, including a trilogy starring Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity 2002; The Bourne Supremacy 2004; The Bourne Ultimatum 2007), then he skips the fourth (The Bourne Legacy 2012) since he felt the saga had run its course, but then he comes back for the fifth (Jason Bourne 2016). He looks very young in this first movie and is semi convincing in his role but still a bit green.
Franka Potente as the lead female kind of works — she has a Swiss vibe about her, perhaps with a touch of French. Her and The chemistry between her and Matt Damon kind of works and comes across on screen, but not in a big way.
Elysium starts off with an interesting dystopian sci-fi concept but rather gritty screenplay. In the first half hour, not much happens to the least cast member except he receives a fatal dose of radiation poisoning in his workplace and is given five days left to live. This urges him to rekindle his old master criminal ways in order to reach the satellite city called Elysium – a place for the privileged to live away from the rest of humanity on Earth. He attempts to get there in order to heal himself, but it’s a dangerous mission – families have tried before and they tend to get shot down indiscriminately.
There’s a nice bit of action before the end of the first hour.
Much of the second hour constitutes a bit of an anxiety & depression fest – probably good for horror-drama junkies, but not so much for smooth action hero movie connoisseurs. Easily skippable if you’ve seen it before. Fortunately, that toxic junk at least intermittently subsides to make way for some half-decent action. This movie had a lot of potential to be a lot better than it eventually was though. Unfortunately, due to the amount of bad mixed with the good, I really struggle to rate it Above Average but I will on account of its genre & stars, and its resultant memorability.
Matt Damon manages to shave off his Jason Bourne identity (see what I did there?) by going bald in this movie – it’s not pleasing on the eye but at least it succeeds in creating a fresh new persona for this movie – this one having much more of an air of vulnerability from the start, since he gets radiation poisoning early on – quite fitting for a regularly toxic movie experience.
The fight scene at the end is dry and over dragged out – easily skippable, even though it’s kind of fast action – reminiscent of a Tony Jaa movie – no flying elbows, but just as spiritually dead.
Promoting radiation chamber type beds as cancer cures, at the end, was the icing on the cake – quite inkeeping with the Big Harma theme since the start.
On the plus side, the main baddies are played quite well by Jodie Foster (brains) and Sharlto Copley (brawn). Many of the cast members are pretty good, even if the movie is a bit thin and nasty while posing like it’s strongly representing a really cool genre.
Action Hero Movies