FM Kasey

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CW: spoilers “Jason Bourne” underwhelmed to the point of laughable ridiculousness. The film opens with Bourne making a living by taking part in savage, bare-knuckle fighting bouts in Greece. Why? No reason. Is there a prolonged bare-knuckle fight scene later in the film? Nope. Except, perhaps, when someone hits Bourne in the head with a 20-pound barbell, he pops back up and decks them cold with his fist. Sure, that’s relatable. The plot in Jason Bourne is that Bourne is on the run from CIA hit squads as he tries to recover from his amnesia to discover hidden truths about his past. Gosh, where have I heard that plot before? Oh yes, from the four previous Bourne films and all of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne books. The film introduces levels of technology that it then parodies to the point of laugh-out-loud ineptness. For example, with a stroke of a few keys, the CIA can access every computer, cell phone, and traffic camera in the world. Using facial recognition software with a gender and age range program, the computer can scan thousands of faces in a busy train station hub using CCTV cameras to pinpoint the exact person they’re searching for in under 10 seconds. Later, that same technology in that super-secret government location cannot detect when a CIA agent sends an unencrypted text message to Bourne warning him that a hit squad is 2 minutes from his location. As the film progresses, the CIA laments that it’s lost track of Bourne after a chase in Berlin. Well, gosh, fellas, why don’t you use your hack-ability and remarkable facial recognition software to find him? But maybe they can’t because Bourne wears a baseball cap when walking through cities and airports. So that’s how spies evade detection! After every main character not named Bourne descends on Vegas for a privacy rights convention, the CIA is shocked — shocked! — to discover that Bourne somehow made it to Vegas undetected. The CIA director is dumbfounded how a super agent trained to be a ghost and assume a thousand different identities could get through airport customs. <eye roll> Cue the chase scenes. But there’s no point trying to explain the scenes when you can direct them yourself. Cover your phone in bubble wrap and throw it down a flight of stairs. Congratulations, you’re director Paul Greengrass. Now, take that footage and give it to your blind cousin who suffers from grand mal seizures. Congratulations, that’s the film’s editor. I’m sure the chase scenes were epic and the final fight scene tense. But I had to use my imagination because five edits every second shows me nothing except a strobe-like effect. What a disappointment. Grade: F