This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Memories
Plot Overview
Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is back in a fourth installment (not counting Legacy & the Ludlum books.) After exposing Blackbriar (in “The Bourne Ultimatum”), Bourne has gone off the grid. He resurfaces in Tasamantas, Greece eight years later where he supports himself knuckle-boxing both agile Greeks and hulky Albanians, mostly untrained (“Vasily, you're first up.”)
In Reykjavik, Iceland fellow Company renegade Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) searching for Agency records (“Use SQL to corrupt their databases”) achieves a “major breach of [their] classified mainframe” but whose electronic presence is detected by Cyber Ops Div. head Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) in Langley, VA. In McLean, VA current CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) fears exposure (“This could be worse than Snowden”) of operation Ironhand that provides a back door into founder Aaron Kalloor's (Riz Ahmed) new Deep Dream social media platform slated to host 1.5 billion users, giving the CIA “full spectrum surveillance, watching everyone all the time.” He sanctions a hit on Parsons who unintentionally exposes Bourne when she meets him in Greece.
This Bourne plot resembles an Andrew Gross joke, told between two bro & sis law enforcement officers: (149–50)
Here's one for you: the CIA, FBI, and LAPD are all trying to prove they're the best at apprehending dangerous criminals. President Obama devises a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest and tells each of them to catch it.
So the CIA goes in, and they embed animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and animal witnesses. After three months of extensive investigation, they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in next. After two weeks with no leads, they burn the forest down, killing everything in it, including the rabbit. And they make no apologies. They say the rabbit had it coming!
Finally, it's the LAPD's turn. They come out two hours later with a badly beat-up bear. The bear is yelling crazily: ‘Okay, okay … I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!’
The CIA has surveillance capabilities up the wazoo, yet when Bourne goes off the grid, he disappears. Former Blackbriar op “The Asset” (Vincent Cassel) is tasked with eliminating Bourne. He has a personal grievance with him after Bourne defected from Blackbriar and turned them in. He's letting nothing stand in his way. To avoid delay he kills his current prisoner. To get at Bourne he kills Bourne's past cohort and future one, too. He kills some random bystanders, wipes out all of Team Alpha & Team Bravo who are trying to capture Bourne alive, tries to assassinate Kalloor, knifes a SWAT team officer to steal his vehicle, uses that tank-like van going the wrong way on a crowded street to mow down a swath of cars, and adds various other collateral damage to his tally, all with no regrets, because as they say, the rabbit had it coming! Cyber-intel officer Heather Lee believes from Bourne's file that he's at heart a patriot who can be brought in. CIA Director Robert Dewey tells Bourne, “You're never going to find any peace … till you admit to yourself who you really are.” Bourne who started as David Webb before the mind experiments on him has some serious identity issues. At the end a little worse for wear, he'll likely admit, ‘Okay, okay … I'm a rabbit!’
Ideology
Freedom-loving peoples are averse to intrusive government surveillance in the worst way. Having the "pigs" watching you is somewhat akin to the "abomination of desolation" in which a Jew-hater placed an actual pig on their sacred alter, as mentioned in, (Daniel 11:31) “And they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.”
Bourne was doing his boxing near the Greek-Albanian border. I once had a teacher married to a Greek woman. He said his son inherited his dexterity in baseball from her. The (atheistic) Albanians had such audacity they reformulated their weeks to eight days to subvert the creation week. Fighting opponents in such a league Bourne needed both dexterity and audacity. That carries on into his exploits in the rest of the film, as in (Daniel 11:32) “but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” It seems to me that Christians with a bit of audacity and skill can likewise do exploits when they notice something amiss, without having to wait for a prophetic fulfillment according to some particular system.
Production Values
This latest in the series, “” (2016) was directed by Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse using characters created by Robert Ludlum in his Jason Bourne novels. Music was composed by John Powell. The film is overseen by the same people who gave us “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” It stars Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, and Alicia Vikander. The acting in this film is superb, with returning cast from the previous Bourne films like Matt Damon & Julie Stiles. The many new characters fit right in, such as Alicia Vikander playing Heather Lee. Very believable performances, these. Tommy Lee Jones finesses an underplayed director Dewey.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language. Playing throughout the film is a very intense soundtrack that adds dramatic tension almost to the point of distraction. Action scenes are over the top … in some places literally. This fifth Bourne movie is a full-on, action-packed adrenaline rush having all we've come to expect in a Bourne movie: tangled plot, hails of bullets, dynamic chase scenes & single-minded assassins.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
The titular character has some major identity problems as a result of some psycho CIA mind-bending project. It would be impossible to convey its full extent in a single movie, but this one does its best. If you've seen more of the series, you'll have a better idea. It's best to have read some of the books. I have, and I find this movie faultless. Otherwise, it's still forgivable and good if you like lots of action and shady characters.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall product rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Gross, Andrew. 15 Seconds. New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2012. Used by permission. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org