Jason Bourne Movies

[Luisa Rodocker]

JasonBourne was the exception this summer. It was another sequel/franchise revamp, to be sure. But regarding live-action and big-budget offerings this season, it is nearly alone (save Captain America: Civil War) in that it left its respective franchise in a somewhat healthier place as opposed to either killing it dead or leaving it in need of medical care. Universal/ Comcast Corp. bet that audiences craved more of Matt Damon as Jason Bourne/David Webb and more Bourne films helmed by Paul Greengrass, and they seem to be right.

A $110 million global debut weekend, on a $120m budget (an important qualifier), appears to indicate that Universal's action franchise has been "rebourne." At that budget, they can make a few more of these if they so choose. The franchise had been gone a long time, so they got away with The Bourne Clip Show thanks to audience loyalty. Well, if Universal wants a few more of these, the next time out this franchise needs to do something, anything, different than what it has done before.

Back in 2007, I seemed to be the only one who noticed/cared that The Bourne Ultimatum was a glorified remake of The Bourne Supremacy. Plenty of critics noticed this time that Jason Bourne was the same movie they had seen in 2004 and again in 2007. We can argue all three original Bourne movies were variations on the same film (Bourne runs from a deceitful government, is hunted by an assassin, gets into a car chase, etc.), but Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity at least looks and feels like a different film from its successors.

Like some franchises (Star Trek, Saw, etc.), it is the second film that set the template for the franchise while the initial installment feels almost like an outlier. And those three films had a coherent narrative arc (Bourne discovers who he is, Bourne comes to terms with who he is, and then Bourne discovers how he came to be). This fourth film merely adds new wrinkles to the "how he came to be" story, which is why it feels so redundant.

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