Starting with the words ‘I remember everything’ Jason Bourne starts with a hook and for the first third of the movie it doesn’t stop. We see Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) on the Albanian border living underground and off the grid but still haunted by his past. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is in Iceland hacking into the CIA database to extract information for Christian Dassault (Vinzenz Kiefer) who is an internet whistle blower she crusades with so when this unearths information regarding Jason Bourne and his father she decides that he needs to be advised. Her hacking has placed her in the line of fire of Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) a CIA technical specialist who puts a tail on her to investigate who she is working with and when the CIA realise that Bourne is the person Parsons is contacting, CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) orders an unnamed asset (Vincent Cassel) to take him out, but Athens is in the middle of a riot and the CIA lose their man, the man hunt is back on and Bourne must try and uncover what was his fathers involvement was in a government program named Iron Hand which seems to be linked back to the Treadstone project as well as figuring out where a new software operating system called Deep Dream comes into play.

With Paul Greengrass back at the helm we are back to the quick cut, shaky camcorder style and it leaves us in no doubt that we are at the heart of the Bourne series. This style works brilliantly during a chase scene based around a riot in Athens is outstanding, which is possibly the best action sequence of the whole series. In fact when the action kicks in the movie is great but the problem seems to be, because Bourne remembers everything the purpose he had in the previous movies is no longer valid, so the film needs to find a different purpose to motivate him which does not have the same emotional impact on the audience. While, for a movie called Jason Bourne he probably gives the least Bourne like performance since kicking ass to extract information has generally been replaced with hacking and bugging but these are the progressive times we live in. That being said the introduction of Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the Deep Dream operating systems, the ethical links to user privacy and security, while being relevant to current society, just seemed tacked on as a plot thread to add some padding and when these sections of the movie were being played out the movie seemed to drag a little, maybe this was on purpose to heighten our anticipation of the action kicking in again but it didn’t wok for me.

So while I can’t fault the acting as all involved were spot on with Jones on top form as the battle hardened CIA director who is struggling to get his head around the new technology based terrorist threatand Vikander, who is the best of the bunch, as his go to expert, both being outstanding and with two superb action scenes in Athens and Las Vegas mixed in with a generally good espionage movie it’s hard to put my finger on why I was a little disappointed walking out, the best suggestion I can make is because I had such high expectation that I’m being overly picky.

So, if you were a fan of the originals then you’ll enjoy this fourth episode in the franchise (I’m omitting the Bourne Legacy as it’s a stand alone film) and while it’s not quite Bourne at his best, the bar is set very high so it’s still a very good movie.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10