Paul Greengrass and his star have upped the tech and chucked in references to Snowden, but it’s basic Bourne that remains most persuasive: whacking baddies with a door handle and tensely unleashing testostrone on well-dressed women.
Feverishly-paced, with a taunt plot that echoes modern cyber-paranoia, Bourne is one of the best blockbusters of the summer.
Bourne again walks off into the sunset as that Moby song plays, the feeling is very much ‘ah that was nice, but let’s just leave it there shall we’.
Damon and Greengrass return to give the espionage genre another energising smack round the chops. A bold and eerily topical masterpiece of stuntcraft and bruising action.
After a disappointing fourth film without them, director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon return for the most bombastic instalment yet.
This is bravura filmmaking but it is also one-dimensional.
Leagues ahead of Legacy but the weakest of the Matt Damon movies, Bourne still has the power to thrill. But it seems his story has run out of steam.
Mostly Bourne feels redundant as a character, someone going through the motions of combating clandestine government forces, not because he has to, but because he’s expected to.
The fist fights are bruising, the killings are ruthless, a heart-thumping car chase through the streets of Las Vegas is spectacular and a final showdown between Bourne and a figure from his past is suitably brutal.
When the finale paves the way for yet another sequel, it’s clear Bourne has once again become a compliant foot soldier – this time in the service of a Hollywood studio desperate for an asset it can exploit for years to come.
Matt Damon reunites with Paul Greengrass for this fifth instalment of the Bourne series – a head-spinning, post-Snowden cyber-thriller.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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