Bourne, the series of a former CIA assassin and has lost his memory due to a near fatal accident. The 03-part series has redefined action movie genre in term of smart storyline and especially shaken camera action sequences. After a hugely box office success and critical acclaimed with Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, the duo director Paul Greengrass & main actor Matt Damon called it a quit, saying Jason Bourne has done his duty.

Nearly a decade later, Bourne is back and a lot of dedicated fan (including me) was counting days until its release date, which is 29-July-2016 in Vietnam.

It seems like Jason Bourne had a solid opening week as it’s accumulating $60mil box office revenue in US. The problem is its mixed review. 55% Rotten Tomato, 7.5 on Imdb and sliding. Many people would say my review is too subjective due to the fact that’s I belong to Bourne’s loyal fan base. But I believe every voice deserves a chance.

First, These are what I loved about this movie.

The action, the pace, the intensity, the shaken camera, the close range fighting, of course. Everything is still there. As one reviewer on Imdb said:

“If you’re the sort of person who can turn their brain off for two hours and watch wall-to-wall action and explosions, then this film will have you in dreamland.”

I could not agree more.

Me and my girlfriend had to glue our eyes on the screen because the movie is so intense. Every 10 seconds new development emerged. Is that what an action movie is suppose to be? This movie has achieved all that. The last fighting scene was dark, gruel and it’s between Vincent Cassel and Matt Damon for god’s sake.

And here come another good point about Jason Bourne. The cast. This movie has a solid cast. It’s rare that you could find a better cast with Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones as main characters and Vincent Cassel as a villian.

Alicia Vikander did quite well in this movie, even though not so impressive. however I’d love to see more screen time of Julia Stiles.

Now, it’s the mixed bag, things I don’t like and believe it could be improved.

The main criticized point is the story line and here’s why.

Unlike all other 4 Bourne movies, this movies has no suffix. Not Bourne Ultimatum, Bourne Legacy or even Bourne Referendum (someone on the Internet is really sick of Brexit, me too). It’s just Jason Bourne. And it’s no coincedence. Bourne movies has been known as loosely based on original Robert Ludlum’s novels and this one is no exception. In fact, it’s not based on any of those. If you call this movie’s a spin-off then it is. The storyline is written by Greengrass and editor Christopher Rouse. They decided to add a typical Snowden scandal as a way to update Bourne and it’s absolutely understandable. However, the way they handle it along with Bourne’s own quest is not smooth and I’m afraid this script was written in hurry. Even director Greengrass said:

“I was skeptical there was one to be done, I was skeptical I wanted to do it and I was skeptical it would hold up with the others.” I thought, ‘Maybe I’ve been too negative to an old friend”

Nobody comes to the theater watching Jason Bourne care about this Snowden-like thing. Even Bourne doesn’t give a shit about it while following his quest. However it’s mentioned quite a lot during the movie and it’s like you’re watching 02 movies at once. Incoherence is the most basic mistake an editor would make and sadly it’s in this movie. And I believe they should stick to Robert Ludlum’ novels. They’re great and deserves respects.

Secondly, the appearance of Bourne. It has been years since the previous Bourne movies and I know he does age but adding too many wrinkles and grey hair to Bourne is not ideal. Somehow it does bother me and make me feel sorry for Jason Bourne himself. In real life, Matt Damon has not aged that much and the disguise is intentionally. But to me, they did it too much. Just my 02 cents.

In conclusion, This Jason Bourne movie is still a great one and does deserve your hard earned money for a weekend night out. Most of the critics comes from a “comparison” with previous movie and I don’t think that’s a good way to do critic for a movie. Indeed, every movies should be viewed independently and criticized on its own. “Jason Bourne” is a great action movie on its own but every critics are now taking it along with previous trilogy and making it worse than it should be. Don’t follow them, try to make a judgement by yourself. Bond has lived up for over 40 years. We need Bourne as a counter approach for doing PROPER action movie.