Was lucky enough to attend a preview of the new Bourne film last night (thanks jimmy). After the disappointment of transformers it was a timely reminder of how to do a big summer movie right. Taut scripting, wonderful performances, a plot that just about stays the right side of believable and some of the most visceral action sequences ever put to celluloid-what’s not to love ?
Despite the last Bond borrowing heavily from the Bourne ‘mature action movie’ template, the film remains restlessly innovative. The camera, caught too close to the action in the last film rendering some of the action a blur, hovers gracefully and obtusely, drawing us deep into the emotional centre of conversations and unflinchingly into the fiery heart of battle; an American action movie made in the style of a European Arthouse.
It’s an exhillurating, mildly exhausting 90 mins that doesn’t ask us to leave our brains at the door, because it is smart enough and well made enough not to need to.
If all that weren’t enough there’s an interesting subtext about the
corrupting influence of overwhelming power and the terrifying
consequences of blind, unthinking patriotism. It brings to mind the sacrifices being asked of men and women drilled into remorseless killing machines and sent to the far ends of the world to serve obscured and dub(ya)ious schemes.
A subversive political message in the midst of a bombastic summer blockbuster?-maybe there’s hope for the empire yet.