This past week I decided to re-watch some of my favorite actions films in anticipation for the latest sequel Jason Bourne. Here are thoughts on all the films in the franchise.


The Bourne Identity really surprised me in how toned down it was. It wasn't as action heavy or face paced as the other two and it took the time to dive into the characters and ease you into this world. In many ways it felt like an indy film as the first half of the story really is small in scale and just focuses on Jason Bourne trying to put the pieces together as to who he is. You were also able to understand why the government was after him and how they were trying to cover it up so the blame doesn't come back to them.
 
The quite moments, while there are a lot, do work well here because they use the opportunity to develop these characters and to get you invested in them. You get the sense that Jason Bourne is just a guy trying to figure out his past and has abilities that not even he knows he has. Making it all the more interesting as you learn more and more about his past.
 
I liked how there wasn't any moments made just to show off and even the fight scenes, while heavily choreographed, are much subdued compared to the sequels.
 
This is the most different Bourne film and that's a good thing, it feels like a film that stands on its own and doesn't feel the need to be anything more. 

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The Bourne Supremacy was always a great bridge in the trilogy, taking some of the slower elements of the first film but not going all the way in the action like the third film. One thing I noticed upon my re-watch was how much Bourne doesn't talk in this film and how this really is a revenge story. In this film most of the inner conflict is told visually as flash backs are shown with a mystery behind it and the locations the film travel too tell the story.
 
Unlike the first film this one has much more action set pieces that make you travel instead of staying in one area. This works the most when Bourne is trying to escape the police on foot as you see all the events leads to him having a car chase. I like how Bourne gets injured through the action and how he continually gets more hurt as more action occurs. It really makes you engaged with what is going on and raises the stakes. 


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The Bourne Ultimatum is always my favorite of the series. It is just a pure action film that almost never takes a break. Normally that can work against a film but here it works perfectly because the previous two films spent so much time developing the characters that we know just about all we need to know. The pacing always stands out to me as everything is paced in a way that raises the tension high but exciting as the same time.
 
The film has fantastic action and concludes the story perfectly for Jason Bourne. There is much else to say to the film because you can only experience it for yourself to really get the effect this film has.

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The Bourne Legacy was not as bad as I remember but does have many short coming behind it.
 
This biggest being that the film borrows so much from the Jason Bourne story without really distinguishing it self from it. Instead of taking the character of Aaron Cross to his own direction, the film retreats a lot of the elements from Bourne's story. He is not Jason Bourne and because of that a lot of the action is tension-less because his character is established with having any real faults of conflict.
 
There are some neat sequences in the film and the action is a lot better than most movies out there but the fact that this has Bourne in the title really brings the film down. I think this would have been received a lot better if it had a different title but still connected to the universe. As well as taking the Aaron Cross character on his own journey that was much different from Jason Bourne's. Its not a bad film just not a great one either, so it is left stuck in the middle.

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