Jason Bourne Review: 7 Ups And 3 Downs

6. The Topical Inflections (Mostly) Work

It takes Jason Bourne less than twenty minutes to the S-word. Snowden, not SPECTRE. This is post-NSA-leak Bourne and the movie won't let you forget it.

At first it feels rather odd. Bourne was incredibly modern in the early-naughties, but it played into more obscure paranoia rather than tangible real-world parallels. When a hack near the start is said to be worse than what JGL did, I winced. But as the movie goes on and finds its footing, it begins to use these elements more carefully as a backdrop to the story that makes Bourne's pulling out of anonymity that bit more believable.

There's a lot of different aspects to it; you have a social media giant whose CEO is a mash-up of all the Silicon Valley guys behind Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp et al and grapples with essential issues of security and unsanctioned government monitoring; there's more Treadstone-esque black ops programs because of course no one learns; best of all, a big chase sequence is set in Athens during a riot, something that looks like it's out of some dystopian sci-fi, with faceless armed police and fire flying everywhere, yet it's an all too real image.