So complete was the resolution that at the time Damon joked any sequel should be called The Bourne Redundancy.īut franchises gotta franchise, so in 2012 snubbed screenwriter Gilroy took the helm for The Bourne Legacy, an ungainly spin-off with bizarre science-fiction elements (and Jeremy Renner) that rather spitefully reverses Ultimatum‘s triumphant ending by letting David Strathairn’s snarling CIA scoundrel off the hook and sending Joan Allen’s heroic whistleblower to prison for his crimes. I watched it again last week and the thing is still pretty much a miracle of a movie – an almost non-stop 115-minute chase sequence with some beautiful character beats that solves the series’ central mysteries and firmly closes the book on this particular story. Greengrass and Damon famously (and in the press quite contentiously) scrapped writer Tony Gilroy’s screenplay for 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum and for all intents and purposes made up a classic of the genre as they went along. Poor Ben Affleck played Jack Ryan in a Tom Clancy adaptation that opened two weeks before The Bourne Identity but felt like it was from a previous century. Bush administration made other espionage pictures seem so suddenly, hopelessly square that even James Bond quickly rebooted to follow suit. The stripped-down, jittery immediacy of the Bourne movies and their unsubtle fear and loathing of the George W. “They should have left him alone,” warned the poster for 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, Paul Greengrass’ crackerjack sequel to director Doug Liman’s 2002 amnesiac adventure - a sleeper hit that saved Matt Damon’s then-floundering career and revolutionized contemporary action filmmaking in ways perhaps not entirely for the best. Screenplay by Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse. Starring Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Julia Stiles, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones.

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