Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Matt Damon returns to the role that Universal has built a hit franchise upon and resolutely keeps churning out. Once again, Jason Bourne’s mysterious past is catching up with him faster than he can remember it. The titular protagonist is still living off the grid and making ends meet by pit fighting in some dark corner of the globe, apparently standard procedure for all retired super-soldiers living abroad.

An ex-CIA ally from his past played by Julia Stiles has gone Snowden and hacked the CIA’s database and downloaded top-secret files with more clues to Bourne’s past. Can she get these incendiary files into Bourne’s hands before the Agency can liquidate them both? What do you think? The torch has been passed to Tommy Lee Jones to step up as the career veteran Agency man at the top of the food chain who must utilize every high-tech surveillance resource and covert operative thug to track down Bourne and eliminate him before all their dirty laundry gets aired on the internet.

Veteran Bourne director and graduate from the Michael Bay School of Filmmaking, Paul Greengrass applies his trademark hyper-kinetic hand-held visual style to further perpetuate the sense of chaos. Because of the camera’s continuous frenetic motion mixed with the rapid-fire editing, comparisons between the standard HD Blu-ray and 4K version reveal little in the way of added clarity and picture resolution. Textures and sharpness take a noticeable jump in those few and far between moments of stillness, but once the action resumes, even the 4K picture falls victim to much of the same digital strobing and motion blur issues that plague standard HD. Technical specifications report that Jason Bourne was shot on numerous digital and film formats, so any further inconsistency in the picture resolution can justifiably be attributed to that as well.

This Bourne, however, features a truly immersive DTS-X surround mix that showcases superb directionality from all sides with rioting crowds, car chases, explosions, whizzing gunshots, and an overly aggressive, bass-thumping score. The dialogue track performs admirably while never getting overwhelmed by the surrounds.

Extras appear on the HD Blu-ray and consist of numerous short featurettes detailing the complexities of making the film. Digital Copy included.

While entertaining, Jason Bourne is basically a slick retread of every Bourne movie that’s come before, bringing nothing new to the table. If you’re a completeist with money to burn, go for it.

Blu-Ray
Studio: Universal, 2016
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Audio Format: DTS:X
Length: 123 mins.
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Julia Stiles