So thrilling

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2017)

When we talk about spy movies, we always think first about James Bond or Mission Impossible. We think gadgets, supermodel lovers, lavish glamour and the top edged super car each one of us would love to get an hand onto.
But the Bourne saga is so much different. We don't have any of these. We just have a man, Jason Bourne, struck by amnesia after being found in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, shot and unconscious. A man who tries to find out who he is and how he got there. A man who is also trying to escape from a bunch of mysterious assassins relentlessly tracking him down to kill him and Marie, the woman who's helping him despite her in his quest, showing his unsuspected unarmed combat skills to survive.
And we have a lot of action too, efficient and very enjoyable to see. Each of the combat scenes is really thrilling and so is that car chase throughout Paris. It's so well executed and you don't need anything more to keep us entertained.
The story itself is thrilling as we follow Jason and Marie throughout their journey from Zurich to Paris, watching them getting really close to each other while trying to stay alive facing those CIA assassins. Of course there is no doubt that Jason is a CIA assassin himself but that's not what causes the thrill. Watching them trying to survive is what makes us so attached and completely in.
The leading couple, Matt Damon and Franka Potente, are truly awesome in their respective parts. Matt is mysterious and cold. He's not much more different from the killers he takes down but he's opening himself with Franka who plays that ordinary woman coping with his own problem but whose life changes forever when she accepts to bring Bourne to Paris with her Austin Mini and help him in his quest. We are so far from the supermodel and the super car for sure.
But that's something we should look for: realism. Those gadgets and the glamour is cool but so superficial. Jason and Marie are much more like us besides the lethal and instinctive skills of Jason of course. We're feeling so much more attached to them and this is one of the movie's strengths. Maybe that's what pushed the James Bond creators to rethink their copy and deliver us Casino Royale.