Jason Bourne review: Yes, it’s “worse than Snowden”

The Snowden-tanglement of Hollywood has begun in earnest, and that’s not just a coy reference to Oliver Stone’s upcoming, eponymous film. The worlds of hacking, digital transparency, and bombastic espionage are all coming together whenever possible these days. And in terms of how computer savvy is employed on screen, we’ve seen the good (Mr. Robot) and the bad (Spectre).

Get ready for the ugly. Jason Bourne, the fifth film in the series, hits theaters this weekend with a few very good things going for it, including a few gargantuan action sequences and some stellar lead performances from Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, and Vincent Cassel. But someone at Universal clearly wanted its globe-trotting, CIA-loaded thriller to hit a bunch of cultural-relevance bullet points, and the results are some of the most embarrassing technological shoe-horning you’ll see in a film this year.

Go ahead, set your laptop on fire

Matt Damon’s Bourne hasn’t become a hacker since his last turn as the secret super-agent in 2007. In fact, he has checked out from anything resembling duty, instead turning to a life of… boxing to the death. (Really.) We find Bourne on the Grecian-Albanian border, busing from one bloody, bare-knuckled brawl to the next, and the only thing that interrupts his new, wholly unexplained career detour is a visit from an old CIA comrade, Nicky Parsons (played once more by Julia Stiles).

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Source: Ars Technica – Jason Bourne review: Yes, it’s “worse than Snowden”