Courtesy UniversalTomorrow, Jason Bourne, the fifth installment in the now-legendary Bourne series, will hit theaters.
Audience members will, presumably, flock to their local Cineplex to see Matt Damon take his fourth turn as the titular formal assassin. (Fans will recall that the most recent movie, The Bourne Legacy, actually starred Jeremy Renner as another manufactured assassin.) They'll come to see what Bourne has been up to since he swam out of the East River. They'll come to find out the secrets behind his recruitment to Treadstone. They'll come to answer the age-old question: Will Jason Bourne ever find peace?
But most importantly, they'll come for Matt Damon.
That's because this entire franchise rests on Matt Damon: His ability to excel at fight scenes, his likability during press tours, and of course, his inimitable looks. Yes, if we may be completely and unabashedly superficial for a (long) moment, Matt Damon's looks are a beautiful national treasure. Matt Damon himself is a national treasure, but we're here to talk about Jason Bourne. And after viewing this latest installment we've come to the conclusion that Matt Damon does. Not. Age.
When we first met Jason—or, more specifically, Matt—he looked like this:
The year was 2002, and he was but a young man mysteriously picked up by a fishing boat riddled with bullets, just trying to find his place in the world. (And, like, figure out who he was and where he came from.) The world already knew Matt Damon from a series of cinematic accomplishments that included Saving Private Ryan, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ocean's Eleven, to name a few. But it was our first introduction to Damon-as-Bourne, an identity, if you will, that we've come to know and love.
That adorable little assassin kicked, punched, and car-chased his way into our hearts, and on top if it all he could melt our hearts with but a wink and a smile. Then, two years later, he was back as a Bourne who was less confused, and very much angry about being framed by the CIA for an operation gone wrong. He looked like this:
In 2007 Jason came back to us in the form of The Bourne Ultimatum, where he learns about his real name, his real life as a trained assassin, and the real threat of a new program the CIA is developing to train more ruthless killing machines. He shoots, he punches, he kicks, he speed-races, he does all the Bourne-y things the world now knows and loves. Oh, and he looked like this:
You'll notice one pattern throughout these three movies: The man literally does not age. Or, to be more specific and scientifically accurate, he only looks better with age. It's clear that Matt Damon comes from the Liam Neeson School of Sexuality, which is to say that no amount of passage of years can keep him from giving his utmost energy to a fight scene. And sure, there may technically be a few laugh lines where there used to be just smooth skins, but we can all agree that said lines are an improvement if anything. After all, we like our men like we like our wine and cheese.
And this week's new glimpse into Damon-as-Bourne is no exception. In fact, it only further convinced us he is surely not of the same chemical makeup as the rest of us. The movie opens with Matt in Greece, right in the middle of what is surely a totally off-the-books fight club. He is shirtless, naturally, and delivering a set of the most intense punches we've seen yet. It's as though the movie-makers are showing us, right off the bat, not to doubt whether Jason Bourne can still be Jason Bourne 14 years later.
The movie then goes on to weave us the tale of a new CIA program in the works, one that would constitute a total surveillance of the entire world. Julia Stiles is back as the ballsy Nicky Parsons, the former operative who is now busy hacking into the agency's system to try to expose them, and finding out the truth behind Bourne's real father in the meantime. She sets Jason on the trail, and thus begins the pursuit we've been waiting for.
This fourth iteration (again, we're kind of glossing over Renner and Legacy here), is a slightly more cerebral installment, bringing up existential questions about the value of privacy versus the importance of security that most viewers will find very familiar if they've cracked open a newspaper but at all in the last few years. But blah, blah, blah...we're not here to debate policy or to wax poetic on the over-reachings of government agencies; we're here to talk about the fact that Matt Damon is truly insane in this movie, in the best way possible.
It's like it's 2002 all over again: He rides motorcycles through winding city streets while being pursued by an assassin, he beats his adversaries to smithereens using only his hands and the odd pipes or kitchen utensils, he sails across rooftops and drops down off of five-story buildings. And he does it all with a set of muscles that are truly, truly admirable in this day and age.
Matt Damon, we salute you. We salute you for your dedication to the craft (the craft of stunts, that is). We salute you for your ability to pretend to use tech-y spy gadgets and make it look totally legit. We salute you for your fabulous chemistry with CIA on-again-off-again friend Alicia Vikander. May you never stop playing Jason Bourne.
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