Matt Damon's Gritty James Bond Replacement Is Officially Streaming on Netflix
Conor Sheeran is a Movies and TV features writer for Collider. He has a deep passion for cinema and watches everything from the biggest blockbusters to the smallest indies. While he specializes in movies and television, he has also written about politics, culture, and sports throughout his career.
Based in New York City, Conor is also a massive fan of the New York Jets, Mets, and Knicks. He is still waiting for any of those teams to bring home a championship in his lifetime.
A member of the National Writers Union and the International Federation of Journalists, Conor is a strong proponent of press freedom and collective action.
When someone is asked to name the spy who most lights up the movie screen, they’re more than likely going to pick James Bond. However, despite all his charisma and coolness, no one is likely to say that the James Bond films are realistic. With the exception of the Daniel Craig series, much of the franchise leans on the fantastical, with 007 using laser gadgets, invisible cars, and jetpacks to save the day. As Pierce Brosnan‘s take on the character came to an end with 2002’s Die Another Day, another spy, Jason Bourne, offered a different take on the world of secret agents. Played by Matt Damon and based on the series of novels by Robert Ludlum, Bourne is everything that James Bond is not: a CIA-trained assassin who wanted nothing more than to escape the people who turned him into a weapon. The Bourne Identity‘s premiere in 2002 gave audiences a new take on spy movies, and in many ways changed how Hollywood approached the genre.
Now, all five films in the Bourne franchise — four starring Damon and one spin-off, The Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner — are available to stream on Netflix. While the series has its fair share of ups and downs, Damon’s original trilogy remains a remarkable achievement in modern action filmmaking, thanks in no small part to the stylistic direction of Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass. With its darker, more realistic take on the world of spies, the Bourne films are the perfect alternative to the Bond franchise when you’re looking for something a little different.
Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne Reinvented the Modern Spy Thriller
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Image via Universal Studios -
Image via Universal Studios -
Image via Universal Pictures -
Image via Universal Studios
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Image via Universal Studios -
Image via Universal Studios -
Image via Universal Pictures -
Image via Universal Studios
When The Bourne Identity arrived in theaters in 2002, audiences were introduced to a different kind of secret agent. Based on Ludlum’s novel of the same name, Jason Bourne is rescued from the Mediterranean Sea, having been found floating, riddled with bullets, and unable to remember his name, his past, or anything about his life. As he begins to piece things together, he discovers he speaks multiple languages, handles weapons with ease, and is an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Soon, he discovers that his handlers and those who turned him into this assassin at the CIA want him dead following a mission failure.
What has made Jason Bourne such a compelling character, both in the novels and movies, is that he represents the antithesis of James Bond in almost every way. Where Bond embraces the excitement and glamour of international espionage, Bourne is doing everything he can to escape it. Bond uses advanced technology to accomplish his missions, while Bourne relies on everyday objects to defeat his opponents. The franchise also helped revolutionize action movies through its grounded approach to violence, with Bourne relying on his surroundings to make it through a fight. He uses pens, books, and dish towels to aid him in his brutal fight scenes, laying the groundwork for characters like John Wick who would eventually do the same. It brings a raw physicality and realism to the fights, and every punch feels genuinely dangerous.
Bourne doesn’t want to be a spy, but the training he’s been given enables him to do what he needs to do to evade his captors. His skills are a curse as much as they are a blessing. Even as he dispatches the assassins sent to dispose of him, the films hammer home that Bourne is horrified by what he’s truly capable of.
Damon’s performance is also essential to making this whole premise work. Unlike the charismatic Bond, Bourne is reserved, paranoid, and wants only to disappear. He’s an action hero who doesn’t enjoy being the action hero, and the distinction between the two gives the franchise real emotional weight that many other spy films seem to lack.
The Original ‘Bourne’ Trilogy Is Still an Action Masterpiece
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Although The Bourne Identity established the franchise’s defining characteristics, its two sequels, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, elevated the series into something truly special. Paul Greengrass helmed both films, bringing his distinctive use of handheld cameras and rapid editing to heighten the tension. Rather than watching the intense action unfold from a distance, audiences are trapped in the middle of it alongside Bourne.
More importantly, the sequels never lose sight of the character at the center. Supremacy turns Bourne’s journey into a quest for redemption, and Ultimatum brings his investigation into the CIA’s clandestine operations to a thrilling conclusion. Bourne remains tortured throughout, paying for the sins of a past he thought he’d left behind, and the action never lets up, striking an interesting balance for the viewer. The latter film is particularly impressive, delivering some of the franchise’s best action while bringing Bourne’s story full circle. His tortured mission comes to a dramatic finish, as he repeats a line from The Bourne Identity that speaks to the core of what the entire franchise is about: “Look at this. Look at what they make you give.” While the Bourne character returned in 2016’s Jason Bourne, that film never hit the highs of what made the original trilogy so special.
In many ways, the Bourne character helped lay the groundwork for Daniel Craig’s take on James Bond, a return to gritty, more realistic stories that are intensely character-driven. This isn’t to say that Bourne single-handedly reinvented Bond, but his influence is impossible to ignore. The Bourne franchise helped establish a new standard for espionage films, proving that audiences could find just as much excitement and drama watching a man fight for survival as they could in a spy dressed in a tuxedo.
Now that all five Bourne films are available to stream, there’s no better time to rewatch the movies or dive in for the first time. While Bond is cinema’s favorite spy, Jason Bourne proved that he didn’t have to be its most compelling.
The Bourne Identity
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