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A [[Trilogy Creep|series]] of action films tenuously ([[In Name Only|pretty tenuously]]) based on the [[The Bourne Series (novel)|Robert Ludlum books of the same name]] and starring [[Matt Damon]]. It revolutionized the spy genre for its simplicity as well as for having a smart protagonist, eurotrotting (with virtually zero [[California Doubling]]), well-crafted suspense and aggressive action sequences. Jason Bourne is an amnesiac who finds himself with super-assassin skills and has to stay on the run from former employers and whoever else wants to manipulate him to evil ends. Each movie follows a slightly different story but retains some basic elements of Bourne eluding government custody, killing a fellow assassin with some household implement and going for an innovative and harrowing car chase.
So far, there are five films in the series:
* ''The Bourne Identity'' (2002): A man (Bourne) is fished out of the Mediterranean Sea riddled with bullet-holes and with no memory of who he is. He makes the surprising discovery that he knows how to speak several languages, has plenty of money and passports in a safety deposit box, and he knows how to kill anything that moves. Retracing his steps, he finds himself being hunted by the government and, with the help of a pretty German globetrotter, he goes in search of his identity.
* ''The Bourne Supremacy'' (2004): After a botched undercover mission, a CIA operations leader finds evidence that Bourne was responsible for killing their agents. He's not, but those who framed him also want to kill him. After his girlfriend's death (via a shot that wins awards for sheer accuracy, being fired from a standing position at 200+ meters at a moving target through traffic), Bourne comes out of hiding to find the people who killed her and bring them to justice, and also to start making amends for past wrongs.
* ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' (2007): Picking up where ''Supremacy'' left off, Bourne is on another mad chase - this time, it's to pick apart all of the loose ends about his identity and life, as he sets out to track down the source of the [[Government Conspiracy]] that made him into a weapon and caused all the trouble in the first place. This leads him through a series of individuals with the information he needs, and he picks up an unexpected ally in the computer specialist who had been in the background of the previous films. Cleverly [[Retcon|retcons]] [[Once More, with Clarity|the second movie's final scene]].
* ''The Bourne Legacy'' (2012): [[Matt Damon]] refused to make another film without Paul Greengrass (director of ''Supremacy'' and ''Ultimatum'') involved, and Greengrass has insisted that he's yet to find a story good enough to merit a continuation of the franchise. As a result, the studio have a new character, to be played by [[Jeremy Renner]], who is being hunted down by the people behind operations Treadstone and Black Briar. They try to kill Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner). After having run out of the medication that prevents his migraines he takes contact to Dr. Marta Shearing. After saving her from an assassination attempt, she tells him that he should have stopped.
* ''Jason Bourne'' (2016): Bourne gets involved in a plot to leak classified information. His former girlfriend Nicky Parsons obtains information about the American government's black ops program, including data on Jason Bourne's father. Nicky and Jason meet up, and after a chase sequence, Nicky gets shot. She manages to deliver the flash drive to Bourne, who then will uncover his past. The classified information gets destroyed by hacking a phone, so the only driving force is the uncovering of Jason's past.
The success of the films, especially the first two, helped influence the direction of the rebooted James Bond franchise with ''[[Casino Royale]]''.
{{tropelist|page=The Bourne Series}}
* [[Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene]]: Several, including the dialogue with Professor in ''Identity'', Bourne's apology to Irena Neski in ''Supremacy'', and the conversation (rather monologue) with Nicky in ''Ultimatum''.
* [[All Love Is Unrequited]]: Maybe with {{spoiler|Nicky.}}
{{quote|{{spoiler|Nicky: Working with you was...difficult for me. ([[Beat]]) You really don't remember anything, do you?}}}}
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: Several important characters are surprisingly dispatched over the course of the series. In the first film, {{spoiler|Conklin}} is anticlimactically murdered at the end. In ''Supremacy'', {{spoiler|Marie (a character who survived the entire book series}}) is suddenly killed during a chase sequence. Later, {{spoiler|Danny Zorn, Conklin's right-hand man and one of the few surviving Treadstone agents, is murdered by Ward Abbot. Abbot is later exposed as a murderer and traitor and commits suicide.}} In ''Ultimatum'', {{spoiler|Simon Ross (played by notable actor Paddy Considine}}} is set up to be a main character, then efficiently dispatched by an assassin. {{spoiler|Neal Daniels is set up to be the man who could answer Bourne's questions, but is blown up.}} In fact the only major characters to survive the series are {{spoiler|Bourne, Nicky Parsons, and Pamela Landy}}.
* [[Artifact Title]]: ''The Bourne Identity'' makes sense given the context of the movie. ''The Bourne Supremacy'' and ''The Bourne Ultimatum''... less so.
** Had the titles been reversed for the second and third movies, they might have made more sense. While the second has no ultimatum, the third film was basically Bourne destroying the government conspiracy surrounding Treadstone (showing his "supremacy" over the government officials involved with it).
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* [[Badass]]: Bourne, totally.
** Same goes for every Treadstone and Blackbriar asset, whose levels of skill and determination nearly or equally rival Bourne's.
* [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil]]: In ''Ultimatum'' we get glimpses of the induction process Treadstone (and presumably Blackbriar) agents undergo. Specifically, Jason is told to murder a man, sitting in a room with a bag over his head, and every time he refused Jason had a bag put on ''his'' head and he was severely punished, ''visa a vie'' solitary confinement and water-boarding among other methods, until he finally broke and killed him. To twist the knife further it seems that Jason, who volunteered, initially seemed to think the test was to ''not'' kill the man, given how soldier-like he took the orders.
* [[Being Watched]]: Jason can plot the location and arc sweeps of multiple surveillance cameras at a glance and guide others through them as well as himself.
* [[Berlin]]: One of the primary settings of the second movie.
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** Also, Ultimatum ends with Landy closing off the events of the film in a government committee, in a nigh identical fashion to how it's done in the first.
* [[Burn, Baby, Burn]]: Inspired that entry.
* [[California Doubling]]: Spectacularly averted for the most part, with only a few minor exceptions: Scenes from Zürich and the french countryside in ''Identity'' were filmed in the Czech Republic (in and around Prague), The skyline of and scene taking place in Amsterdam in Supremacy are probably filmed there as well and the very brief re-appearance of Moscow in ''Ultimatum'' was filmed around old [[East Germany|GDR]] era buildings in Berlin.
** In ''Ultimatum'' they filmed a scene set at the Waterloo train station on location, but there was no way they could get the location shut down for filming, so they just worked around the crowd. It generally worked alright as they put up signs to please ignore the film crew.
* [[Call Back]]: "Look at what they make you give."
* [[Car Chase]]: Several in every film. The car chase between Bourne and the Paris police {{spoiler|from the first movie}} is rather original and involves surprisingly little in the way of crashes. And it's freaking hilarious, since Bourne's making his dramatic getaway through the crowded streets in Marie's ''old and battered 1960s [[Badass Adorable|Mini Cooper]] !''
* [[Car Fu]]: Used by both Bourne and the hitmen sent to eliminate him during the [[Car Chase|car chases]] in the second and third movie.
* [[Carnival of Killers]]: Castel, The Professor and Mannheim from the first movie.
* [[Charles Atlas Superpower]]: By the end of the third movie, Bourne is able to {{spoiler|survive a ten-story fall into water; see [[Soft Water]], below}}.
** Subverted in the first movie, when {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Bourne falls down the stairwell and despite using the mook's body to break his fall]]}}, he is noticeably badly injured.
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* [[Elite Mooks]]: Treadstone/Blackbriar operatives.
* [[The End of the Beginning]]: At the end of the Ultimatum, {{spoiler|Jason Bourne is no more, and David Webb has more or less taken his place}}.
* [[Enhance Button]]: In ''Jason Bourne'' a low-quality video is being shown. Heather Lee (played by Alicia Wikander) says to freeze the frame and enhance.
* [[Escort Mission]]: In ''Ultimatum'', Bourne guides reporter Simon Ross (carrying important information about Black Briar) through Waterloo Station evading agents out to get Ross, mostly through instructions via cell phone. A [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|potentially awesome escape]] {{spoiler|is averted when Ross deviates from Bourne's instructions and in a panic, [[Leeroy Jenkins|rushes into the open]], prompting [[Pretty Little Headshots|a headshot from an awaiting sniper.]]}}
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Treadstone is supposed to have transformed Bourne into the ultimate assassin, {{spoiler|but he can't bring himself to kill a father while his kids are watching.}}
** [[Fridge Horror|His plan necessitated a lack of witnesses,]] {{spoiler|meaning if he had killed Wombosi, said children would have been next.}}
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* [[Immune to Drugs]]: What fact could make ''Supremacy's'' final chase scene [[Serial Escalation|even more]] awesome? [[Fridge Logic|Both Bourne and Kirill will have been WASTED while it was going on.]]
* [[Impossible Mission Collapse]]
* [[Improbable Age]]: Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is one of Bourne's field handlers on an extremely sensitive mission and apparently has beyond Top Secret clearance given what she is involved in (monitoring ''all'' of the Treadstone field agents). In other words, significantly more dangerous to the Agency than Bourne is if she screws up, or if something was missed in her vetting and she is less than 100% loyal. When the movie was filmed, Julia Stiles was a very young looking ''twenty-one.''
** Attempted [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshade]] in ''Supremacy'' when Nicky explains her cover was an exchange student studying in Paris.
** Bourne himself looks like he could be another offender, but Damon is just very [[Older Than They Look|slow aging]]. He is a very boyish looking 31-32 during filming of the first movie, which is actually appropriate for someone {{spoiler|who is an experienced soldier who volunteers for a CIA black ops job.}}
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{{quote|Look at us. Look at what they make you give.}}
* [[Mook Face Turn]]: Paz just before the end of ''Ultimatum''.
* [[Moscow]] / [[The New Russia]]: The second main setting of ''Supremacy'' and [[Flash Back|at the beginning]] of ''Ultimatum''. {{spoiler|Bourne's unofficial first mission consisted in the assassination of a progressive Russian politician.}}
* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Guess who.
* [[Mugging the Monster]]: In ''Identity,'' a couple cops try to arrest Bourne for sleeping on a park bench. It ends badly.
* [[National Rail]]
* [[Never Found the Body]]: At the very end of ''Ultimatum''. {{spoiler|This is how Nicky knows that Bourne is still alive}}.
** Subverted earlier in the movie. {{spoiler|Bourne is able to kill Desh before he can kill him or Nicky, and tells Nicky to report that they are dead. Vosen then sends men to [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|find their bodies and confirm it]]}}.
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* [[Super Window Jump]]: {{spoiler|The very end of ''Ultimatum'' - in a variation, Bourne jumps off the roof.}}
* [[Swiss Bank Account]]: In ''The Bourne Identity'', the only clue he has to his identity in the beginning is the details of a Swiss numbered bank account.
* [[Techno Babble]]: Prevalent throughout ''Jason Bourne'' - "Use SQL to corrupt the databases." Other crimes against technology and sense includes hacking a laptop by using a nearby phone and remotely shutting down a building located in Iceland.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Simon Ross, the Guardian reporter who got in way over his head, and despite Bourne's repeated warnings, panicked and decided that it would be a good idea to try and escape a security trap on his own.
* [[Train Escape]]: In the second film after Bourne is identified at a hotel.
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* [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child]]: {{spoiler|The reason for Bourne's botched mission in ''Identity''. After having his gun trained point-blank on Wombosi's head, he sees Wombosi's children in his lap and sleeping about the room and aborts the mission at that point, leading to his shooting and subsequent fall from the yacht.}}
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: Bourne's bait-and-switch ploy to get the information on {{spoiler|the Blackbriar project}} in ''Ultimatum''.
** [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]: Bourne is the master of this trope. The CIA operatives try hard to [[Out Gambit]] him in every movie. They always fail miserably...
* [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]: {{spoiler|The death of his [[Love Interest]] in the beginning of the second film.}}
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