The full trailer for Jason Bourne has just arrived, complete with thrilling car chases through Vegas, lots of tense discussions in Mission Control between CIA agents, Julia Stiles’ character returning yet again, and Bourne outrunning a missile launcher on a motorcycle. But the most attention-getting aspect of the trailer is that Jason Bourne is smack in the middle of some very real political unrest.
Much of the trailer takes place in Greece, which has spent seven very long years attempting to turn its economy around with little success. The government has increased taxes and cut budgets, measures more or less designed to protect certain politically connected groups while hitting the young, the unemployed, and others the hardest. Homelessness has become an epidemic in the city and fringe groups such as the Golden Dawn are rising in popularity.
Needless to say, this whole situation has made the Greek populace furious, especially as the exact amount of corruption, cronyism, and general fraud that helped upend the economy have been revealed. And at least one action scene appears to take place during anti-austerity protests. If you pay attention during the trailer, you’ll see graffiti referring to Greece defaulting on IMF payments, for example. It’s not entirely out of left field — director Paul Greengrass has a taste for making movies about recent events such as Captain Phillips and United 93 — but it’s curious a man who wants to run away would be at the center of such a geopolitical hotspot. We’ll find out just why Bourne is in Greece July 29.
