In Daniel Craig’s era, the James Bond movies borrowed a lot from the story of Jason Bourne. While James Bond is a consistent character, that doesn’t mean that the suave super-spy is impervious to trends. 007 may always have the same name, the same sharp suits, and the same set of reliable colleagues at MI6, but various outings of the James Bond franchise have tried to cash in on trends with varying levels of success. Roger Moore’s 1979 movie Moonraker attempted to send Bond into space thanks to the success of Star Wars, while the actor’s first outing as 007 saw Live and Let Die try to capitalize on blaxploitation cinema.
As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne trilogy provided a blueprint for the filmmakers trying to establish Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond in 2005. The Bourne movies were a huge critical and commercial success in the early ‘00s, blending fast-paced action sequences and jittery handheld camerawork with real-life political commentary and a dark, paranoid post-9/11 atmosphere. While Pierce Brosnan’s Bond initially started strong by jumping on the self-aware irony trend that was popular in the mid-‘90s, the success of Austin Powers and the increasingly broad tone of Brosnan's later movies saw the franchise slide into outright self-parody.
4 Jason Bourne’s Filming Style Redefined Bond’s Aesthetic
The Bourne trilogy influenced Craig’s take on Bond, but the spy didn’t steal everything that made Bourne such a success. However, one thing that even a casual viewer could it Bond stole from Bourne was the amnesiac assassin’s visual style. Specifically, the shaky handheld camerawork of the Bourne trilogy was used in both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace to make action sequences feel more urgent and immediate. This stylistic choice wasn’t as obvious in Casino Royale as it is in director Paul Greengrass’s Bourne movies but, compared to director Martin Campbell’s work on Goldeneye only a decade earlier, it is a massive visual shift.
A lot of spy movies after the Bourne series aped this recognizable aesthetic, but this is particularly noticeable in Casino Royale because of the contrast between Campbell’s earlier Goldeneye and Craig’s debut. In Goldeneye, action sequences like the iconic opening scene are shot with smooth, slick precision, the camera gliding around the action in long takes from wide angles. In Casino Royale, scenes like Craig’s instantly iconic Parkour chase through a building site are shot with choppy editing, frequent cuts, and frenetic, up-close camera movement that looks much more like a Bourne movie than an earlier 007 adventure.
3 Daniel Craig’s Bond Borrowed Jason Bourne’s PTSD
Of course, directors and cinematographers weren’t the only ones looking to the Bourne trilogy for creative inspiration. Daniel Craig’s Bond was the first 007 who seemed deeply scarred by the things he had seen and done, a character trait that Jason Bourne popularized post-9/11 (as evidenced by Christian Bale’s troubled take on Batman). There was a reason that John Cleese’s Q didn’t appear in Casino Royale, since Craig’s version of Bond was busier mourning the men he killed in self-defense than picking up his latest laser pen or invisible car. This attempt to ground the action of the James Bond franchise in human emotions like anguish and regret borrowed a lot from Bourne.
2 Jason Bourne’s Fighting Skills Changed James Bond
Bourne’s brutal, slow, realistic fight scenes had a huge impact on Craig’s early Bond movies. While Craig’s later outings featured more fantastical fights like a train-bound battle with Bautista in Spectre, Casino Royale was full of close-quarters, grounded, gruesome beatings. As an origin story, Casino Royale depicted Bond killing his first assassination target in a public bathroom by beating the victim brutally before slamming his head into a urinal. It was gritty, gross, and dark, and while Jason Bourne’s backstory was even darker, the scene still signaled that this version of Bond would have more in common with the amnesiac spy than earlier takes on 007.
Bourne’s brutality took a toll on the character’s soul, and the spy struggled with the extreme violence he was capable of committing throughout the franchise. This was borrowed by Craig’s 007, who was angsty about his job and what it led him to do even before he met Vesper Lynd. Notably, while Craig’s later Bond movies did get a little campier and more over-the-top, the character’s believable fighting style still reappeared throughout the series. It can be seen in his bedraggled final fight against Safin during the climax of No Time To Die when both men are too worn down to pull off any impressive or acrobatic moves.
1 Jason Bourne Made Bond Himself Less Important
The biggest surprise of the Jason Bourne trilogy was the revelation that the lead character is not necessarily someone important. Throughout the series, the CIA’s many attempts on his life and the lack of clues to his true identity make it seem like the all-powerful organization may have killed countless men like Bourne before and the amnesiac hitman’s attempts to uncover their nefarious work may be the only chance the world has of hearing the truth. Despite this, when Bourne finally learns about the CIA’s corruption, it is a shock when The Bourne Ultimatum confirms that dozens of recruits went through the same program as Bourne before the series began.
Similarly, when No Time To Die killed off Bond’s long-time colleague Felix Leiter, the series made it clear that anyone could die. No Time To Die’s wild climactic twist later reaffirmed this, but the seeds of this cynical worldview were sown way back in the first of Craig’s Bond movies. When Le Chiffre tortured Bond in Craig’s 007 debut, the spy only escaped because another minor villain walked into the room and shot Le Chiffre dead without warning. The idea of Bond being a special super-spy with almost limitless powers was replaced by a harsher, more realistic world where anyone can die.
Even the hero of the story (and the very profitable franchise) wasn’t safe in a post-Bourne world. Casino Royale made it clear that Bond might not survive every close call with death and that, even if he didn’t, it might only be through dumb luck. Like Jason Bourne, this take on 007 was just a cog in a much larger machine he didn’t control. While it wasn’t until Daniel Craig’s final movie that the James Bond franchise followed through on its threat, the idea that 007 was as mortal as anyone else was a promise borrowed from the Jason Bourne movies.
