The Bourne Supremacy
Originally written for The Milpitas Post
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Joan Allen, Brian Cox
Rated: PG-13, for violence and intense action, and brief language
Parental Notes: Teens and preteens who enjoyed the first movie will doubtless like this one. It is almost certainly too intense for youngsters.
“The Bourne Identity” was a great action thriller. It had humor, protagonists you could identify with, and plenty of exciting action scenes. Its sequel, “The Bourne Supremacy,” is a good action thriller, with a hero you can root for and lots of action, but a lot of the heart the first film had is gone. As a result, the new film is good but not as warm, exciting but not as fun.
As the film opens, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) are living in hiding, trying to escape Jason’s CIA assassin past and rediscover his identity. The amnesia he suffered in the first film is still mostly in place, with occasional flashbacks. Everything seems fine until two events send things crashing out of control: a pair of CIA agents are murdered with all the evidence pointing to Bourne and an assassin attempts to kill Bourne. Our hero knows someone is after him but doesn’t know why and the rest of the film is a combination mystery and espionage thriller as he tries to figure out what is going on and avenge the happiness he lost in the assassination attempt.
This film is definitely darker than the first, partly because of the revenge motif and partly because it lacks Marie’s humanizing influence. The first film was more on the “good, wholesome fun” end of the scale, while this one is going for the “gritty and hard-hitting” end. The film is PG-13 so there isn’t much gore, but there’s plenty of bloodless violence – car crashes, martial arts, and the occasional gunshot.
Presumably because of the gritty feel the director appears to have been aiming for, there is plenty of hand-held camera work here. This is fine in small doses, but one can only take so much jiggly-cam before it becomes distracting and annoying. The car chases and fight scenes are shot in closeup with fast cuts and an unsteady frame, so it’s hard to get a sense of what is really happening. Even some of the quiet, emotional scenes have that home-video wobbliness.
Fortunately, Jason Bourne is as engaging a character as ever and there are loads of espionage thrills to go around. Damon shows us a man whose paranoia has paid off, a man who is frequently afraid but confident in his skills. Jason has lost some of his endearing confusion, but his determination and awe-inspiring abilities make him a thoroughly enjoyable character to watch.
The supporting cast is full of delightful villains and near-villains. Joan Allen plays Pam Lundy, the woman who lost her agents and is determined to track down the person she thinks is responsible: Bourne. Allen gives a flinty performance, making Lundy believable as a woman who has succeeded in a man