Running time: 109 minutes
Rating 7 out of 10
The Bourne Supremacy, or Bourne Again as it should be called, is a stylish and worthy sequel to 2002's The Bourne Identity, and further establishes the enigmatic Jason Bourne as one of cinema's more indelible assassins.
Matt Damon reprises his role as Bourne, returning along with many of the original's key personnel, including writer Tony Gilroy. The most significant change is in the director's chair where Paul Greengrass.has taken over from Doug Liman. Greengrass is best known for the gritty Bloody Sunday. He has brought much of that film's edgy, guerilla style to Supremacy. His use of hand held cameras lends the film its intimacy while involving the audience; never more so than in the exhilarating climactic car chase which feels so real as to almost induce whiplash.
While Greengrass has changed the look, the spirit remains. Like Bourne, whose amnesia has left him with only fractured glimpses of his past, the story is disjointed and only revealed in cryptic glimpses, making its resolution a puzzle that both the audience and Bourne have to solve together. It's this element that has helped elevate the series, based on Robert Ludlum's best selling novels, above the mire of typical action thrillers.
Inevitably in this sequel we are deprived of the initial hook that caught the imagination first time around: that moment when Bourne opens a safe deposit and discovers who he is and what he does. Supremacy begins with Bourne in Goa, India where he's been hiding out with Marie (Franka Potente) in the hope of escaping both his past life as an assassin and those who want rid of him. It's an existence that has seen him on the move constantly and always peering over his shoulder.
When an inquiring stranger appears in the village, Bourne is again forced to flee. At the same time he is linked to the deaths of two CIA operatives in Berlin, making him the target of agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) who turns to Bourne's one-time boss Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) for answers. In an effort to clear his name and finally find peace, Bourne comes out of hiding and begins a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Landy.
The tension never abates as the story flits around the globe, taking in India, Germany, Russia, Italy, England, America and Holland, but never the picture postcard settings. Instead it visits the less glamorous neighbourhoods, accentuating their ordinariness with grainy cinematography.
In the world of self-defined agents, Bourne may lack the charm and finesse of a James Bond; his wariness and intensity being more essential to his survival than his appeal. But as portrayed so definitively by the boyish Damon, he possesses a calm assurity, integrity and a keen intelligence that make him a beguiling and absorbing character. Although Bourne may not remember his past, on this evidence, his future looks memorable.
Matt Damon reprises his role as Bourne, returning along with many of the original's key personnel, including writer Tony Gilroy. The most significant change is in the director's chair where Paul Greengrass.has taken over from Doug Liman. Greengrass is best known for the gritty Bloody Sunday. He has brought much of that film's edgy, guerilla style to Supremacy. His use of hand held cameras lends the film its intimacy while involving the audience; never more so than in the exhilarating climactic car chase which feels so real as to almost induce whiplash.
While Greengrass has changed the look, the spirit remains. Like Bourne, whose amnesia has left him with only fractured glimpses of his past, the story is disjointed and only revealed in cryptic glimpses, making its resolution a puzzle that both the audience and Bourne have to solve together. It's this element that has helped elevate the series, based on Robert Ludlum's best selling novels, above the mire of typical action thrillers.
Inevitably in this sequel we are deprived of the initial hook that caught the imagination first time around: that moment when Bourne opens a safe deposit and discovers who he is and what he does. Supremacy begins with Bourne in Goa, India where he's been hiding out with Marie (Franka Potente) in the hope of escaping both his past life as an assassin and those who want rid of him. It's an existence that has seen him on the move constantly and always peering over his shoulder.
When an inquiring stranger appears in the village, Bourne is again forced to flee. At the same time he is linked to the deaths of two CIA operatives in Berlin, making him the target of agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) who turns to Bourne's one-time boss Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) for answers. In an effort to clear his name and finally find peace, Bourne comes out of hiding and begins a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Landy.
The tension never abates as the story flits around the globe, taking in India, Germany, Russia, Italy, England, America and Holland, but never the picture postcard settings. Instead it visits the less glamorous neighbourhoods, accentuating their ordinariness with grainy cinematography.
In the world of self-defined agents, Bourne may lack the charm and finesse of a James Bond; his wariness and intensity being more essential to his survival than his appeal. But as portrayed so definitively by the boyish Damon, he possesses a calm assurity, integrity and a keen intelligence that make him a beguiling and absorbing character. Although Bourne may not remember his past, on this evidence, his future looks memorable.
