The Bourne Supremacy (Widescreen Edition)

When last we saw Jason Bourne in "The Bourne Identity", he'd forgotten who he was, then remembered, maybe, just in time to eliminate as many clues to his continued existence as he could before leaving Paris for a secret life somewhere else (actually, a remote Greek island) with his new love, Maria. The Bourne Supremacy starts a couple of years later and, like TBI, begins in the middle, with Bourne trying to remember what happened in the beginning before escaping at the end.

The initial setting for the action this time is Berlin. Whatever US covert agency is at work appears to be setting up some sort of scam to catch a thief of money, secrets, or both; unfortunately the scam goes bad and the target gets the money and the secrets, leaving only some dead bodies and some clumsy evidence that Jason Bourne is to blame. This time, another wonk is in the mix -- or a wonkette, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), freshening the machismo with a blast of blonde estrogen. We then catch up with Jason and Maria in Goa, India, where they live in relative safety while Jason starts to unravel a whole new set of recurring nightmares set in Berlin and narrated by Conklin's ghost. Unfortunately, the bad guys have already tracked JB to Goa and head there to rub him out, making it look like he was responsible for the Berlin disaster if no one knows he was still alive first. Jason survives but becomes more resolute to determine why the government is still after him. Landy's built with more integrity than Conklin was, and she suspects the case against Bourne is too pat, learning more about his past in the process (since she wasn't in the first movie). The question then becomes who finds out first what happened in Berlin, and why Bourne was implicated.

To say that TBS is my least favorite of the Bourne trilogy is not to say it isn't a very good film. My biggest beef would be the absence of other "assets" for Bourne to take on, but that's the way the story turned -- Bourne has a fine antagonist in an amoral Russian mercenary (Karll Urban). The foreign settings are fun, and the producers came up with excellent set pieces in Goa and Berlin. But the most memorable part will always be the car chase in Moscow, where things come to a head. Greenglass's direction of this chase puts it in the cream of the crop; it stands up and demands comparison to movies as different as "Bullitt". "The French Connection", and "Ronin", not to mention TBI's chase in Paris. On top of that, Bourne's tutelage by Macguyver pays off as he improvises foot escapes in both Berlin and Russia. Finally, the movie delivers the trilogy's best "Depends" moment.

One of the most famous, or infamous, aspects of this film and TBU is the hand-held camera work of Greenglass. In a theater, this movie is most effectively viewed closer to the center of the screen. That's less important in TBS than TBU, in my opinion. For home viewing, even on what passes for a small screen nowadays (mine is 32 inches) the camera work doesn't interfere with the movie.

The Bourne Supremacy delivers on its promise to keep Bourne in action through some tight stories and tighter curves. If it's not the greatest movie in the series, that's just because it's stuck between two great bookends.

I'm happy with this movie, and have watched it a few times. The action sequences are fun, the storyline is consuming, and Matt Damon is actually a good actor (unlike Ben Affleck...). I actually bought this as the trilogy set... the picture quality is very good, and audio is powerful if you have a good 5.1 setup, and the movie never feels like it's dragging on. Well worth watching, regardless of format.

Second installment continues the story line. The characters are complex, and very interesting. The HD DVD quality is not good because of the technology used at the time of filming. However it is better than standard definition and worth the investment if you do not have standard DVD version in your collection.

This movie was great cause he did my wife. Who care about afleck anyway.

One of the best movies despite being absolutely nothing like the book.

****1/2

I am late getting on the "Bourne" bandwagon. I just watched the first two films in the series for the first time last weekend after years of avoiding them. My impression? That so far, the "Bourne" films deserve all of the praise and success that they've received.

What we have here is an intelligent, engrossing, well-written, well-acted and well-directed action film that can be enjoyed by families and mainstream audiences, but that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence. I have to give props ... pulling that off is not easy to do.

In the second film of the series, "The Bourne Supremacy", Jason Bourne finds that, despite the fact that he still can't recall most of it, he cannot escape his past. Although managing for two years to live in seclusion with his girlfriend, he is drawn back into the violent world he tried to escape when he is hunted down by another "Treadstone" agent, who fails to murder Bourne but kills his girlfriend. (The underwater scene where Jason watches Marie's lifeless body float away is tender and beautifully sad). Bourne is then framed by the same corrupt CIA agent (Brian Cox) who used to run the "Treadstone" program that created Bourne, and Jason is forced to prove his innocence while still trying to figure out his past.

Matt Damon is the thinking man's action hero, and a complete departure from the stereotypically cocky, wisecracking American hero type. In action, Bourne is precise, powerful and unstoppable, but when he's not, Damon plays him with the stoic vulnerability of a man who wants desperately to escape the violent past he can barely remember. When Bourne tracks down the offspring of a politician he assassinated in his former life, the scene is heartbreakingly restrained. Bravo.