The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Supremacy sports the tagline “They should have left him alone.” And after seeing this sequel, I kinda wished that, too.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

If you read my review for The Bourne Identity, you will understand why I’m coming across as harsh on this film. While The Bourne Supremacy is not a bad movie, it’s no Bourne Identity, not by a long shot with scope and silencer.

It is two years later and Marie and Jason are enjoying a simple life in India. This idyllic setting would be paradise if it weren’t for a reoccurring nightmare Jason was suffering. Yeah, the headaches he endured while working with the super-secret assassin program “Treadstone” still bothered him from time to time, but there was something about this particular nightmare, something that wouldn’t leave him alone.

Jump now to a CIA Operation in Berlin. the prize is an exchange of information, valuable information (isn’t it always?), that the Agency desperately needs. Everything is going smoothly until someone pops up and pops everyone in the room, the assassin helping himself to the intelligence that the CIA wants so badly. In the wake of this professional hit is dead bodies and one partial fingerprint. The director of this botched operation, Pamela Landy, takes it upon herself to find out who this fingerprint is connected to. And with the right clearance, she finds out the print belongs to none other than Jason Bourne.

Okay…back to India…Jason is enjoying a run on the beach with an Evian chaser, until he catches sight of a slicker-than-slick white guy in town. Well, he instantly slips into “Get the Hell Out of Dodge” mode and he and Marie are in their jeep and on the run, searching for the quickest way out of their paradise.

Now the following is a spoiler…so if you don’t want to know anything more, stop here.

This is your last chance…

I mean it!!! Don’t get pissed at me after the next thing you read!!!

Marie takes a bullet to the temple (Yeah, I was pretty pissed when it happened, but the trailer eluded to it…anyway…), and their getaway is cut short. With Marie’s death and a nightmare haunting him, Jason does exactly what he promises: He goes after the CIA.

Pretty much, that was as far as I could follow, or maybe I should say follow clearly. While The Bourne Identity was an action-packed thriller with twists, turns, and surprises, The Bourne Supremacy was an action-packed…um, well, it was action packed. When I walked out of the theatre, I thought there was something missing. Then I watched The Bourne Identity again and realized two things…

1. Not every sequel can be Spider-Man 2.

2. A LOT was missing from The Bourne Supremacy

Now, I won’t take anything away from Matt Damon, reprising his simultaneous “deer-in-the-headlights” look next to his “don’t-do-that-if-you-want-to-live” look. He’s got plenty of those “Bourne Again” moments and I enjoyed those…

Well, some of them…

What was missing from The Bourne Supremacy was a director like Doug Liman. Liman directed The Bourne Identity. This sequel was directed by Paul Greengrass, a guy who decided “It’s not broke, but I’m going to fix it anyway.” What was broken in The Bourne Identity (at least in Greengrass’ eye) was the way Liman had filmed the action sequences. In particular, the close-in hand-to-hand combat sequences. According to Greengrass, he chose to shoot these sequences on a hand-held camera and “in tight” so the audience “would get a sense of how quick and hurried this kind of combat truly is and therefore have a tough time keeping up with the fighters.”

This is the influence of Reality TV on modern cinema.

Now there is a fight sequence between Bourne and the last Treadstone agent left alive, and just like in The Bourne Identity Bourne and the other Treadstone pit training against training. But in The Bourne Identity, we SEE the combat between Jason and the assassin sent to kill him. We watch Jason take a ball-point pen and turn it into a lethal weapon. However, with Greengrass’ approach to filming what was probably a beautifully choreographed fight (if it was anything like the one in the original), this pivotal fight sequence turns The Bourne Supremacy into a segment of Big Donnie Rummsfeld’s Assassins Gone Wild video. Now I would have let this slide, but ALL of the fight sequences were shot like this: on a hand held camera and up-close. This reminded me a bit of Jet Li in Lethal Weapon 4 versus Jet Li in Black Mask. When you really want martial arts to be impressive, you do what Richard Donner did as shoot at a wide angle, unlike some clueless directors who think getting close-ups during fights are best.

Yeah, Greengrass. Great idea. Avant guarde. Rick taking.

You pretentious tool, you!

Another problem I had with The Bourne Supremacy was how stupid and improbable these spies were compared to the spies of The Bourne Identity. First, the super-spy sent to whack Jason Bourne in India was Russian Secret Service. So no, he wasn’t Treadstone, but safe to assume he is Bourne’s equal. However, this spy — on going to India — decides to “blend into the surroundings” and sneak up on Bourne by driving a white Mercedes-Benz through the streets. And while this guy is a total dink when it comes to blending in, he still manages to score a head shot on a moving target from several hundred yards away…and yet only wounds Bourne at mid-range with his automatic pistol. Also, while the CIA comes across a partial thumbprint framing Jason Bourne, no one bothers to ask how Bourne — the perfect assassin that was in and out and eluded all their surveillance — was dumb enough to leave behind a partial. He collected the shells form his bullets and made sure he wasn’t seen…but he left behind a partial?

And while I was asking all these questions about the plot and development of these characters, I also found myself asking “Haven’t I seen this before?” and after seeing The Bourne Identity again, I realized I had. True, Bond movies have that formula, too. But Bond, if done right, manages to make the formula seem new. Interpret “if done right” to mean “with the right script”.

But my biggest hang-up with The Bourne Supremacy: German actress Franka Potente and her character’s untimely demise. (And don’t complain if you skipped to the end of this review without reading my warnings… if you were reading from the beginning to the end, you would see that this is not a spoiler…not now, anyway…) Potente reignites the same charm and wit she gave in her Bourne Identity performance. The chemistry between her and Damon was still there as it was two years ago, and you simply fall in love with her all over again…

..and then, they pop her.

Allright, this was my first note of apprehension. Anytime you’re watching a sequel and in the first half hour people who made it to the end of the previous filmed are suddenly bumped off, this means the writers are pulling devices out of their rear-ends. ALIEN 3 gets the award for fastest time as they did this to Newt and Hicks during a montage in the opening credits. The Chronicles of Riddick wins an award for longest draw-out as they do this at the beginning and at the end. The Bourne Supremacy fell into this trap, taking the grounding force in Jason Bourne’s life and killing her off as a way to give him “motivation”.

Well, he had PLENTY to begin with…killing Marie was pointless. Maybe that was the point Greengrass and the writers wanted to make, but it negates the sense of optimism found at the end of The Bourne Identity.

In my Bourne Identity review I mention this film goes much deeper than you typical spy film or James Bond offering. The Bourne Supremacy simply tried to reproduce the formula of the original and it falls very short, reducing itself to nothing more than a typical spy film.

Okay, I was really happy that Moby’s “Extreme Ways” was played in the ending credits, making it the official Jason Bourne theme. That was cool.

In fact, there were many cool moments in this film, but cool moments do not a good movie make. This sequel is one of the roughest sequels to take, along the same lines as sequels to Matrix and Blade. This sequel was a good idea because there were many directions they could have gone with Jason Bourne…

…and sadly, Greengrass chose his direction over Bourne’s. Do yourself a favor: stick with the original.

http://asimplerway.com/tdp/reviews/BorneSup.m3u