The Bourne Supremacy

I'm really getting jaded. I can't even muster the appropriate amount of enthusiasm for a decent spy thriller. And this film is plenty decent. It is Euro-centric (I think you see the U.S. of A. for about 2 minutes total), spare, brooding, and thrilling all at the same time. Perhaps too thrilling, since it consists mostly of car chase upon car chase that each go on a mite too long to be truly exciting. Although the first 10 minutes -- a car chase, you guessed it -- actually took me by surprise, and that ain't easy to do (see above: jaded). The brooder, i.e., Jason Bourne, is played by young Hollywood's most skillful brooder, Matt Damon, and he's as good as he was in the first flick. Still, there are far too many sad, rainy profile shots of him in cars. (Not the car chase scenes, so you're getting the idea that transportation factors heavily in this film.) And I'm going to keep a watch out for the cinematographer...so I can be sure to miss anything else he's done or will do. Talk about herky-jerky filming! There are few scenes that are more than 2-3 seconds long, everything is filmed handheld, and lots of scenes blur together too rapidly to be comprehended (yes, some of those are intentional). This is the closest I've been to feeling like I was in a video game in a long time. Plot? Eh, it's the same as the first -- an amnesiac Bourne running away from his fellow CIA operatives who want him dead. This time Joan Allen plays one of those CIA operatives, and that's fun just to see her play hard as nails (which she does so well; see The Contender). Unfortunately, she doesn't have many clever lines; no one does, it's not the point of the film. Although I smiled insanely at the Italian joke. Every good joke is built on at least a smidgen of truth...

year: 2004
length: 110 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372183/combined