This movie is perfect, and a welcome addition to a summer filled with CGI robots and superheroes as it builds on the story created in the 2002 $120+ million box-office sleeper hit The Bourne Identity.
Just as he was out, they pull him back in, Matt Damon is back as Jason Bourne, and although he now has some idea of who he is and once was, fragmented pieces of the past continue to torment him causing him and Marie (Potente) to continuously move from place to place in an effort to keep ahead of Treadstone, his one time governmental employer and the very people he fears may be trying to kill him.
The Bourne series of films are a reinvention of the spy thriller genre that meld together suspenseful situations with character driven plots. Those that were disappointed in the fact that The Bourne Identity abandoned the original 1980 Robert Ludlum novel will be happy to get that Ludlum feel back here in Supremacy. While the story continues to be nothing like the books the level of action is heightened and if you thought the chase scene in the first film was great, I am confident in telling you that The Bourne Supremacy has the best car chase I have ever seen.
Not only that Karl Urban, well known for his role as Eomer in the Lord of the Rings films, proves that he is one hell of an actor as he plays Kirill, described as Bourne’s rival assassin whose alliances remain shadowy, due in part to the fact that he is not someone who could be called “verbose.” He has very little dialogue, but his look, demeanor and the way he simply carries himself describes “bad ass” and his inclusion in the cast is not only welcoming, it is essential.
The story is thought of as Bourne’s journey of atonement and Tony Gilroy (screenwriter) captured this idea and ran with it. Just as well, director Paul Greengrass, known for his work in British film, television and theatre, finds himself in his first venture in a US based feature film and the way he carries the story from point A to point B is perfect, to such an extent that I was thinking one thing and he was always two steps ahead of me.
If I was to complain about anything in this film, Greengrass may have wanted to encourage his cameramen to keep a steady hand as several scenes (extremely noticeable in the first scene of the film) bounce around as if you are at sea, but I also got the feeling that this was done to provide something of a third party perspective as if you were actually there, which worked in several instances, but some situations were a little bothersome.
Overall, flaws are few and far between from start to finish and I am certainly going to be making another trip (or two) to the theater to check it out again, and it already has me hoping there will be a third film to complete the series.
