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Film
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The Bourne Supremacy
Is Matt Damon aiming to become the next James Bond? It definitely appears that way as he continues down a path everyone thought his buddy Ben Affleck was going to own.
Friday, July 23, 2004
By Susan Michals
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A few years ago, Universal Pictures made a somewhat surprising choice when it hired Doug Liman to direct The Bourne Identity. But the man responsible for Swingers and Go proved to be a breath of fresh air when it came to the action-thriller genre, introducing audiences to a very new kind of protagonist and subsequently moving on to the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie spy couple flick Mr. and Mrs. Smith (he is an executive producer on The Bourne Supremacy).
True to form, Liman turned around and made an even more surprising choice as to his leading man. As played by Damon, Jason Bourne is neither comic book action hero nor a Sean Connery knockoff, but rather a youthful looking kid with an uncanny ability for hand-to-hand combat. Since many in Hollywood questioned the casting of Damon at the time, it only made the success of the film that much sweeter.
Flash-forward two years. A new director takes the helm of the sequel – one whose name few will recognize – alongside returnees Damon, Franka Potente, Brian Cox and screenwriter Tony Gilroy. Suddenly, the question of this second mission becomes: will a new director be able to recreate the mystique that made the first film such a sleeper success?
When The Bourne Supremacy opens, Jason (Damon) and Marie (Potente) are living together in India; Jason is still plagued by nightmares offering him only splintered factions of his previous life. You would think that by now he could chill a little, but that wouldn’t make for much of a sequel, so when two CIA agents are killed, Bourne is quickly framed and must hit the road again with Marie to outrun, outfox and outwit the opposition.
There’s really not much more I can tell you about the plot. Anything further would give away who retains their supremacy and how.
But what I can tell you is that Damon once again proves he’s a master at his craft, outdistancing the entertainment value of his buddy Affleck’s performance as Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears (another surprise). Damon seems even more comfortable in the role of Robert Ludlum’s super spy this time around, even if his on-screen character still doesn’t know what he’s all about.
Bourne is complicated, pensive and deliberate in every move he makes. He is one with his gun - but he still has a conscience as he maneuvers and slinks his way through a series of both mental and physical conundrums.
As Pamela Landy, Joan Allen (The Contender) puts in a hardcore performance as a longtime, by-the-book CIA gal who is in way over her head (but she’ll be damned if this Bourne guy is going to get the best of her!). Julia Stiles also returns as Nicky, but her role is minimal and really adds nothing whatsoever to the film, beyond possibly an extra twinge among that all-important teenage moviegoing demographic.
And what about the new director? Continuing the tradition of unlikely directorial Bourne candidates, British filmmaker Paul Greengrass would seem to be an even less likely choice for Universal. That is until you see his dramatic and gut-wrenching fact-based drama Bloody Sunday, which recounts the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.
By treating the Bourne subject matter with the same kind of raw emotional intensity, Greengrass follows the train of his handheld cameras and literally puts us in the driver’s seat in many of the action scenes. For example, when Damon takes off on his jarring joyride through the streets of Moscow, we feel the adrenaline rush of his frenetic pace.
And, in the tradition of Frankenheimer’s Ronin and F. Gary Gray’s The Italian Job, there’s no CGI here – everything is real. Greengrass’ gritty style makes The Bourne Supremacy feel even more realistic than the first film, heightened by a preference for minimal dialogue and maximum spy games.
If this high-powered espionage thriller sounds like the perfect film, there is one little flaw in the mission – a lack of story. When we first met Bourne in 2002, he was on a quest to find out his very identity and, together with Marie, uncovered a fascinating bit of genealogy.
Although the sequel could potentially have been all about Bourne now trying to deal with the realization of who he is, it ultimately overflows with action instead of plot. As a result, the film occasionally sputters.
Regardless, this critic can’t wait for The Bourne Ultimatum, the third installment that Universal is rumored to already be hard at work on.
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