The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass
CAST:
Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Karl Urban, Julia Stiles, Gabriel Mann, Karel Roden, Marton Csokas, Tomas Arana, Oksana Akinshina
REVIEW:
It’s been two years since The Bourne Identity , and Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has been living quietly in India with his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente). His memory still hasn’t fully returned, although bits and pieces are coming back to him. But he and Marie aren’t left in peace, when a sinister stranger (Karl Urban) starts tailing Bourne. It isn’t long before Marie’s dead and Bourne discovers he’s been framed for the murder of two CIA agents in Berlin, which puts him in the crosshairs of Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), a tough-talking agent who’s teamed up with Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) to take him down. But this time Bourne isn’t trying to escape; he’s bringing the fight to them. Along the way, there’s a subplot involving shady CIA dealings with a Russian named Gretkov (Karel Roden) which is all tied in somehow with Bourne’s past, but at its core The Bourne Supremacy is a revenge movie, as Bourne emerges from hiding to confront the people responsible for Marie’s death.
The quick demise of Marie was a dubious choice. While killing off or otherwise disposing of the previous love interest in sequels is nothing new, and Supremacy is essentially a revenge movie, her scant screentime and death removes not only a likable character who enjoyed a nice chemistry with Damon’s Bourne, but much of the human element which made the first film a little more than just an endless series of car chases and fight scenes. Here, we still have a fast-paced action movie which never threatens to get boring, but there’s not as much humanity for the audience to empathize with. Here, it’s just Bourne on his own, and let’s face it, with a couple exceptions, he’s not the most emotionally expressive individual. Matt Damon probably has an appropriately closed-off demeanor for an emotionally scarred former assassin, but he’s more sympathetic- and more dimensional and human- when he has someone to draw him out a little.
Matt Damon is still solid as Jason Bourne this time around, although the character was more compelling in the first film, when he was on the run trying to figure out who he was. In The Bourne Identity he was vulnerable and sympathetic; here he’s more of a typical unstoppable action hero, at least until a crucial scene near the end where he shows some remorse for his past life. Brian Cox is suitably oily as Ward Abbott, who plays a more prominent role this time. Joan Allen has a touch of the ice queen, and Pam is a smart and hard-nosed adversary for Bourne, but she’s not a villain, just a woman trying to do her job. Karl Urban replaces Clive Owen as the principal assassin, with fellow New Zealander Marton Csokas in a small role as another one (like Urban, Csokas was in The Lord of the Rings). There are brief reappearances from Franka Potente and Julia Stiles, and Gabriel Mann has a slightly expanded role. Rounding out the cast are Tomas Arana as CIA Director Marshall, Karel Roden as Gretkov, and Russian actress Oksana Akinshina in a small but important role as the daughter of one of Bourne’s past victims.
Although The Bourne Supremacy is about the same runtime as The Bourne Identity, it ends up feeling longer. For the first two-thirds of its running time, the movie zips along at a brisk pace, but then the main plotline is wrapped up and the movie continues on for about another twenty to thirty minutes longer than it needed to. Not only does this last bit feel like an afterthought tacked on to add another action sequence, but the car chase this time through the streets of Moscow is much more confusing and less engaging than its equivalent in The Bourne Identity, mostly due to director Paul Greengrass’ directing style. Identity director Doug Liman did an admirable job of filming the action scenes in a clear, straightforward fashion, while Greengrass displays the flaw of too many action directors- an over reliance on quick cuts and confusing editing and seeming unwillingness to allow any shot to last for more than a split-second. This is in evidence during the hand-to-hand fight scenes as well, but is never more glaring than in the final car chase, where Greengrass’ frenetic directing style threatens to be headache-inducing. The bad guys’ plot also threatens to be a little more convoluted than it needs to be, considering it basically serves to string the action sequences together. On the plus side, Supremacy continues to globe-trot as well as its predecessor, with stops in India, Naples, Langley, Amsterdam, Munich, spending the bulk of the movie in Berlin, and the climax in Moscow. The movie can certainly not be accused of ever being boring, and if Bourne isn’t quite as compelling as he was previously he’s still worth rooting for.
***