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Film review

'Bourne' is better the second time around

Matt Damon and The Bourne Supremacy find their footing, and the mission is clear: to be an entertaining summer diversion that will quickly fade from mind.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published July 22, 2004

[Photo: Universal]

Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, and Julia Stiles is Nicky, a key player in the mystery surrounding Bourne.

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It's a good week for sequels. Before Sunset far surpasses its predecessor, Before Sunrise, and the same is true for The Bourne Supremacy, a spy game with much better moves than The Bourne Identity. Perhaps if at first you don't succeed, try changing one word in the title.

Actually, the improvement in Volume 1 of Robert Ludlum's CIA assassin saga runs deeper than that. Though the first movie sputtered, The Bourne Supremacy fairly crackles with intensity. The improved action sequences are more than merely links between Matt Damon driving through gorgeous scenery and fretting about his character's amnesia. Now that his character, Jason Bourne, has an idea of who he is, Damon's every-frat-boy appearance looks sterner, more like the trained killer he's supposed to be.

Tighter editing - although too frenzied at times - raises the suspense level, and Tony Gilroy's adaptation of Ludlum's novel has a propulsive clarity the original didn't. Even if The Bourne Supremacy isn't a meticulous mystery like David Mamet's woefully overlooked Spartan, it's still a satisfying example of a genre previously thought to have been milked dry.

The film begins two years after The Bourne Identity ended, with Jason living in India with Marie (Franka Potente), who rode shotgun during the first movie's redundancies. No longer a killer for hire, Jason is plagued by a recurring dream that may be the final piece for his puzzled brain. Meanwhile, a CIA mission to steal mysterious documents in Berlin goes sour, leaving two agents dead. Planted evidence and his rogue status make Jason the prime suspect, and only the audience knows better.

Jason is targeted by two pursuers: an equally fatal hit man (Karl Urban) working for the real culprits before Jason can surface and blow the scheme, and CIA investigator Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who's convinced Jason did it. It's a clearer plot line than the one presented in the first movie. Director Doug Liman's original film treated viewers like amnesiacs who wouldn't realize that a present scene had little in common with a previous one.

Viewers may still have a hard time processing what happens in The Bourne Supremacy: globe-trots, double crosses and misinterpretations of information pile up until the final scene. One gang of bad guys abruptly gets caught without the movie explaining how. The chief villain can be guessed simply by checking the cast listing. Yet there's a satisfying pace to the confusion, keeping our interest rather than leaving us behind and frustrated.

Director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) is a little too enamored with handheld cameras and zigzag edits, a tactic that works during mayhem sequences and distracts when characters are dishing out exposition. Those action sequences also contain small touches - Jason's ingenuity of weaponry and car chases that aren't merely speedy - that keep the violence hovering above cliche.

Damon's performance is tightly wound, with nary a chance to flash that boyish grin. Now he looks and acts like a trained killer required to blend with the crowd to do his job. He's more believable in his stealth than, say, an oversized hero such as Vin Diesel or the Rock would be, if this franchise were slapped together purely for action audience appeal. It doesn't appear that Damon is doing much with sparse dialogue and poker-faced reactions. But it's more effective and credible than his "Who am I?" fretting in the first film.

Allen makes a formidable adversary, although Pamela is mostly limited to office spaces and terse telephone exchanges. Julia Stiles appears briefly as a budding version of Allen's character, an agent whose previous connection to Jason in a highly classified death squad is a key element of the mystery at hand. Brian Cox adds the polish (and predictability) expected from such a fine actor and transparent role.

The Bourne Supremacy won't be remembered at awards time, or even beyond next week for some viewers. But it's a lean, mean summertime diversion for grownups seeking someone else's air conditioning or shelter from the rain. You could do much worse at theaters these days.

Grade: B+

Director: Paul Greengrass

Cast: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Franka Potente, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban, Marton Csokas

Screenplay: Tony Gilroy, based on the novel by Robert Ludlum

Rating: PG-13; intense action violence, profanity

Running time: 108 min.

[Last modified July 21, 2004, 19:54:04]