A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Bourne Supremacy

Date Viewed: 7/24/04

Details:

Matt Damon

Joan Allen

Franka Potente

Julia Stiles

Director: Paul Greengrass

Score: 1/2

The Review: BMW versus Mercedes bumper-cars under the streets of Moscow.

It's summertime and not only is the living easy, but imagination has taken a vacation and the clones & sequels have begun to ripen. Spiderman II, soon to be Manchurian Candidate II, Independence Day II (oops, that was I, Robot), and now Bourne II: Supremacy (or words to that effect). Matt Damon reprises his role as Jason Bourne, blackest of covert CIA agents, a Treadstone operative possibly gone rogue and definitely deep underground. But not invisible enough apparently -- someone starts gunning for him, and the chase is on. And what a grand chase it becomes. This time there's a Russian connection, some more nightmarish hints of a past mission gone awry, and an associate CIA director (Allen) with a failed op looking to blame Bourne.

While the plot of Bourne Identity was reasonably proximate to that of the novel, Bourne Supremacy is more in the vein of "inspired by the characters and book titles of Robert Ludlum." Good though (*).

Slam, bang, boom type of action -- not a "scary" thriller, but an occasionally tense one, with minimal though non-zero intellectual content. The car chase alone is worth the price of admission (even if its overtones are similar to the most recent one in I, Robot. Globe-trotting from India to Moscow via Napes and Berlin would seem to offer attractive options, but you never really get to see the sights; most of the scenery is pretty gritty. One recommendation: don't sit too close to the screen; the cinematography, camera angles and flashing cuts can get a bit nauseating.

(25-July-04)

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