I've Finally Gotten Around to Jason Bourne

Rating: 7/10 (16 August 2007)

I was slow in coming around to the Bourne movies, and now I'm squeezing in "Identity" and "Supremacy" so that I can see "The Bourne Ultimatum," which is getting raves.
"The Bourne Identity" is about what I expected. It's a slick action thriller that will satisfy the craving for dumb stunts, car chases and fistfights, but which also has a brain in its head. You'll have to suspend a whole bunch of disbelief, and there were a couple of instances that went so far as to make that quite a challenge indeed. Like many films of its ilk, this one doesn't know what in the world to do with female characters, so our main one screams and acts helpless, while the only other one (played by Julia Stiles) plays really no part at all in the proceedings. I only suspect that her importance increases later, as I see that Stiles is in the later movies as well. The men, meanwhile, do what men in these movies do, which is survive blows and falls that no mortal could actually survive, and bark out macho orders while strutting around with their hands on their hips.
I recently took a trip to Paris and Barcelona, so I very much enjoyed the location filming in Paris, and got quite excited when even some shots of Barcelona made it into the film during one montage.
Grade: B+