I made the mistake of reading the book first.

Rating: 4/10 (17 March 2003)

What does the 2002 Bourne Identity movie have in common with the 1977 (or so) book? A main character named Jason Bourne who suffers from amnesia, a love interest named Marie and ...well, nothing else.
Do yourself a favor. Get Bourne Identity as a dollar rental somewhere someday. Please don't buy it or pay full price to rent it. Even better, spend $8 and go buy the book. It's an amazingly fast read and has 10x the action and suspense of the movie.
The movie strips away Bourne's reason for being, his true identity, his nemesis, most of Treadstone 71 and a lot of the different locations that were used in the book. Really ...the '02 release is a hollow shell relying solely on a popular book title and Matt Damon's face.
Disappointing to be sure.