What's missing in modern action films? Moral, Conscience, Character.

Rating: 9/10 (10 July 2008)

I think 2002 was a year for great action films. Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and of course, The Bourne Identity.
It's one of the few action films in the last decade or so to really make you think. It's got twists. It's got turns. It's got Matt Damon. What it doesn't have is a shaky camera.
Now, bare with me. I'm saying that in a more scornful tone than you might imagine. A lot of people don't like Supremacy or Ultimatum because of the shaky camera work. I, however, like to down Identity for NOT having shaky camera work. Why? There are several reasons.
First, The Bourne series is one that should make you think while having your heart pounding to near-explosion at the same time. It should push both of your most valuable organs to boiling-point. Without a camera that moves around as if you were struggling to run just like the characters, I doubt your heart will race very far.
Second, Bourne is like an animal. He moves on instinct alone, because that's all he was left with. Now, I don't know about you, but the normal camera work in Identity makes the film and the character seem too... tame. Too solitary, despite the violence. A camera can change more than most people realize in a film.
Thirdly, the shaky cam is definitive of the Bourne series, at least in the last two. Every action series has something another doesn't. And what the Bourne series has is A) an excellent storyline, B) realistic character development, C) believable government action, and D) shaky camera work.
So in that, I find that Identity is just too tame to really capture the true Bourne. In other words, the Identity is lost until it is found in Supremacy. It feels just like 'The Italian Job' with the 'tame' camera. Maybe it's because Bourne is still a white-knight good guy in this one. He wants to be tame.
Otherwise, The Bourne Identity is the fantastic beginning to an excellent and enthralling trilogy. It's got the best romance story in any of them, and quite possibly the most believable characters in any action film. I'm glad the helm was passed to Paul Greengrass from Doug Liman, who went on to do decent work with 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' and 'Jumper'.
It's fantastic, and that ending song, 'Extreme ways' by Moby is just too damn catchy to miss.