Could have been a masterpiece, but is nothing more than average, believe me.

Rating: 6/10 (4 September 2008)

I saw this movie when it came out and found it an average but enjoyable action movie, nothing special, I didn't understand where some people's enthusiasm came from. But later I was recommended to read Robert Ludlum's book, so I did, years after seeing the movie with Matt Damon. And man, I liked it; the story was complex and exciting, with all these twists and turns. I couldn't stop reading and the whole time I thought; 'didn't I pay attention when watching the movie?? How could I have thought this wasn't anything special?' When I finished the book, I purchased the DVD and watched it immediately when I came home...
OK... First of all, no bad comment on Matt Damon, he is the Jason Bourne I had in mind the whole time when reading the book and he does a great job. The action scenes are nice too, nothing wrong there. But what happened to the story? Where is all the stuff that I liked so much about the book? They just shrunk the story to; man wakes up without his memory, finds out he's a professional killer and his former employer wants him dead. Is that all? What the hell happened to Charly, Delta, Cain? Where's Carlos? What about Jason's past, and the real reason he took the Bourne Identity? Did the writers think the people who would go see it, might probably be too stupid to understand the story in it's full complexity, the way it was meant to be? Really, everything that made the original story so incredibly interesting, was left away. Even if it would take 3 hours or more to tell the story of Jason Bourne, I would stay in my chair and watch it to the finish.
Before I read the book, I found The Bourne Identity an average action movie. After I read the book, I now find the movie an insult on late Robert Ludlum's work. Thank god there's more where that came from; so far, The Bourne Supremacy is just as exciting as Identity.