Rebourne!

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2011)

A floating body is found at sea off the coast of France with two bullets stuck in his back. By freak chance it turns out that this is not a corpse, but a severely wounded man, who can not seem to remember anything from his past. Armed with only a Swiss bank account the delinquent goes out to reclaim his identity - that of the highly skilled assassin Jason Bourne! It was this welcome return of Ludlum's Jason Bourne that had most to do with a resurgence of spy movies, but it also served as a guidebook for future (and much superior movies) in the genre such as "The International" or "Casino Royale". With the unlikely hero carrying the face of Matt Damon it was a break out hit, which I decided to recollect in full during the festive season.
As such "The Bourne Identity" is a relatively crisp and refreshing action movie, which hardly ever gets a tune wrong. The thriller ride is gripping and to the most part attempts to be as realistic as possible in the slightly over-the-top secret agent world he inhabits. Despite most fights or chase sequences being extremely flashy, spectacular and even innovative (at least eight years ago) most of them seem to be as solidly stuck in real physics and physiology as possible - with a couple of relatively irrelevant exceptions. Also the scripting was extremely tight for a spy movie and hardly misses a beat with suggesting possible scenarios for our hero.
One or two action sequences stand out in the movie, even if not necessarily the ones with are the most spectacular. Nothing as memorable as the shoot-out in "The International", but the relatively straight-forward showdown between Jason Bourne and Clive Owen's character The Professor is especially noteworthy.
On the minus side the stereotypical African overlord is a real downer and the movie really gets a slight overdose of stereotyping, which take away from the general pleasure of watching the movie.
Nonetheless by far the best of the Bourne Trilogy and despite the jumps in standards it has aged very well.