Another great novel, butchered by Hollywood. When will they get it right?

Rating: 1/10 (29 May 2006)

Where do I begin???? Did Mr Ludlum loose his mind before he passed away? How could he allow Hollywood to destroy the beauty of his finest novel, my favorite spy novel of all time? "Based on a novel by Robert Ludlum" is an understatement. There is nothing from the novel except the name of the main character Jason Bourne -who is not even the true identity of the main character, but his CIA cover - and the fact that he had amnesia and had a microchip planted in his hip, that's it. Oh, no wait, he also worked for a CIA cell called Treadstone 71. Where is the true assassin, Carlos the Jackal, the reason why Treadstone created the Bourne identity altogether? The script writers obviously have a very naive and distorted understanding of how the CIA works. My dad was a CIA officer and I can assure you that they do not go around killing people all over the world, innocent as well as guilty, just because someone at headquarters ordered them to do that. They also don't sentence one of their field officers to death simply because they lost contact with him. In the novel, David Webb was a washed out CIA officer who underwent plastic surgery to take over the identity of well known assassin called Jason Bourne. He spoke many languages, European and oriental, and was sent to draw out Carlos from his hideout. The beauty of the story is his relationship with the Canadian economist Marie St-Jacques and his quest to find out who he was. In the movie, Jason Bourne had to run away from other CIA assassins, while in the novel, it was Carlos and his men who were after him. the CIA was trying to figure out what happened to him, not kill him. And whose idea was it to cast Matt Damon in the lead role? Jason Bourne is supposed to be in his 40s and not a young looking kid. In the Bourne Supermacy, he actually is a college professor and Marie gets kidnapped (I'm sure the Hollywood version is completely different, have not seen it yet). When Hollywood turned Mission Impossible into a movie, they had the entire team killed, turned the team leader into a traitor, and left Ethan Hunt to be the solo hero. Now they butchered the Bourne identity altogether. Please read the story, or at least watch the TV movie with Richard Chamberlain. It is more faithful to the novel. What a disappointment this was. If a story is good enough to be a bestseller, why change it? Oh and the scene where Matt Damon rides a corpse down 7 floors and then walk away without a scratch... I mean come on. Are you kidding me?