Better Than Expected

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2004)

Spoilers below . . .
Matt Damon is one of those actors that you either love or hate; ironically, what is most likable about Damon--the same sort of everyman quality that made Tom Cruise a household name--can make him hard to buy as the kind of guy who can carry a big budget movie.
But the role of Jason Bourne is perfectly suited to Damon. His plain, unexceptional appearance and his bright, scrappy, disciplined persona makes Bourne believable as the kind of clean-cut All-American boy who joins up with the CIA with idealistic aspirations and ends up a stone killer.
'The Bourne Identity' was a stylish thriller, and though it has its faults, 'The Bourne Supremacy' is a surprisingly strong sequel, and its success suggests that Bourne may be a fit heir to Bond in the post-Cold War spy thriller genre. Robert Ludlum's novels provide a fairly lengthy supply of future entanglements for Bourne, and thus far the role has been Damon's biggest post-Good Will Hunting success. The pacing and the storytelling are superb and convincing, and the possible scenarios for a rogue agent with amnesia are endless.
Absent from the first film is Chris Cooper, and in to fill his shoes is the excellent Joan Allen, one of the most underrated actresses working today. Brian Cox reprises his role from the first film, as does Julia Stiles as the young CIA handler who worked with Bourne before his amnesia. Also present (though all too briefly) is Franka Potente as Marie, Bourne's love interest.
Her death comes too early, but provides Damon an opportunity to develop Bourne's character, although in a somewhat contrived scenario.
The breakout performance of this film is Karl Urban as a Russian secret service assassin dispatched to eliminate Bourne. Urban's biggest previous role was as the nordic horse prince Eomir in the Lord of the Rings trilogy; here, the blond tresses are shorn, as is the linebacker physique, for a lean, predatory look that creates a strong opposition to his counterpart, Bourne.
But this film is mostly about action and surprise. The plot is almost insignificant--what fuels the film is the joy of watching Bourne continually elude pursuit or battle a fellow operator of similar wit and training. The shaky hand-held camera work is contrived and, frankly, dizzying (in a bad way), but the pacing is such that the film never allows you too much time to pick apart the holes.
Spy movies are hard to beat when they're done well, and so far the Bourne series is 2 for 2.