Very weak. A major disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (7 February 2005)

I'm amazed that this film rates so well here. The re-make of 'The Bourne Identity' (which I actually only watched for the first time two days before this movie) was a decent thriller. This was a hopelessly weak, half-hearted, over-stylised and predictable bore of a movie.
The signs were there early on, when Jason reacts to a traumatic event with barely any emotion (nor at any time later in the movie). Events happen rapidly and confusingly, a blonde woman who talks very quickly is assigned to the case by the CIA, Bourne runs about the place using different passports, there are car chases. There is more editing in this film than in an Oliver Stone film on picture search. Honestly, there are fight sequences in which the shot changes so fast, so often, that you can't even work out who is hitting who. I actually sat down at one action sequence in the film and tried to time a camera shot that lasted for more than a second, and failed. This pointless stylisation is just really irritating and makes things difficult to follow.
More importantly though the movie just has no feeling. You can understand why Bourne would be motivated to behave the way he does, but he doesn't actually seem to be experiencing any such feelings, except the usual confusion and determined anger left over from the first film.
Honestly I just thought this was a weak, weak film. It didn't engage me emotionally, there was too much frivolous editing, the characters and plot were predictable, despite the best efforts of the director to render the plot hard to follow. It was just very obviously a case of "Well the first film made a lot of money, we'll have to make a sequel." If the ratings here are any judge, I suppose they'll have to make another one, but I can tell you now I'll be staying away from that.