The 'Bourne' Density...

Rating: 8/10 (12 March 2020)

Well, it didn't take long for Doug Liman to pass the torch to Paul Greengrass and adapt Robert Ludlum's second chapter of Jason Bourne's adventures titled "Supremacy" and released in 2004. Speaking rugby jargon, "Identity" scored the goal, "Supremacy" made the two-point conversion.
Indeed, "The Bourne Supremacy" is exactly what you expect from a follow-up to a promising spy thriller, it features the same amount of fights, chases, ambushes, killings and exotic locations (taking us from Gao, India to Moscow, Russia with a few shortcuts through NYC) and it provides more density to the pre-existing characters, more gravity to Bourne's existential troubles and a nice addition with Joan Allen. As Pamela Landy, she plays a CIA officer investigating the many loose ends of the "Treadstone" operation, the mysterious murder of a highly influent Russian and his wife. Both ways lead to Bourne and makes him the target of another cat-and-mouse game where Bourne is the mouse first and becomes the cat after, then a lynx near the end.
There are two interesting things about Bourne, first it's the paradoxical nature of the character, making him a little more fascinating than James Bond whose timelessness made him predictable no matter how cool and confident he was, and hard to inspire a real emotional bond (no pun intended). However, Bourne is a man whose dissociative amnesia obstructed many memories from his past as a professional killer, which means the more he wants to know about him, the less he does but the more he tries to hide himself, the more of a target he becomes. There's something inevitable about the confrontations that occupies the final act, whether with the one character who reveals his true villainy, Landy, Julia Stiles as Nicky and finally, a girl who might not recognize him as the man who simply killed his parents.
In a way, Bourne is a hero within the context of the film but with the background that has evil all printed on it and that's the trick with this character, his curse is perhaps his blessing. Still, he must face the game and plays with it as a sort of cathartic redemption. That's how he indulges to emotional breakdowns at times and loses his cool, while still being cool. The other blessing is that the amnesia didn't cancel off his skills and he's still capable to fool the enemy and lure them into his own plans. There's a great scene where he uses himself as a bait for an arrest because he knows that's how he will be spotted. The film might be labeled as an action film, which it is, but if you follow it closely, and close your eyes on one or two contrivances and some redundancy in the action department, you'll get yourself hooked by the stories and the many ramifications with previous backstories.
To say that the film is a character study would be a stretch though: Bourne has a few quiet drama scenes, but he's a man of action, in a constant alert situation, spotting either the danger or the opportunity to get his enemies using not only his force but his brains (the way he outsmarts the big villain is unexpected and original). It's through his actions that we know a little more about Bourne, the film provides many information but they're never used as expositional samples. That said, one viewing might make the film look too complex and mazy and some flashbacks are shown like flashes of memories punctuated with blackouts, betraying some directorial teasing stuff. But it's not overdone (thankfully) and the presence of Matt Damon enhances the film, and so does the gallery of supporting characters with a honorable mention to Brian Cox. His interactions with Allen are top-caliber acting.
And I will say what I said about the first, once again, it's about people who don't enjoy what they do: even the villain who comes the closest to kill Bourne is an average man who's paid for that and doesn't have the little edgy smirk or the flamboyance of a Bond villain. "The Bourne Supremacy" has this thing in common with its predecessor, it's straightout drama, it doesn't go for fancy catchphrases and one-liners and while it might seem sometimes too serious à la Nolan, it provides a nice feeling of continuity in tone and style. And at the risk of repeating myself, the film has no pretension to duplicate a James Bond formula but what it does (and does well) is establishing the birth of an iconic franchise, with solid entertainment and characterization and not much of melodrama, if we except the sad exit of Marie (Frannka Potente) and the last scene that seems a bit exaggerated but rewarded by the final phone-call between Landy and Bourne, and an interesting twist that I suspect might be the film's cliffhanger.
The film can be watched right after the first and right now, I'm eager to watch the third opus. And if "Idenity" was a well-made thriller with a promising character, let's conclude by saying that "Supremacy" is a well-made sequel with a character that gains more density as we follow his quest to know who he was, in order to be someone else, and someone better. Yes, he might have a troubled past, but he's got the right stuff. In other words, if Bond is a cool guy, Bourne is a good guy.