Big good points, big bad points

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2010)

I found this one of the most difficult films to review on IMDb and I have already reviewed identity and ultimatum, so it doesn't surprise me that I reviewed this last.
After watching it the first time, I felt like I had not made up my mind about this film. Did I enjoy it? Well best to say that I enjoyed the plot generally and thought the acting was engaging. But unfortunately, the frantic hand-held camera work introduced with the new director in this film really cost it a lot of stars in my rating. In fact, it virtually spoiled the film.
The fight he has with the last remaining treadstone agent in Munich was built up really well and started well, but as the fight went on, I completely lost track of who was doing what, not to mention that the way bourne ends up disposing of this adversary was weak and hardly worthy of the build up.
The first 30 minutes and the introduction of Pam Landy, along with the Berlin aspect of the story, was well done, but once we went to Moscow, the film somehow lost its vigor and resorted back to the self-indulgent hand-held annoying camera work and a rather anti-climactic car chase.
In the hands of another director, I think this film could have been a real winner. But its big strong points, including a solid follow-on plot that so many other sequels lack, were outweighed by experimental directing and camera work, leaving it as nothing more than a middle of the road film, hence 5 stars out of 10.
In the end, identity remained the best of the lot, but that may not have been the case if Liman had directed both sequels.