Shakycam ruins an otherwise good sequel

Rating: 1/10 (27 July 2004)

*spoilers within!*
Director Paul Greengrass' name is strangely adequate for his treatment of the second installment in the story of Jason Bourne, amnesiac former member of a top secret assassination squad. The story is strong, the acting compelling, the twists and turns enjoyable, the fights and car-chases well-choreographed, and all of it is smothered under a nearly un-watchable, seizure-inducing directorial style.
We first encounter Bourne awaking from a nightmare in his India hideaway - fragmentary memories of his old life are surfacing, driving him to write them in a grisly dream journal of half-remembered assassinations - and the camera is out of focus and shaking as though the subcontinent is experiencing an ongoing 9.5 temblor. I had hoped the shaking was only to show how disoriented Bourne was by his dream and would soon subside, but that was not to be.
As the story unfolded, I found myself cringing at every new scene. An excellent fight scene between Bourne and the single surviving Treadstone agent is ruined by extreme close-ups and a sickening dollop of the ubiquitous shaky-cam - is that a knife? A rolled-up magazine? a hand? a foot? It's nearly impossible to tell. The climactic car-chase was similarly marred, and scans very poorly when one remembers how clear and well-presented the frantic Mini-chase in the first movie was.
Greengrass' big-screen directorial debut seems like the effort of someone who is indeed green; the shaky style is amateurish and designed to create a sense of urgency at all times - even when one is not required. Greengrass (doubtless in an attempt to put his own stamp on the franchise) forgets the slick, classy style that made the first movie so much fun to watch. He needed to sit back and let the plot dictate urgency and tension, rather than trying to artificially induce those states of mind in the viewer. Hopefully the next installment will return to a more sensible visual presentation.