Who needs tripods, anyway?

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2007)

"The Bourne Supremacy" is a worthy follow up to "The Bourne Identity". But, unlike "Identity", this installment is not a classic.
"Supremacy" is by no means a bad film. Oh contraire. It is finely crafted, with excellent action scenes, juxtaposed with moments of tenderness.
What keeps this film from attaining the magnificence of it's predecessor are a number of elements:
-The middle child syndrome. This is typical of any second film in a trilogy, where it essentially ends in the same place it started.
-But mostly, it's the overdone steadycam (or shakeycam) technique that the director, Paul Greengrass, seems to love so much. It's fine to convey a sense of realism and immediacy, but when the camera moves so much that the viewer can't even keep track of the action, that's a problem. I actually had to look away at several points to avoid a migraine. Sometimes, Paul, you need to whip out the good old tripod and slap the camera on there.
-Lastly, this film just doesn't seem to have the same heart that "Identity" had. Perhaps that stems from Franke Potente's severely diminished role here.
Despite these shortcomings, "The Bourne Supremacy" is a very good action film, and it does well to link the the first ("Identity") and last ("The Bourne Ultimatum") films of the trilogy.