Terrific action thriller

Rating: 9/10 (9 August 2006)

Jason Bourne has escaped his past and moved far away from the events a couple years ago. His has nightmares where he recalls certain broken fragments of his violent past and he tries to piece it together at times, but it is all a blur. Then his past catches up to him as a mysterious assassin leaves Jason Bourne's calling card at the sight of a botched CIA operation, which resulted in agent deaths. Jason finds himself again marked for death and on the run out to find the truth.
This sequel has everything the first one had - good performances, tight direction, great action scenes - and it also manages to capture Ludlum's intricately described intensity with its frenetic visual style. This is a great visual move that does a terrific job at evoking that rough and gritty mood of the novel. Action scenes are rather simplistic overall - fights and chases - but the visuals make them very intense. This especially goes for the pulse pounding adrenaline rush of a car chase at the end of the movie - if you think about it is just fast driving, swerving, and crashing. No big stunts, no insane pile-up, but the visuals take you right into the middle of the action and as a result you are treated to a convincing spy thriller and that is exactly what Ludlum initially wrote.
Screenwriter Tony Gilroy has, once again, taken huge liberties with the novel, but the novel's story is obsolete in today's world as it was about a conspiracy in Hong Kong before the handover to China. The film's story has similar pivot points - mainly the use of Bourne's identity by a mysterious assassin to cover up a hit, which also opens the book - but the territory visited after that is much different. And that is actually pretty good since even if you have read the book you can still enjoy and equally intense (though still less intricate plot-wise) experience on screen. 9/10
Rated PG-13: violence and intense action