One step down: back to Hollywood standards.

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2004)

I've just watched it, and have some mixed feelings about it. First of all, the creators continued the good tradition started in the first flick, which is adapting a book by simply trashing its guts and leaving the cover: those who've read "The Bourne Supremacy" will find (once again) that the movie has nothing in common with the original book, aside of a rather arbitrary coincidence of names (not places).
Secondly, I am not ready yet for this bright new and fancy editing style which looks as if the editor's pit bull had found the film the day before it was edited. The action scenes are (IMHO) impossible to watch. At least I couldn't make out what was happening from that short glimpses of blurry images filmed by a seemingly epileptic camera man, where the overwhelming sound of kicks and blows is the only reference to the scene's story line. Very big disadvantage next to the first movie, where the camera was also shaky, "documentary-like", but the key fight sequence was clear and therefore very impressive; Kali is an impressive martial art, but in order to understand how impressive it is you have to see the "chain sequences" and appreciate the beauty and efficiency of the movements. That was done pretty good in the "The Hunted" and the latest "The Bourne Identity". I was expecting a better fights from the second part, I got none.
I also found some lack of intelligent script writing, as compared to the first part: a low blow to the film's credibility. Bourne's creativity suffered a heavy loss, the tricks look trivial, and the car chase is just what it could be in any standard Hollywood flick: a lineal runaway with lots of (very loudly) crashed metal, not much of a brain work. Or maybe it's just because I, once again, couldn't figure it out in the middle of this dog-beaten cut-n-paste editing. Anyway, I could find no logic in the chase scene's final, and it was yet another blow to the movie's credibility.
As a Muscovite, though, I was really pleased to see my city once again in a Hollywood production :) And I even was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of my home! It definitely affects my objectiveness. Some Hollywood actors actually spoke a passable Russian (Karel Roden is really good, and when Matt Damon speaks in short phrases, it sounds really good), but Karl Urban sucks. Maybe because he says most of the long phrases...
I've been waiting for this movie for quite a long, I was going to enjoy it and I actually have. In spite of the fact that at times the lack of action on the screen was in a clear contradiction with the all tense and thundering music score, and in spite of the Bourne's downgrade from a 50-million-worth precise weapon to a linear-thinking stuntmaster.
So, to watch or not to watch? It's a good movie, but the only 2 reasons to watch it in a theater are (IMHO) - either you just can't wait for the DVD release (like it was in my case) or you want to hear the really good sound effects _that_ loud.
I give it 6 out of 10, and remember that my judgment is affected by the sights of my homeland.