Exciting sequel makes you crave for more in this well made franchise

Rating: 7/10 (7 September 2004)

I'm usually not one that looks forward to movie franchises but this sequel does a rare thing in that it makes the viewer hope that they keep the character active through more films. This is the second installment and it picks up where the first film left off with Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) living in Goa, India but one day Jason notices a stranger in town and instantly suspects him of being an agent which leads to a chase where Marie dies after their car crashes off a bridge and lands in the river. Jason heads to Berlin and learns that he has been framed in the murder of another agent even though he was in India at the time.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
A CIA agent named Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) heads the case but when she questions Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) who headed the project that trained Jason she gets lots of flack from him. Jason starts a cat and mouse game with the CIA and various local authorities and ultimately he goes to Moscow to find the agent that killed Marie but back at the CIA Pamela doesn't know that it's actually Ward who is framing him.
This film is directed by Paul Greengrass who is slowly becoming recognized as one of the more talented directors to emerge in the last few years and "Bloody Sunday" opened a lot of eyes to him. There are many reasons why this film (And the first) works so well and first is the way Bourne can get out of seemingly impossible situations either with hand to hand combat or through incredible ingenuity. But for me the real reason that these films stand apart is the casting of Damon as Bourne. Damon doesn't really have any quick one liners like Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" but instead he's a brooder that is trying to remember whether he's responsible for the deaths of two people in a hotel room. There's a terrific car chase scene towards the end of the film that is one of the better ones in the last ten years or so and it helps punctuate the fact that this is a very well made and exciting film. My only complaint comes from the editing as I thought there were to many quick cuts where if you blinked you might miss three separate shots but Greengrass does do a good job keeping the flow of the film moving at a nice pace even with all the action and scenic locations. I do have one suggestion to keep this franchise fresh (As long as Robert Ludlum keeps writing them) and it's to have other well known directors all take a turn directing one film like what they've done with the "Harry Potter" series. Can you imagine directors like Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, and William Friedkin all having a turn with a Bourne story? This concept will give each film it's own distinction with the hope that they won't just become tiresome sequels. I hope Hollywood is listening!