Too-fast action kills the new-Bourne

Rating: 4/10 (5 August 2004)

The Bourne Supremacy shares much with its predecessor, The Bourne Identity, including a great cast, solid plot, and interesting locations. A very refreshing touch to the latest installment in the Jason Bourne series based off the bestselling books by Robert Ludlum, is that all of the important cast were recast in this movie. Another nicety found in the previous film and continued in this one are the foreign locations visited including Berlin, India, and Moscow, this adds the tremendous feeling of culture and realism lost in the newer James Bond films.
Unfortunately, all the efforts to recapture the smooth intensity and panache of the original Bourne flick comes to naught simply because of horrible directing and cinematography on the part of director Paul Greengrass. Without fail, all of the exciting parts including fight-scenes, running from assassins and police, and long, involving car chases (most notably one in Moscow) are ruined by too-close camera angles, wild-zooming, and poor editing. In a business full of sequels good and bad, The Bourne Supremacy fits squarely into the latter, bad. The film-makers got the best ingredients to make an awesome continuation, unfortunately, they chose the wrong director and killed this exciting new-Bourne brother.