Book is a bore, movie only small improvement

Rating: 5/10 (5 August 2004)

I used to read Ludlum and for the life of me can't recall why. He will never become the stuff of lasting, enduring literature. "The Bourne Supremacy" (book) is overly long and overly boring. The movie version is better only because the book is so dull. I remember criticism of the "Identity" involving how rapidly the action/fight scenes flashed by so quickly that you couldn't tell what really happened. The "Supremacy" was even more jumbled...I have grown increasingly tired of the hand-held camera technique that substitutes for actually framing a scene so that the viewer can assimilate what happens. While the "Identity" was too fast for most viewers, the "Supremacy" was an unintelligible filmic stew. I don't care, so much, that the film didn't follow the book, since it was so dated and pedantic that it was a relief to finish at all. No fault of Matt D. or his capable fellow actors, the direction was atrocious and the cinematography amateurish in a less than appealing way. Watch this movie only if you are a die-hard Matt Damon or Robert Ludlum fan.