Bourne, Jason Bourne

Rating: Null/10 (28 August 2004)

I've never read any of the books, nor did I see the original 70's version of "The Bourne Identity" so my take on the first movie and this sequel is from a fairly fresh approach. That said, the actual plot is not exactly groundbreaking. An agent with amnesia that has the good guys and the bad guys after him sounds like standard Hollywood fare. What sets this apart though is that the script is far cleverer than your average spy thriller. It kept well clear of most of the very obvious film cliches. This was much more than just a couple of links between car chases and explosions and it was quite light on plot holes.
So I'll divide this into good and bad things about the movie. For the bad; Why did they need to frame Bourne when they were going to kill him anyway? Also, other people have mentioned the shaky camera. This does in part make the movie more realistic and ads another layer of action, but it made me physically ill too. And finally, the CIA appears to have ridiculously easy access to European police forces and things like security cameras or police information. I hope that's just artistic licence rather than reality....
So much for the bad parts, what was good about the movie; The story felt quite believable, for a Hollywood movie anyway. It didn't have outlandish explosions and the character's actions seemed logical and straight forward. You have to suspend your disbelief somewhat for the Jason Bourne character's abilities, but other than a couple of situations where he relied on being able to, well, punch his way out of a situation he basically did the most logical thing that most people in a situation like this would probably do. There is only one situation where he has to rely on another person performing a certain task at a very specific time, in this case making a call to the CIA superiors, that is so prevalent in other movies. Matt Damon makes an unlikely action hero but is perfect for this type of role and handles the it well. The biggest plus in the movie was its used of locations. Not just is it far more interesting to see a film taking place in cities like Berlin, Naples or Moscow but it also stayed very true to those locations. When Jason Bourne arrives in Moscow by train from Berlin he gets off at the real train station in Moscow for example, even though he seems to get there quite fast. I've done that trip once and it took me 25 hours.
So overall it was a very good action movie, although I'd still rank it slightly behind the first movie.