Review
Review Date: 25-July-04
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
It's 103 degrees outside my apartment today, and at least 85 within, so I planned to spend all afternoon in the comfort of a theater. But after starting with "The Bourne Supremacy," I couldn't bring myself to watch anything else. Like "The Bourne Identity" two years ago, the sequel leaves a strong impression that would be difficult and perhaps unjust to immediately erase. (And I'm not just talking about baddie Karl Urban, whose unholy hotness puts the weather to shame.) A stylish and aggressively propulsive action film, "The Bourne Supremacy" takes a decent script and more-than-decent actors and hammers them home for a winner.
Matt Damon reprises his role as amnesiac ex-assassin Jason Bourne, who, when last we saw him, had taken refuge on a Greek island with his lady love Marie (Franka Potente). "Supremacy" opens to find them still hiding out under the shadow of Bourne's past, which haunts him nightly in his dreams. Nightmare quickly becomes reality (this film hits the ground running and never stops for breath) when Bourne's razor-sharp instincts detect a killer on his tail (Urban), and he barely escapes with his life. Angry and in need of answers, he begins to hunt down members of the CIA under the assumption that they're out to settle old scores. In fact, Bourne has been recalled to the CIA's attention only because a middle-ranking agent (Joan Allen) believes him to have murdered one of her men. Her investigation brings her closer to Bourne (indeed, he puts himself in her way) and closer to the truth surrounding the mysterious Treadstone Project and the secrets of CIA veteran Ward Abbott (Brian Cox, returning from the first film).
"The Bourne Supremacy" displays a kinetic type of anxiety, the most notable symptom of which is a relentless soundtrack indicative of urgency and danger. (It becomes so fundamental that the silence during the dramatic climax is equally forceful by contrast.) The score maintains the tension when the action doesn't speak for itself, i.e., the cat-and-mouse moments between the car chase in India, Bourne's vicious scuffle with an old comrade in Munich, his exciting getaway in Berlin, and the veritable demolition derby across Moscow. However, even while ramping up the energy and emotion of the original, new director Paul Greengrass wisely retains the continental finesse of his predecessor, Doug Liman. His Bourne is more bitter and more desperate, yet he never loses his cool, his skill, his trove of passports and other spyware, or his mitigating humanity.
This latter quality is meant to be the heart of the picture, although I recollect that the original imparted it with greater conviction. Here, the franchise (if I may use the term for two films) really benefits from its leading man. Almost any movie star could look macho and menacing with a gun in his hand and nifty camera work to serve him up right, but not every actor could express inner turmoil as well as Damon — especially while he's running around exotic locales, punching people out, and driving cars at 120 kilometers per hour. In the end, I didn't walk away from "The Bourne Supremacy" pondering the state of its hero's soul, but I took with me a lingering sensation of justice served, history laid to rest, and the thrills of a life where tragic invincibility reign supreme.
Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
