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Jumpy, jumbled 'Bourne' sequel anything but supreme
Matt Damon and Julia Stiles
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures
Director: Paul Greengrass
Stars: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Brian Cox
Clearly more for box office than for credibility, he was cast as the amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne in "The Bourne Identity" (2002), a picture whose inadequacies did not prevent it from becoming a big hit in North America, a moderate one abroad and a DVD/video winner.
Damon is back as Jason in another adaptation of Robert Ludlum's best-selling Cold War series, "The Bourne Supremacy."
Although sporting a different director in Paul Greengrass, some of the original's production team returns, including screenwriter Tony Gilroy.
Unfortunately, watching "The Bourne Supremacy" feels like being lashed for two hours in front of a music video gone berserk.
The jittery, jumpy, pointlessly whirling cinematography of Oliver Wood, who was so efficient when he shot "Rudy" and "Mr. Holland's Opus," and the editing of Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson are sheer eye torment.
Jason remains a rogue agent whose confusion and peril keep him awake nights. When the latest of many attempts on his life -- this one in India -- is even more injurious to companion Marie (Franka Potente), his attempts to sort out his past resume in high gear.
"Supremacy" skips to new locations every few minutes -- Berlin, Naples, Virginia, Munich, Moscow, London and Amsterdam, but the scenery gets chewed as chaotically as everything else.
While everyone short of the Pope is trying to nail the befuddled but reflex-keen Jason, a prickly power struggle swells between senior CIA operatives Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) and probable successor Pamela Landy (Joan Allen).
There's juice in the Cox-Allen conflagrations but none in scenes involving Damon and several interchangeable adversaries. Not one hit man has the distinctive menace of a Robert Shaw, a Lee Marvin or a Jack Palance, any of whom could squash Damon in a lettuce leaf.
Almost nothing in the screenplay or what's left of it is coherent. It's impossible to follow how anything is accomplished in terms of information assimilation and pursuit.
"The Bourne Supremacy" is all smoke and hustle, signifying nothing. It's the most visually garbled American release since "The Truth About Charlie."
Remember when Cold War movies had a point and characters so real you could carry them home and amplify your perceptions of them -- films such as "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," "The Ipcress File," "Three Days of the Condor" and "The Deadly Affair"?
The genre worked better when it dove into the heart of the matter. It's hard to do that with central miscasting, jumbled images and an unclear sense of what "The Bourne Supremacy" wants to say about anyone.
