The Bourne Supremacy

March 11, 2005 - A 2004 sequel to The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon, Joan Allen and some other people.

Damon is back for another turn as amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. The movie opens with Bourne and the girlfriend he met in the first movie living in a seaside town in India. Bourne still can't remember his past, but he's haunted by it and has been busy writing down notes of each little snippet he remembers. The girlfriend is worried.

And well she should be since someone has just arrived in town to kill them. This someone has just killed a couple CIA people and has managed to frame Bourne for the crime. Now he's in India to kill Bourne and tidy up the loose end. Bourne spots him, rushes to pick up the girlfriend, and the chase is on. By the time it's over, the girlfriend is dead, but Bourne's not (the assassin thinks he is) and he is pissed.

The rest of the movie is Bourne trying to track down whoever framed him while trying to avoid capture by Joan Allen and her team of CIA operatives, and also trying to avoid the assassin who's really mad that he missed the first time.

Julia Stiles reprises her role from the first film, and she cooperates with the CIA in an effort to get Bourne to surrender. I think she has a few more lines this time, but it's still not many. I don't get why she does these movies unless it's an easy payday or there's the promise of a bigger role in a Bourne movie down the road. The movie ends in a way that leads you to believe that Bourne will be back.

Overall review: *** I really liked the first one, so I really wanted to like this one. And I did, kinda. Matt Damon doesn't have many lines. He's too busy trying to avoid getting his ass killed - which he does very well. I found the plot a little convoluted, but the plot isn't really important as long as there's a chase or a fight going on (and there usually is).

My main issue with this movie is the editing. Frenetic is the best word I can think of to describe it. The edits in the fight and chase scenes are so quick that I found it difficult to follow who was doing what to whom and how it was being done. I didn't remember the first movie being this way and, if there's a sequel to the sequel, I hope it's a throwback to the original.