The Bourne Supremacy

Cast, Etc.
Dir. Paul Greengrass, Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban, Joan Allen, score by John Powell, rated PG-13, 2004

Synopsis
Ex-CIA operative Jason Bourne gets drawn out of hiding.

Review

More of the same. if you've seen The Bourne Identity, you've seen this film. The only difference is that Jason Bourne (Damon) knows more about himself than last time. Bourne and Marie (Potente) are living in obscurity in India . . . or so they think. An assassin (Urban) shows up, gunning for Bourne, but getting Marie instead (this isn't a spoiler as it happens pretty early on in the film . . .). This prompts Bourne to get back into the world and take revenge on those who killed Marie; he thinks it is the same people who were after him in the first film, those in charge of project Treadstone. This leads him to Berlin where CIA operative Pamela Landy (Allen) believes he is the one who murdered some operatives during a sensitive operation and is out to find out why. What follows is another intense spy movie that really doesn't do much more than re-tread what they did in the first film. The fight scenes are still pretty good, but not as fresh as they were in Identity. Damon is good again as Bourne, but most of the mystery about his identity and who he is is gone. It's disappointing that Marie was killed so early on; it's as if the filmmakers had to get rid of her somehow to allow Bourne to run around the world again. Brian Cox and Joan Allen are fine as two CIA operatives at each other's throats about Bourne. The action scenes, including another car chase through narrow streets, are good, but once again, we've seen them before. There is an additional plotline about what Bourne had possibly done that gets interwoven with the hunt for Bourne, but it's not all that interesting in relation to all the rest of the cool stuff that's happened.

Highlights
the car chase's end; Cox and Allen; getting on the tram in Berlin

Rating
I give this rating a soda pop rating; it's fun, but not as interesting as the first. As a spy thriller, it's average. The first villain we see, Krill the assassin, is pretty good, but the rest are only passable. The score by Powell is more average techno-thriller music and forgettable.