The Joys of Being Bourne Again

Every summer begins with the anticipation of two months of blockbuster movie releases.  Like most recent summers, a good portion of those releases are sequels but in an odd turn of events, these rehashing of favorite plots and characters are the superior offerings during this season.  The latest movie to break the old theory of the sequel slump is “The Bourne Supremacy”, which continues the story of Jason Bourne, ex-CIA killer and amnesiac extraordinaire whose tale began in “The Bourne Identity”.  Both movies are based on the books by Robert Ludlum, an old hand at weaving a spy yarn.

Bourne, as played by Matt Damon, is a quiet sort who just wants to live out his life with his girlfriend (Franka Potente of “Run Lola Run” fame).  Together they survived the intrigues of the first movie to move to India and live in a nice little hut on the beach. However, the world Bourne thought he had left behind was not done with him.

An unnamed hit man (Karl Urban from the Lord of the Rings movies) shows up and doggedly chases Bourne till tragedy strikes and Bourne seems dead.  While Bourne is one the run in India, he is framed for the death of 2 CIA operatives and once again, he is on their most wanted list.  (The reasons for this frame-up are revealed mid-way but are fairly irrelevant.)  Heading up the CIA’s search is Pamela Landy, played to icy perfection by Joan Allen.  Her ability to be a woman in control without losing her humanity makes Landy’s single-mindedness sympathetic rather than just an exercise of pure villainy.  The role of mustache twirling villain is left to Brian Cox as Wade Abbott.  Cox is a master at chewing up the scenery without stealing the scene.  Abbott is an old-school CIA executive who has his own agenda for pursuing Bourne.  And so begins the cat and mouse chase between Bourne and the CIA.  However, the roles of cat and mouse constantly switch and pursuer becomes the pursued.

 “The Bourne Supremacy” is a movie that harkens back to the days of the old fashioned spy movie that spans the globe, from Moscow to India to Langley to London.  The entire world seems to be fair game for Bourne and those after him and all of it is shrouded in the fog and dusk.   Relying on his training, Bourne manages to stay one step ahead of his hunters, even as they seem to close in around him.  He acts on pure instinct drawing from his training, knowing only bare details of the crime that initiated the pursuit.  Picking up information as he goes along, Bourne attempts to clear his name.  But the present isn’t the only thing that he finds confusing.  Haunted by dreams of his pre-amnesiac life, Bourne tries to figure out his past and who he was, growing ever more frightened of that person.  At the end of the movie, he tries to make amends for his past, knowing it’s probably too late.  It is this character development that really makes “The Bourne Supremacy” stand-out among the Bond films and any other pretender to the Bond throne. Rather than showing a man who can kill casually and toss off one-liners and smug jokes, we see a man who is killing only out of survival and whose sense of humor is relegated to calling his enemies just to let them know how close they are to death by his hand – a very black sort of humor at that. With this role, Damon seems to have escaped the curse that has doomed his friend and Oscar buddy, Ben Affleck.  Shedding the goofy grin, the cocky attitude, and the sense of entitlement that has made Affleck so unwatchable these days, Damon embraces the darkness within Bourne and never plays unemotional for devoid of emotion.  He deftly spars with seasoned actors Allen and Cox, letting the audience sense the danger of the entire situation without resulting to melodrama.

But all this takes a back seat to the real thrill of the movie, the chase itself.  Though the movie contains at least 4 different car chase scenes they are all exhilarating and surprisingly unrepetitive.  The many ways Bourne manages to outwit fellow spies, CIA agents, and other assorted killers, are always inventive and just watching him fight is an adventure itself.  Director Paul Greenglass (“Bloody Sunday”) never relies on tricky camera work to push the movie along and never lets the tension lag just because someone on screen isn’t currently running, punching, or shooting.  These things alone would make the movie watchable, but combined with its swiftly moving plot and distinct characterization, “The Bourne Supremacy” becomes something more triumphant:  a summer movie worth watching.