Bored Supremacy more like it! (The Bourne Supremacy (DVD))

Name: Ailran

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	The Bourne Supremacy (DVD)
Date:	26/08/05 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Julia Stile, Karl Urban and some good action scenes

Disadvantages: Awful story and no depth

Bourne Supremacy is a prime example of all that is wrong with most of the movies coming from mainstream Hollywood these days.
It is film making by the numbers. No originality in look, style or content is even attempted. It is a case of taking Robert Ludlum’s story, removing anything that might be considered too complex (I am assuming that the book had more depth to it, the film does suggest this is the case) and keeping the bland basics of the plot.

One of the biggest problems is that Matt Damon doesn’t have the screen presence for this kind of role. He fails at any time to come across as the hard, cold-blooded killer that Bourne is. You could say that his lack of charisma and emotion is down to the character but compare him to the Russian assassin in Supremacy or to Clive Owen in Identity and you can see that it can be done. Both of them are far more interesting than Bourne and show that an emotionless assassin can be instilled with a lot character in a limited amount of scenes.

Bourne Identity was enjoyable even though it shouldn’t have been. There was nothing to it other than one long chase but somehow it worked. It possessed a certain something that made you ignore the lack of plot and just sit back and enjoy. Franka Potente’s participation in most of the film made her a terrific foil to Damon’s Bourne and that is something that is missing in this film. Her speedy removal from Supremacy leaves Damon to do all the charging around by himself, without someone to play off.

Supremacy doesn’t even have a clever plot to drag you through the multitude of chases, fights and rushing around.
The whole basis of the story is that the CIA find a fingerprint at the location where a mission fell apart and an agent was killed. It is beyond belief that such a flimsy piece of evidence is enough to implement a massive operation to hunt Bourne down. If the bad guys know how to plant a false fingerprint then surely the CIA do to? That everything that follows should be based on that is just unbelievable, even more so later on when a young agent spots something at the same scene that none of the tech and forensic agents did. It would have been interesting if this whole thing had been set up to get Bourne to do something for the agency with him realising, an idea I flirted with for a while before realising it really was that basic a plot.

If you take Bourne Supremacy as a indication of the level of intelligence of the CIA then I reckon even the Scooby Doo Gang could do better than them. The CIA makes so many mistakes, is so incompetent and miss so much that it is inconceivable that they could ever get anything done

It seems that the main point of this sequel was not to tell an interesting or intriguing story about a super agent out on his own, trying to live a normal life while being hunted down by good guys and bad guys. Instead they have gone for a plot that they can tack on chase scenes, fights and gunfights. Even the final arrest makes little sense, the main villain is caught but without any forewarning or logic to it. It just happens! I have no idea how the plot leaped to that stage, though maybe I had lost hope with the film by then I don’t think so, it felt to me as if they realised they were hitting a long running time (over 100 minutes!) and better start tying things up quickly! The writer Tony Gilroy has also written Proof of Life (Russell Crowe) and Extreme Measures (Hugh Grant) neither of which are great examples of action films so maybe I shouldn’t have expected much.

This film is so bad that I cannot even think of anything worthwhile about it. Maybe the performance of the Russian hit man (Karl Urban) would be one. Possibly if you like Matt Damon or Julia Stiles it is worth seeing for them but I don’t reckon even that simple pleasure is worth it.

What the film has done though is make me want to go and read the book because I am sure that the book will be full of a lot more detail than this one is, it has to be otherwise it would only be a couple of hundred pages long. I have this feeling at the back of my mind that the book will be full of a lot more detail and a much more complex plot, but then isn’t that normally the case with books?

Bourne Supremacy is an action film of the lowest order, action for actions sake and little plot. Even the most ardent action fan will find little in this to excite them. If you think you have to see this then rent out Bourne Identity and see that again!

Summary: Watch Bourne Identity again rather than this one!