In the first of many sequels to The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne gets back into the killing swing of things and leaves trails of bad-guy carnage across several European countries. And possibly some non-European countries. Its hard to tell.
Slivers of explanation and tons of extreme close-ups make this film almost incomprehensible, especially if you are unfortunate enough to be sitting in the front row of a packed theater. Bourne is running from place to place, beating up various people, but we’re never quite sure why. Once everything is resolved, the film goes on for another 30 minutes or so, culminating in a massive and useless car chase followed by some time set aside for repentance.
Some have suggested that Jason Bourne might be the new 007. Yeah, I’d buy that. While I thought Identity was intriguing, mysterious, and fun, Supremacy was just boring and gaudy, and the camera work made me seasick.
I liked it, but the camera work was terrible. Bryna, with whom I saw it, said that it gave her the biggest headache. It left me wanting to see the next one.
I’m not a fan of the shaky camera work and extreme close ups. But I didn’t find the movie at all incomprehensible and give it a lot of credit for not talking down to the audience. There’s no scene where the villain says “And of course, my evil plot was to steal the money from the CIA, use it to seed a Russian oil company, get rich, secretly use my super assassin to dead end the robbery. But it went wrong when Jason Bourne lost his memory…”
And unlike most movies in the action genre (Catwoman being the most obvious example, but also the most extreme) it assumes you pick up on important dialogue without actually giving you an audio flashback later. Yes, it’s *important* when Marie says “There’s another way,” as her last words; and it’s clearly Bourne’s motivation through the whole movie, but at no point does the movie interrupt itself by stating blatantly what anyone with a brain can pick up on. I appreciate it when movies don’t talk down to me, and most do.
Oh, right, I guess I didn’t really think about those plot points too much once they were established, but yeah, I guess you have a good point. More I didn’t understand why he was going where he was going and talking to whom he was talking to, it seemed very random and haphazard. And once the plot was revealed, it just seemed so…I dunno…not earth shattering. And, again, a lot of my bad experience had to do with being in the first row, and with the fucking loud speakers. ❗
Have any of you read the books? I remember (many years ago), reading five of Ludlum’s books in a row. Then, they started to feel the same …