Reviews of The Bourne Identity (2002) and related work
- Sequel: The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
The Bourne Identity (2002
)
A high-tech secret government organization thinks it has lost an agent in the field. Suddenly, that agent surfaces in Zürich performing seemingly irrational and potentially treacherous actions. The movie opens with the same man floating face up in the ocean, two bullets in his back.
An action thriller made to reinvigourate the superagent motif (James Bond et al.). It has many excellent, realistically directed action sequences. The love interest is strained; her turn-ons include vomiting in shock. The villain (Wombosi) is poorly characterized.
References here: The pulping of Delta Green.
‣ The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Bourne is retired, trying to stay undetected with his trophy girl in Goa, and Treadstone is dead. However, a sniper is all it takes to pull Bourne back into his old life.
Much the same, but closer to conventional action, heavy on chasing stuff around. Lacks the good directing/editing of the original, in favour of conventional, incoherent, choppy, shaky bullshit. Bourne’s moral ambiguity is perhaps slightly more effective here, but he’s also closer to being physically impervious.