Short Take: The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Supremacy, the first of director Paul Greengrass's sequels to Doug Liman's 2002 The Bourne Identity, is richer and more powerful than its predecessor. It takes place approximately two years later. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), the fugitive CIA assassin introduced in the first film, is in hiding in India. He is still struggling with the amnesia about his life before the first film's events. In Berlin, an informant and a CIA investigator are shot to death just as the first is about to reveal information about a traitor inside the agency. Shortly thereafter, Bourne sees a loved one killed by a man (Karl Urban) he mistakenly believes is a CIA operative. Bent on revenge, he returns to Europe to find the agency personnel he thinks are still dogging him. It lands him right in the crosshairs of the deputy director (Joan Allen) investigating the Berlin murders, and while eluding her, he discovers his connection to the treason the pair in Berlin died trying to expose. The traitor is found, and the murderer from India confronted, but not before Bourne realizes his violent methods and quest for revenge are a betrayal of what led him to abandon the assassin's life. The script by Tony Gilroy, the principal screenwriter on the first picture, takes that film's theme of moral awakening to a more profound level. It's not enough to recognize one's reprehensible actions and put them behind one. A moral compass also means recognizing one's propensity for that conduct and keeping it in check. One must also repent to those victimized and try to atone. Paul Greengrass builds on the first picture's existential tone with darker, grubbier visuals and a jumpcut-editing approach that gives the film a stunning immediacy. The action sequences, particularly a harrowing car chase through the streets of Moscow (the setting of the film's third act), easily top the excitement of those in the first picture. It's a terrific adventure movie, and one of the best films of the new millennium. Franka Potente, Brian Cox, and Julia Stiles reprise their roles from the first picture. Oliver Wood also returns as cinematographer, although one would never know it from the look of the two films. The dazzling editing is credited to Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson. The film is nominally adapted from the novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum, but they have next to nothing in common.