MSWallack Blog

First the caveats: (a) I really enjoyed The Bourne Identity and (b) I really enjoyed the novels upon which these movies are (very loosely) based. That said, I also loved The Bourne Supremacy. Matt Damon may not play the same character that Robert Ludlum penned, but his Jason Bourne is just as interesting. The action is frenetic and the use of moving cameras gives the viewer a sense of being in the midst of the action. I love that, as in the first film, the car chase utilizes a beat-up "clunker" rather than a high-powered sports car. Similarly, many of Bourne's actions feel as if they were scripted by someone that has at least some clue as to espionage tradecraft (although a few errors, such as having a taxi take him directly to a particular address, were glaring). Without offering any spoilers, it is worth noting that one of the two surprises in the film was actually quite surprising. And I like being surprised in an espionage genre movie, because it is, frankly, quite rare. All, in all, this one is definitely worth watching, and definitely on the big screen. (In fact, I fear that the feeling of some of the action sequences -- in particular the foot pursuit in Berlin -- will not translate very well to television screens.) Finally, please note that this movie and the book upon which it is "based" share nothing more than a title and the names of a few characters; there is far less similarity between the book and movie than there was for the book and movie of The Bourne Identity. The novel The Bourne Supremacy is a very good book and, while I recommend it, I do so on the basis of that book and not this movie. In fact, I wish that the producers of the film had found another title to eliminate the confusion that this will inevitably cause.